Commons:Requests for comment/offsite discussions

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The following discussion is closed, and will be archived soon.


There are some websites, well-known to many long-term contributors, on which discussion about Commons and Commons users takes place. These discussions are not subject to Commons' rules of discussion, and may include personal attacks and personal information (including outing) which would not be acceptable on Commons.

In response to these concerns, on 16 April several of these sites were added to Commons' spam blacklist, preventing anyone from saving a page containing a link to these sites. This was discussed at Commons:AN#MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. This RFC is about how to handle these issues. Rd232 (talk) 09:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Problems

Offsite discussions not subject to Commons policies

Offsite discussions are not subject to Commons' rules of discussion, and may include personal attacks and personal information (including outing) which would not be acceptable on Commons.

Advertising effect

Mentioning current issues offsite can have an advertising effect, bringing in users who would not otherwise have seen the issue. If done deliberately, this would be considered canvassing (en:WP:Canvassing), but even as an unintentional factor, it can be a problem.

Proposals

Spam blacklist

Use Commons' spam blacklist to prevent links
consensus is oppose
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Over whelming consensus opposed with reason being that its not the purpose for which the Spam-blacklist was created. Gnangarra 02:31, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose The spam blacklist tool achieves only what it sets out to: it prevents the addition of clickable links. It defeats spammers who wish to send people and search engines to their website; it does not defeat people satisfied with providing non-clickable links. Are we willing to use the abuse filter to prevent this? Or simply amend the blocking policy to block anyone who creates any form of link or reference?

But the problems associated with the non-spam sites added have nothing to do with adding links here; the problems come from having offsite discussions not subject to Commons rules, and from a sort of canvassing/advertising effect (people turning up from reading those discussions). Preventing links does nothing about that, so at best spam-blacklisting is useless. But it's also slightly harmful by preventing legitimate uses, like pointing out things said offwiki for purposes of dispute resolution in relation to people who use the site. Basically, whatever problems arise from the users of those sites, this is not the solution.

Last but not least, this is explicitly an instrument of censorship. This is bad in itself; and fundamentally against what most people understand the philosophy of Wikimedia projects to be (and we don't need COM:NOTCENSORED to tell us that). But in addition, applying it to sites which include legitimate criticism of Commons and Wikimedia is a PR disaster waiting to happen. Rd232 (talk) 09:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose for same reasons as Rd232: this only harms by preventing legitimate uses as well as encouraging more "bad" pages to form as a result: as some go to the spam blacklist more appear to compensate for the vacuum--Interest=phine(talk) 15:44, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support Wherever useful points are made on these websites, the same points could very well be made on-wiki. Providing links would only expose Commons users to libel, insults, and similar activity, but will not create any net benefit.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:23, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On that basis, shouldn't we blacklist en:User talk:Jimbo Wales? Rd232 (talk) 10:32, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I personally would not mind. I do not see how we can benefit from links over there. This Commons talk page is of course a different story.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:36, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Burn all books! Any useful points they made, we could have made ourselves. If we didn't, then it's probably just insults and similar useless activity, to nobody's benefit. Dtobias (talk) 18:36, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose – Websites shouldn't be blocked just because one dislikes the content or discussions that it hosts. The spam blacklist should only be used for spam. Some things can't be discussed on-wiki as Ymblanter claims. Discussions are sometimes censored, and users are threatened with blocks. On Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy, users aren't threatened with blocks every time they say, "I disagree with the discussion's early closure. I would like some more comments." On Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy, one can speak out against an sysop's action without fear. On-wiki discussions are limited. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 11:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose for the same reasons as michael. Plus i don't think i will really improve common's contents. Additionally, this measure (blacklisting urls) don't event reaches it's goal: people can find other ways to refer to of-site discussions.--Je ne détiens pas la vérité universelle (talk) 13:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Je ne détiens pas la vérité universelle, welcome to Wikimedia Commons! --Fæ (talk) 13:31, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

weak oppose I do understand the rationale behind using the spamlist, but I think it's just wrong because it will not change the root of the problem, just try to mask it. --PierreSelim (talk) 12:13, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose I worry of the slippery slope, that if the "spam" blacklist is used to stifle free and open access to a couple of useful websites that are not spamming Wikimedia projects, what will be next? Will the filter be applied to pro-SOPA websites that aren't spamming? Will the filter be applied to "family values" websites that aren't spamming? Additionally, I will say this, though it is not to be miscontrued as a "legal threat" -- applying a nomenclature of "spam blacklist" to an organizational brand like a web domain that isn't spamming is practically inviting a legal challenge to that practice, as it easily constitutes defamation. I really doubt Geoff Brigham's time and the Foundation's money would be spent wisely defending this peculiar form of defamatory censorship on a non-profit project that purports to be neutral and open. -- Thekohser (talk) 13:46, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose I agree with Rd232's point that the problem comes, not from a link coming from Commons, but from the off-site discussions themselves. I'm not as familiar with this issue as others here probably are, but I do wonder if the existence of such off-site discussions points to deeper WMF issues that should be addressed. cmadler (talk) 14:38, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Neutral as I can't understand how this would affect our daily work and for the points, I listed here. But it might be a gradual process, where I see the danger. Much too much fuss for about 3 small sites. -- RE rillke questions? 17:22, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support of course this will not solve the whole bunch of problems with off-wiki attack sites (nobody claims it), but it will solve at least some parts of the problem -- rogue sites will be moved away from on-wiki discussions as far as it is possible, rogue sites will be less advertised on Commons (personally, I got to know WR and WD only from Commons), without links in discussion rogue sites they will much less destructive for Commons. We can't and we don't need to solve the problem completely, but to remove the nasty things from the main square to a dark backstreet would be a very good step forward already. I suppose that this disproportionally big fuss about this quite trivial thing (addition of two unwanted sites to the spam-list) was created by the WR/WD team exactly because they see this as a real danger for them. --Trycatch (talk) 06:38, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support Wikimedia Commons is not a platform for advertising other websites. Our scope is well defined, and to claim this is an attempt as censorship is an obscene misinterpretation of the reason why not being censored is important to us. Nobody is censoring discussion that is of benefit to this project or its development. The only reason that the WR / WF fan club and travelling circus has come out in force manipulate consensus (yet again) and to troll this topic is for the LULZ and to bring personal attacks, hounding and dramah from these forums onto Wikimedia Commons. I completely understand and support a whistleblowing process, but there are only good reasons to block sites that are not only coordinating attacks on Wikimedia but are a regular home to those actively working against our joint mission and values. These websites represent a risk for our readers who might follow the links, in particular these sites track the user's incoming IP address and in similar recent circumstances Greg Kohs Gregory Kohs has published these (including domain name analysis) along with his personal commentary. If anyone is keen to safely link to a discussion then they would be well advised to make it available by using the neutral archive website webcitation.org which removes many of these security risks. Nobody has yet found a reason why meaningful discussion about Commons issues should not always be right here on Wikimedia Commons rather than in off-wiki hostile attack forums. The fact that I am not allowed to express my legitimate opinion on-wiki without being subject to allegations about my personal life, off-wiki smears against my good character, harassment from cowards on Commons using single purpose attack accounts and Greg Kohs thekohser himself jokingly(?) calling me a "Fae got", indicates how dramah, not censorship, is the core concern of the travelling circus. --Fæ (talk) 07:56, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I'd like you guys just to try to be internally consistent for a while. Using a spam-blacklist to emulate the failed BADSITES policy is dishonest and counterproductive. If commons wants BADSITES, propose it directly. Don't be hypocritical by trying to use the spam-blacklist, which is not intended for anything other than blocking commercial spam. It seems pretty simple. Ocracy dude (talk) 16:52, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fæ dramatically expresses his concern about the risk of a site that tracks the user's incoming IP address and then publishes that information with commentary about it. I have seen worse right here on Wikimedia Foundation projects. Currently, there is a brand-new IP block on English Wikipedia that publicly suggests that the IP was blocked because my (blocked) user account was using that IP to vandalize Wikipedia. As far as I know, I haven't edited Wikipedia (much less "vandalized" it) from that IP address in at least 6 months, maybe 12 months. However, about 3,000 people do access the Internet from that address, so -- no problem solely blaming Thekohser for all of their potential misdeeds, right Fae? Once again, I grow frustrated by the continual lack of reciprocity when the accusations start flying from Fae. He's free to criticize and cast aspersions about others, but don't dare point your critique at him -- you'll be labeled a dangerous attacker, or some such. -- Thekohser (talk) 19:46, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, you think "whistleblowing" is fine, as long as it's done in "socially correct" ways as judged by the people in power here. The Chinese and Iranian governments feel the same way. Dtobias (talk) 18:39, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose As someone who sometimes has to close these kinds of discussions, it helps to have direct links to wherever else the issue is being discussed. Whether that is at Jimbo's talk page, other language Wikipedias, or offsite forums. The unfortunate fact is that no matter how distasteful the discussion methods, it's easier to understand what's going on if you can read it all. This often harms the forum participants (e.g. exposing canvassing) more than it helps them, so don't take my vote as either an endoresement or a disendorsement of these forums, just a pragmatic consideration. --99of9 (talk) 07:14, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose Commons is not censored. That's the winning argument for everything here. Integrating sites with which one intellectually disagrees into a spam list to deter traffic is censorship, plain and simple. Carrite (talk) 19:15, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The seventh contribution of this user in 2012 and the first since February 14.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
An irrelevant and mean-spirited comment that adds nothing to the discussion. A pretty terrible way to treat a fellow contributor (who, by the way, has added dozens of images to Commons. -- Thekohser (talk) 20:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - This really sets a dangerous precedent. I'm a Commons admin. I'm also one of a number of independent founders of Wikipediocracy.com (it's not actually Kohser's site, BTW, regardless of some of the talk around here) and am their forum moderator's group leader. The link is clearly displayed on my user page on enwiki for all to see (I'm an admin there, too), and it's there for reasons of transparency. However, due to its being added to the Commons blacklist, I'm utterly unable to add this link to my own userpage. Having this link added to the Commons' Spam Blacklist sends a clear message that Commons actually is censored. Not only is it clearly censored, but it's censored to hide reasonable debate and third-party criticism of itself. Is this the message that Commons wishes to send to the public? I strongly believe that WMF sites (English Wikipedia, Commons, etc) need a site or sites dedicated to independent discussion and criticism. There are things that people cannot say on-wiki, and besides, things can get far too insular and introspective on the projects themselves. The English Wikipedia fought the BADSITES wars years back, and these proposals were rightly defeated then. Adding the sites here serves no purpose other than suppression of links to valid and useful discussion, IMO - Alison ❤ 10:50, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - If you can't stand the criticism then resign or sort out what is being criticised. That's the correct way to deal with it, and not by sticking one's fingers in one's ears and going lah-lah-lah-lah. Now grow the fuck up, take it on the chin and move on. Criticism != Spam. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 11:33, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - I'm not a fan of Wikipedia Review), but I don't support using a spam blacklist for censorship. Wnt (talk) 19:41, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - there is no spamming problem here; it's just censorship (note that I'm a mod on Wikipediocracy). --JN466 13:40, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - The links provided by Michael Suarez are very telling. Once all of Commons' admins start acting like adults, then maybe the off-site criticism will subside. Cla68 (talk) 04:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - Not only is this futile, as trolls can and will easily circumvent such measures, but they disrupt legitimate discussion about these sites and posts on these sites, especially by not so tech-savvy users who may be the victims of attacks there. For example, during the Beta M affair, how would we have linked to the discussions that first motivated an admin to block Beta M, if the site were blacklisted? This measure would only help the trolls. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:02, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - linking is much more convenient than trying to find discussions that are alluded to. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:54, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - Much too much fuss HaB >talk< 21:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Week oppose - As its name tells, spam blacklist should only use for preventing spamming on a wiki. There is another problem that who should have the power to add links on the blacklist? Should we set up a committee to discuss whether a link should be added on the list just for preventing people from adding links to offline discussion? No, it is way to complicated. -Mys 721tx (talk) 21:37, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Oppose - Using the spam blacklist in this capacity is silly at best. It doesn't prevent the threads from being alluded to onwiki nor prevent these types of sites from continuing whatever they do there. Killiondude (talk) 21:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose You need a spam blacklist on wikipedia because people are trying to sell stuff through that site. But few people bother with wikicommons because fewer people edit here--so there is less incentive to do this. And if people try to spam stuff here, they can be blocked. Also, it may be potentially abused to prevent the spread of ideas that may be unorthodox today...but perhaps orthodox tomorrow. If this was 400 years ago, people may have use it to prevent the distribution of links to any discussion of the study of heliocentrism (Copernicus' theory) whereas today the view that the planets orbit our sun is pretty much accepted. Regards, --Leoboudv (talk) 21:43, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Commons should not be censored, we should be grown up enough to accept criticism. SpeakFree 22:16, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

  •  Comment - I'm rather undecided on this matter, I do feel that the particular sites we are discussing are bad for Commons, and I would like to see anyone who uses them banned as trolls, but I accept the greater point that the spam blacklist is possibly not the best way to do it. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose The spam blacklist is for blacklisting spam, not shutting out opposing viewpoints. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 23:52, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  OpposeI live in continental China, where the Internet national administration blacklists objectionable websites (including Internet Archive but not, today, Wikimedia sites). I see as funny to have the same mechanism inside a site dedied to free information for all. If somebody feels wounded by external commentaires about his cherished ego, he can sue the website or the author; free world has judges. --Wuyouyuan (talk) 00:04, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose This is not the purpose of the spam black list. If someone is purposely linking to offsite in order to belittle someone then the blocking process is the appropriate tool. There are potentially valid reasons to link to the discuss and having a blanket blacklist is not appropriate. Royalbroil 01:45, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment I think  Oppose Japanese ALL People is  Oppose.But testing server is Agreetments right for people by the people to Do it  Support Viewer Agreetments rights.

Article XXI. Freedom of association, movement and choice of abode are guaranteed to every person to the extent they do not conflict with the general welfare.
All persons shall be free to emigrate and to change their nationality.

w:ja:日本国憲法第21条 --MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 05:40, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Oppose This opens us up to ridicule, sticking our fingers in our ears will not make criticism go away, if criticism is legitimate we should listen to it however painful, if it is not warranted, there is no harm in hearing it.--05:54, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
  •  Oppose That would look like the Ostrich effect. Lymantria (talk) 06:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose per Rd232. Deryck Chan (talk) 08:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose per Rd232. Achird (talk) 08:46, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Those with long memories might remember the mob from en-wp that came after me during my request for CU tools... a group that used secret email lists to discuss "secret" things I was supposedly guilty of, and my interest in contributing here waned rather quickly after that experience. Open discussion on a forum is much better, and being able to link to those discussions from commons will in some cases be helpful in providing background to critical opinions. Using the spamlist is not only inappropriate (it's not spam) and against the spirit of openness, but it's also a way for the community to shoot itself in the foot. Yes, people can get a little rough on those sites, but at least you know what's being said, and can show other people what's being said if you link to it. --SB_Johnny talk 11:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support No clickable links are needed. If people are really interested in these forums they can just copy/paste the URL into the address bar. --Leyo 13:47, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Per Alison, et al. The precedent set would be too dangerous. -- Avi (talk) 15:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose This isn't a spam problem, so anti-spam tools aren't appropriate to use. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose strongly. I have yet to see any censorship system being effective at silencing or weakening those it opposes. Ariadacapo (talk) 17:49, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose Offsite is offsite, you can't control what goes on outside the Commons, nor should we have to. Oaktree b (talk) 03:03, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose What you should really be doing about this is making clear that anyone involved in off-site outings or attacks is not welcome to edit here. That's the thing that can be controlled on this site. SpinningSpark 10:17, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree. That would be the best solution. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 10:41, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Wikipedia tried this with WP:BADSITES years ago and their failure is instructive to this effort on Commons. MBisanz talk 15:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Gross violation of the purpose of the spam blacklist. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose --Nevit Dilmen (talk) 17:44, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment No matter how you cut it, free speech has its limitations. You cannot, and no one ever could, say exactly what you please. You must respect the civil rights of others. My main objection to discussion on WP is often the "discussers" do not. Badgering, harrassing, bullying via the media, these are against the law. In addition is conspiracy to badger, etc, by a two or more persons. WP, including Commons, is bad enough even with the rules. It is all too easy to get carried away (I know). The worst offenders are the administrators! As persons of power, many for the first time, they do not understand that power MUST be self-limiting. The law has many loopholes. Right now Wikimedia is operating almost entirely in loopholes. It must police itself. If badgering and harassment is not allowed on Commons it must not be allowed to move to another site and be linked in. That is a trick to circumvent the laws. If Wikimedia cannot police itself in the direction of law and order I am quite sure that at some point when all the loopholes are plugged and the laws are applied to the Internet it can look forward to a public accounting. Freedom MUST be the companion of reponsibility. Only then can democracy not degenerate into mob rule. And, frankly, WM often seems to be mob rule to me. You need to disconnect from undemocratic institutions.Botteville (talk) 18:05, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose If it isn't spam, it shouldn't be blocked as spam. --Albert Noniem (talk) 20:35, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose spam blacklist has a specific purpose, which this isn't covered by. Casliber (talk) 20:47, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Strong oppose A blanket block of all links to these sites assumes bad faith. MorganKevinJ(talk) 02:35, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose There are a ton of sites like this and many of some them contain both useful information and spam info, if we block all of them. More problems may be found. As a result, I don't agree with this.--Jack No1 (中文/English) (talk) 03:30, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose (1) The spam blacklist has a specific purpose as mentioned above; (2) While I have not seen the sites for myself, I can not think of them as quite as harmful as they seem portrayed; (3) External criticism (though not personal attacks and outings) may not be a bad thing; (4) Hiding them away from the eyes of the users will not stop them, but could be negative in other ways e.g. nourishing conspiracy theories, bad PR etc. Johan G (talk) 07:35, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Spam-blacklisting is useless. When the dogs bark it because someones pasing by... besides every discussion ends here.--DDigger (talk) 09:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support Commons participants deserve to be protected from personal attacks, libel and stuff. If sites blatantly fail to enforce their users to abide to law and netiquette concerning Commons users, then it’s perfectly OK by me to lock them out as an ultimate resort. Concerning accusements of censorship, I counter:
  1. Everyone who wants to criticize Commons is free to post criticism, as long as not defaming anyone personally, on Commons itself, which is the most effective way of improving Commons
  2. Establish a regulated process of subjecting sites to blacklisting, e.g. establish a committee and guidelines.
--dealerofsalvation 13:22, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Per Alison, Rd232 et alt. --T137(talk) 13:26, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose This will not work, as sites and perceived abusers change it will have to be continuously updated and this debate reopened over and over again. The small handful of users involved in this fiasco who do something abusive HERE should be handled through existing well-worn policies of talk/warn/block, rather than trying to fix the symptom by blocking an external site as spam when it is merely not to someone's liking, no matter how unpleasant. Anything that happens OVER THERE is simply irrelevant here. If an individual feels attacked they can take up legal action, it is not this site's job to police that for them -- Ultracobalt (talk) 14:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose This would appear to be yet another resurgence of the discredited "BADSITES" concept, which I criticized here. (And, very ironically, WR is presently enforcing a BADSITES/spam-filtering ban on any mention of rival site Wikipediocracy; this sort of blockage is censorious and stupid no matter where it's done.) Dtobias (talk) 16:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Who cares what happens on other sites. Putting them in our link blacklist gives them legitimacy because we've declared that they're worth noticing, that we actually read their pages to determine whether or not the link blacklist is appropriate, with periodic reviews of their content to see whether the link blacklist is still appropriate. They're not spamming Wikipedia, as far as I know, and if they are then they should be banned as spammers, not because of whatever their content may or may not be. Banaticus (talk) 23:34, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Strong oppose Our most used licences require linking to an URL the rights' owner (author) specifies. If this address happens to be blacklisted at least less seasoned users have a problem. This means that we have to restrict blacklisting to an absolute minimum, regardless of other considerations.
The proposal is unacceptably vague. If one thinks here is a problem one needs to handle, one should specify it very carefully, such that a possible guideline would address that concern without unnecessary side effects. We should have no reason disapproving discussing Commons on other websites or demanding such discussion to follow Commons' policies. We might find some discussions problematic, but who is to decide what discussions are acceptable?
--LPfi (talk) 08:05, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 CommentTo be published also, to show the history of attack. Efforts in Japan as there is something like this.Block list of 2ch,忍法帖巻物.That a Public Honey Pod.--MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 20:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support using spam blacklist to prevent links to sites that engage in outing of editors or personal attacks toward editors. We can't prevent the harassment and offsite plotting, but there's no reason we need to have links to it. Gobonobo (talk) 03:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And where exactly would that stop? Here I cite some examples of the overreach of such policies when they were tried earlier in en.wp. Dtobias (talk) 16:00, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support It won't solve more than a fraction of the problem at hand, but I believe we are compelled to act as far as our capabilities allow us. Not acting at all would be admitting we're helpless. On the other hand blocking these sites would at least symbolically declare where we stand, our solidarity with the attacked and that we are willing to defend our position. --Dimi z (talk) 12:47, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Willing to circle the wagons and muzzle all criticism, you mean? Actually defending against criticism using our own free speech entails letting people see the opposition's arguments in their own words so they can make up their own minds, rather than just putting our fingers in our ears and shouting "La La La I Can't Hear You!", or presenting only over-simplified straw-man versions of the opposition while keeping anybody from seeing the actual arguments. Dtobias (talk) 15:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose RD232 and others make strong arguments. Criticism can be unpleasant -- particularly when we don't think critics are playing fair. Nevertheless, it is important to listen to them. Particularly since we are potentially fallible, have in fact proven fallible. Geo Swan (talk) 22:08, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Treat comments made offwiki as if they were made onwiki

Treat comments made offwiki as if they were made onwiki, so that sanctions for personal attacks etc can be applied for users active on Commons.
consensus is oppose, with exception....
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Consensus is to oppose sanctions as identification of individuals is easily open to abuse thruough false identities and that we have nothing beyond a superficial means to authenticate the identity. Though while consensus is clear about not applying sanctions the majority of people also recognise that exceptional circumstances (see w:Wikipedia:BEANS) may arise these should be considered on individual merit. Gnangarra 02:59, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


 Oppose Whilst superficially attractive, this would just make users of those sites dissociate themselves from their Commons/Wikimedia accounts. This dissociation would make things worse - there would no longer be any accountability for offsite comments at all, since we wouldn't even know who said what. In addition, such a policy/practice would make Commons users vulnerable to sanction for acts committed by offsite impersonators. Rd232 (talk) 09:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree: Identification would be too hard, and then there would be problems with people impersonating other users, etc. --Christofian (talk) 22:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose This would probably mean going too far. There are problems with indetification, problems of different policies on different websites and many other problems which make this proposal impractical. Having said this, I believe that these arguments can in principle be raised at instances as desysop or infinite or long-term block to demonstrate that the individual shows bad faith, but must be treated very carefully and with much caution, and only as a secondary argument in addition to documented on-wiki activity.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:26, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Offsite comments can certainly be taken into account sometimes, especially when identification is reasonably secure. Rd232 (talk) 10:31, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose – The Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy provide a forum where users can speak their minds without fear. Discussions on Commons are deleted and sometimes RevDel'led. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 11:38, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose idem Rd232 abd Ymblanter: e.g. Making an accusation offwiki and then coming here to post just a link is equivalent to making it onwiki to me. --PierreSelim (talk) 12:09, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose Wikimedia's tradition of open review of ALL legitimate sources of information, whether they're useful for inclusion in our projects or not, would be trampled by this proposal. -- Thekohser (talk) 13:49, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose except in limited cases. For example, as PierreSelim and Rd232 point out, when a user posts something off-site that would not have been acceptable on-site and then posts a link relatively soon after, particularly where it is clearly the same user, it seems likely that the only, or at least a major reason for the post being made off-site was to circumvent some policy here. cmadler (talk) 14:38, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly  Oppose What happens off-wiki stays off-wiki. For example, we should not block users for e.g. violating copyrights outside Commons. Exceptions could be made in special cases, for example if a user uses an off-wiki forum to recruit people to upload copyvios or if users post harassment on external websites and then link to those websites from Commons. --Stefan4 (talk) 14:56, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose per others.--Mbz1 (talk) 18:25, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support for the identification of death threats and other apparent criminal threats of any type against on-wiki contributors, to recognize self-declared or convicted paedophiles and to recognize abusive malicious outing, for example posting details or speculative details of on-wiki contributors' children, home contact details, medical history or medical status, contact details of employers or friends, sufficient details that might enable fraud or identity theft or similar with the obvious intention to distress or encourage real life personal attacks. --Fæ (talk) 21:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please explain what did you mean under "to recognize self-declared or convicted paedophiles"? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 22:21, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If user:example posts somewhere off-wiki that they are a paedophile, paedophile advocate or provides statements that they were subject to criminal prosecution for paedophile activity, then I see no reason why the Commons community should be required to pretend that those off-wiki statements do not exist. As to what the Commons community then expects to happen in terms of any sanctions for such user would be a matter of interpreting policy and consensus. --Fæ (talk) 23:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Different countries make different kinds of activities illegal. Here in Canada not only is it legal for those who want a sovereign Quebec to advocate for this, but the Sovereigntists served as the loyal opposition in Parliament. In China every Uyghur who advocates for an independent East Turkestan is treated as a terrorist and risks becoming an involuntary organ donor.

    I agree with Derrick Coetzee's points, and further suggest we should not have any decision arising from this discussion hinge on the legality of off-wiki actions. Geo Swan (talk) 19:45, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment I would like to reserve the right to sanction users for offsite Commons-related harrassment/outing/illegality. The proposal is too all-encompassing as it stands, but don't take rejection of this proposal as endorsement of the opposite extreme. --99of9 (talk) 07:06, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fully with 99of9's opinion. --Túrelio (talk) 07:10, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed - not supporting a general offwiki=onwiki policy doesn't mean offwiki can never be taken into account. I was thinking of drafting an alternative that would clarify this, but I found it hard; maybe somebody else would like to have a go. Rd232 (talk) 09:40, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Much peril lies here. Impersonate others to get them in trouble, they could. Leads to the dark side, it does. Ocracy dude (talk) 21:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - this serves no useful purpose other than driving people underground and rather there being more transparency, there would be less. I hear a lot of scaremongering about personal medical information, etc, etc but see no evidence to support that any of this has actually occurred on these sites, least of all Wikipediocracy, which is less than two month's old - Alison ❤ 10:57, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - How about what I talk about down the pub, at the supermarket, on a forum other than the main two mentioned? Commons admins do not have the right to decide that what I say elsewhere has any effect here. Actually it's rather ridiculous to even entertain this notion, talk about Big Brother! --Fred the Oyster (talk) 11:28, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - Per Alison. Cla68 (talk) 04:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose - I believe enwp Arbcom takes the right approach here. Off-wiki evidence may be used to speak to a pattern of behaviour, but not as the sole basis of sanctions. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Oppose in general - what is said offwiki should be kept offwiki, and I am in general opposed to behaviour offwiki (that is not on Commons) being used as a specific reason to sanction someone, though I accept it can speak to character. My main issue is that some of our best contributors have in the past been banned from other wikis, but work out fine here. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:33, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose They simply aren't made onwiki, and we cannot discuss as if they were. Lymantria (talk) 06:44, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose as a matter of jurisdictional principle: we have no jurisdiction over what happens outside Wikimedia. However, Commons editors should be reminded that anything they say publicly outside Wikimedia may be used as evidence when their behaviour in Commons is under discussion. Deryck Chan (talk) 08:32, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment Not sure whether this is a support or oppose, but taking "off-wiki" comments into account certainly seems reasonable, as long as this doesn't mean imposing the various policies of the wiki community to other communities that choose to follow different rules. --SB_Johnny talk 11:09, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support as long as it is directly related to Commons. If a user downloads illegal mp3s in his/her free time is not related to Commons, but if some users sneak away to form a cabal on Commons it is relevant. // Liftarn (talk) 11:40, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support in the case that the user on wiki links to allegations or attacks against another local user, which would be an indirect way to express a personal attack. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 12:57, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose per Dcoetzee. We should not ignore what happens off-wiki, but it is not appropriate to treat off-wiki posting as on-wiki posting. If someone's on-wiki behavior violates guidelines and principles to the point that moderation or sanctions are being pursued against him or her, then the off-wiki postings should be acceptable to demonstrate an overall pattern or clarify on-wiki intent, but it is neither appropriate, nor reasonable, to insist that people treat every website in cyberspace as Wikimedia. -- Avi (talk) 15:26, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose per the impersonation issue, with the caveat that we don't have to ignore off-site comments if they go towards showing a pattern of behavior. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:54, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose What I say outside of Wikipedia/Commons is my own business, shouldn't affect what goes on here. Oaktree b (talk) 03:05, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment, @Oaktree b, taking "off-wiki" comments into consideration would be fair anough, you can't change your hat every minute, do you? Lotje ʘ‿ʘ (talk) 06:28, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • leaning  Support - if people are going to comment negatively somewhere online, it is to all intents and purposes public. Hence rendering these comments immune to review only enables personal attacks and battleground conduct. Casliber (talk) 20:47, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose to a degree. We had a horrible experience with "BADSITES" on Wikipedia, and I'd encourage everyone to look that up before commenting here. That being said, though, there is a significant amount of concern trolling going on, facilitated and encouraged by offwiki discussion (yes, JN, and only maybe slightly less Alison, I'm looking at you), and that should be dealt with. I just don't think this is the best way. Seraphimblade (talk) 23:41, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose If in doubt, how to prove the offending foreign-site user is identical to some Commons user? --dealerofsalvation 13:24, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Per Alison, Rd232 et al. --T137(talk) 13:28, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose This is a well intentioned proposal that will only become a doorway to keep the fighting between sites and users alive. On EN:WP the granting of admin status can be impacted by what one does offsite (IRC has been used as an example), but only in a process where the accused explains themselves before the action is taken. If the accused here denies connection to the "offending" statement(s), then where will one be? Investigations and more lengthy debates, satisfying only those who want to keep stirring the pot. Worse yet, while not solving the problem, it introduces an additional risk. As RD232 stated, it provides a policy through which impersonators on remote sites can harm people here. -- Ultracobalt (talk) 13:53, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose It makes no sense to try to force the rules of one site into "long-arm" status where they get applied everywhere else... I don't like it when the U.S. government (or any other national government) acts like it can control the whole world, and the same is true of Wikipedia/Wikimedia trying to impose its rules and standards on everybody else, including outside criticism sites. One of the points of being independent is being able to operate under different standards, not subject to whatever censorship might be imposed by fiat in the other place. On the other hand, when evaluating the overall character of a person, their outside activity is relevant, so it might be cited in discussions about the person's onsite behavior and requests for status changes; it just shouldn't be directly considered a rules violation here. Dtobias (talk) 16:12, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose What happens out of Commons should stay out of Commons. One should be free to criticise (staying within the limits of politeness, of course, but this is not a thing that Commons - as well as any else WMF project - can ask outside of commons) and not to be called by any given community to respond for something done outside of the same community. -- SERGIO (aka the Blackcat) 20:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose What happens out of Commons should stay out of Commons Tetrisforaliens (talk) 20:46, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Strong oppose We have our guidelines and other sites have theirs. Why in earth should I have to follow Commons' guidelines in unrelated discussions elsewhere? And even when discussing Commons: it is difficult enough to design guidelines that work here, without taking into consideration whether they are acceptable as general rules. Anybody should be allowed to contribute here, without having to make a commitment to some shared values or agree not to criticize Commons or Commons users. --LPfi (talk) 08:14, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose We have a hard enough time cleaning up our own mess half of the time, how can we try to impose our rules on others. It can only work if people are anyway willing to cooperate and in this case the best solution would be to "lead by example". --Dimi z (talk) 12:42, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose - we should reserve the right to vent our anger against users off-wiki. Commons has better things to do than police forums. --Claritas (talk) 19:50, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose - there are enough bad wiki policies here, no need to infect the rest of the world. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:54, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Emphasise NOTAVOTE

Emphasise Commons:Polling is not a substitute for discussion as appropriate
consensus is support
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
consensus is to support greater emphasis on this essay, many acknowledging that it is or should be standard practice for all. The strengths of this discussion indicates that the community considers that this essay is more than just an essay. With that community may want to open the door for further discussion on its future. Gnangarra 05:17, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support Polling is just a playground for a handfull of people. --Heinz-Josef Lücking (talk) 19:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support Commons:Polling is not a substitute for discussion summarises practice: discussions should generally be decided by arguments, not by weight of numbers. This should be emphasised more often when users who are not regular Commons contributors participate in a discussion. For deletion discussions, {{Wikipedia DR}} can be used to highlight this. Templates that warn of offsite highlighting in other contexts may be helpful. Rd232 (talk) 09:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support This is the only way to prevent canvassing, or, to be precise, to make it useless. Obviously the person (usually an admin) who closes the discussion should not be in a COI position.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:20, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support – !votes shouldn't be judge by their popularity, by who the !voter is, or by how the !voter discovered the discussion; !votes should be be judged by what the comments contribute to the overall discussion. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 11:43, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support Per the reasons cited above. -- Thekohser (talk) 13:50, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support (mostly) -- infrequently polling is necessary, and in those cases it is appropriate to discount (to some degree) votes from new users, single-pupose accounts, and the like. But in most cases it is the strength of an argument, not the number of voices shouting it, that should carry the day. No matter who or how many people say otherwise, 2 + 2 is still 4 and calling a tail a leg will not make it one. cmadler (talk) 14:38, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support while it is often difficult to finally judge about a topic. Especially on controversial points. -- RE rillke questions? 17:22, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support Goes without saying. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:04, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Oppose Literally speaking, you are asking whether it should be emphasized as appropriate. Even if I think it's appropriate under few circumstances, I still logically must believe that it should be emphasized as appropriate. I might even think it's never appropriate, and still have to agree that it should be emphasized as appropriate--it's like the argument that it's okay for the Boy Scouts to require that an atheist follow his duty to God since the atheist thinks that his duty to God is a null set.
So if I assume the question means what it says, then it means nothing, but I am logically compelled to support it. Of course, questions do mean something; problem is, I can't figure out what. So I'll have to oppose until I can. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose Selbstverständlich -- Avi (talk) 15:28, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Creating an Abuse-Filter warning people not to rely on the information found there

consensus is Oppose
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
this discussion focused on the option as being a fall back position dependent on a prior discussion result but there was no weight behind why its an acceptable alternative. Those opposing discussed whether it actually achieves its intention, the burden placed on resources and necessity for the creation of policy. Consensus is for opposing this proposal Gnangarra 05:57, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

... if a link to "such a site" is added and emphasize that on-wiki discussion is the most transparent and preferred way.

  •  Support (as a warning, not actually preventing edits) -- RE rillke questions? 17:22, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support Good thinking :) --Herby talk thyme 17:25, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support As a back-up option if the spam-listing has not been supported.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment – Can someone please draft the message? I wouldn't vote for a message without having an idea about what it would look like. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 18:03, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose I believe that everybody should be allowed to make their own decision what rely and what not rely on without any filters. Any info at any site could be reliable (supported by evidences) or unreliable (not supported by evidences). --Mbz1 (talk) 18:23, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Question How are these sites different from any external site in that regard? if we are assuming that links are being added here because they are relevant to the project itsef, then a link to, for example, Slashdot is no different than a link to Wikipedia Review. Any site with multiple contributors (or comments) will have a range of opinions. There appears to be an implicit assumption that certain sites should be treated differently than other sites because they are in some undefined way "bad". Unless this filter also applies to the WMF blog, this has nothing to do with ensuring fairness or neutrality, but is simply an attempt to reinforce the idea that some sites are unpopular with a small, but vocal number of Commons editors. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:54, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "How are these sites different from any external site in that regard?" — They have a very limited scope. And this scope focuses WMF projects, especially Commons. Their scope is made by their name. -- RE rillke questions? 19:38, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • So does the WMF blog. I presume that people are linking to sites here because they are relevant to Commons, so it is unlikely that the linked articles or discussions are outside of the limited scope of Commons itself or issues very relevant to Commons (eg copyright issues) even if the site is not generally about that. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:07, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose - thanks for coming up with a new idea - but... this is completely illogical. The person adding the link to an onwiki discussion doesn't need telling that onwiki discussion is preferred - they're already contributing onwiki and wouldn't be adding the link if they didn't appreciate this. Nor does the person adding it need some sort of disclaimer about the "reliability" of what is linked to - if they come up with a link, they already know about those sites. In any case nobody believes that anything on those sites has any more reliability in the sense of en:WP:Reliable Sources than any comments on the internet; what matters is evidence given, arguments made, etc; the only exception is that in some contexts, the comments themselves are evidence ("X said Y - here's the link"). All of which said, I've taken this idea in what I think is a more plausible direction, below (#offsite discussion link template). Rd232 (talk) 21:39, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose per Rd232. --Avenue (talk) 22:00, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support per Ymblanter, but I prefer spam-list. --Trycatch (talk) 06:43, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose what amounts to establishing Commons Thought Police. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 11:48, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose per Malcolm. Ocracy dude (talk) 17:05, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose per Rd232. This makes no sense - Alison ❤ 11:08, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose – If they're trying to link to a Wikipedia Review or a Wikipediocracy thread, that means that the offsite discussion already exists. This won't prevent the offsite discussion from existing, and it won't prevent that discussion from continuing. Also keep in mind that the person attempting to link to the offsite discussion isn't necessarily the initiator of that discussion or even a participant of that discussion. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:49, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral I don't believe Michaeldsuarez's argument, as it's clear that this is supposed to encourage the user to use onwiki discussion in the future, not for the present discussion being linked. On the other hand, I maintain that most such incidents of linking are probably going to be by people who did not originate the thread offsite, but simply wish to refer to it (not necessarily to support an argument, but perhaps merely because it's explaining an influxx of socks, etc.). As such I think this could potentially be useful in some cases but usually not. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:08, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support, as a minimum fall-back option since the spam-blocking is unlikely to receive consent. This makes full sense as even a superficial view of WR/Wcy threads clearly shows that — in effect — there's not much moderation. --Túrelio (talk) 21:21, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose What happens off project is off project, I'm confident of editors ability to think for themselves.--KTo288 (talk) 07:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)06:54, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support What happens off project is off project as long it does not interfere with the project itself. Discrimination, false facts, wrong assumptions, ... meant to be attacks against our users, by linking "external sources", to "link in/include" external content, should not be tolerated. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 12:48, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose While an interesting outside-the-box idea, I don't think the gains outweigh the costs. Every abuse filter puts a strain on the servers. The benefit of the filter needs to outweigh that cost. When it comes to pattern vandalism, for example, the strain on the server is outweighed by the enormous time savings to the volunteers not having to track and revert the untold number of infantile vandal edits that are now stopped by the filter. In this case, however, chances are that the person posting the link knows the provenance of said link, and would post it regardless of any "pop-up" warning if he or she felt it germane to the discussion. So we have no gain and some cost, which is why I oppose this for now. -- Avi (talk) 15:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose per rd232. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:56, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose. You're misunderstanding what abuse-filters do. Deryck Chan (talk)
  •  Support Made for you.
  •  Oppose Illegal for me.--MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 09:12, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose An inferior and misguided use of a limited resource. MBisanz talk 15:32, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose per Rd232. I really don't like this idea; it just doesn't seem like a particularly good solution. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:12, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral (shrugs) strikes me as unnecessary micromanagement - the spam-blacklist won't pass anyway so moot. Casliber (talk) 20:52, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Assumes bad faith. MorganKevinJ(talk) 02:46, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support It's really necessary because some websites provide fake info instead of some true info and mislead people. These website shouldn't be used in Wiki Project.--Jack No1 (中文/English) (talk) 03:35, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral I do not think it is the right thing to do. Mostly as per Rd232, though rillke has a good point. Johan G (talk) 08:04, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support as per Niabot. Alexpl (talk) 10:59, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Per Rd232, Avi et al. --T137(talk) 13:35, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose creates another layer of management. How will the message read, who will keep updating it as sites and perceived abusers change, etc? Iffy sites may also have both legit and nonlegit stuff, policing of which will require continual putting noses where they don't belong. Assume people are adults when they click on external links, instead of trying to babysit this one. -- Ultracobalt (talk) 14:00, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Per Rd232 and Ultracobalt. --LPfi (talk) 08:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


{{Bugzilla}} is used to link to bugzilla bugs. A somewhat similar template can be used to wrap offsite discussion links, so that every such link also goes to a help page of some sort about offsite discussion (Commons:Offsite discussion, would be an obvious title I suppose). So {{Offsite discussion link}} would produce an inline link something like offsite discussion: link. Rd232 (talk) 21:39, 19 April 2012 (UTC) [reply]

consensus was be bold -- support
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This developed consensus for a be bold approach which has already been taken, there is question as to it being effective in addressing the underlying problems. Gnangarra 06:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral - I'm not convinced this is really necessary, but it could be helpful. I think this approach is certainly a better version of the Abuse filter notification idea, since it doesn't just address someone trying to add a link (who probably doesn't need to be told anyway), but everyone who reads the discussion with the link in it. Rd232 (talk) 21:39, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral - It's standard practice on some websites to include such a page whenever an external link is clicked, so there is some precedent. This may indeed help some novices who are confused about the situation and think these sites have some official affiliation, or are otherwise reputable. On the other hand, I think most users with some Internet experience know that random forums cannot always be trusted. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:12, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just be bold. Deryck Chan (talk) 08:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support Unlike the abuse filter, this puts negligible strain on the server, does not require Wikimedia to decide which sites are affected (it is the posting editors choice), and forces neither use of the template not reading the linked disclaimer. This should not be dependent on an RfC. Just make the template, post somewhere about it, start using it, and encourage others to do the same. -- Avi (talk) 15:37, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support I think so more better than commons life.--MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 09:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, here's the template {{Offsite discussion link}}, and a page for it to point to: Commons:Offsite discussion. Rd232 (talk) 00:13, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Weak support Probably a good idea, but could potentially make discussions about Commons slowly move offsite in some respects. Having people aware that those sites are not Commons and in general should be disregarded, as per Commons:Offsite discussion (draft?), is probably a very good idea though. Johan G (talk) 08:22, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose This does not resolve the problem when off-site discussion threads being linked to not only discuss the behaviour of Commons contributors but also make claims about their sex lives, call them niggers, faggots, nazis, frauds, paedophile supporters and out them including contact details for employers, home addresses, phone numbers, medical history and so forth. When such off-site claims are accompanied by anonymous on-wiki threats, sometimes criminal in nature, it is even more surprising that victims are not supported by Commons policy to avoid linking to abusive material. Some readers may feel this is an exaggeration, but if you examine the history of contributions of some of the sites mentioned here, there are examples for all of these situations. --Fæ (talk) 08:54, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral As Dcoetzee e Rd232. But this isn't real solution. --T137(talk) 13:38, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral I see no problem with such a template, as long as using it is not mandatory. If the linked help page is good, it might be useful in some circumstances, but I do not see it being a real solution to anything (and requiring the template would open a can of worms). --LPfi (talk) 08:27, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support - good to have the option. Re: Fæ, obviously we wouldn't wrap discussions which were libellous. --Claritas (talk) 19:44, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral This is a somewhat silly solution in that nearly every external link is improved with annotation (page name, date, etc), but we don't require such annotations. Also, if it's optional, which is what I would support, it will not be used by those who do not see a problem with off-site discussion, who are probably the people most likely to link to such discussions and not see a problem doing so. MBisanz talk 19:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Offsite personal attacks linked inside discussion

I propose that everyone on Commons that links to external pages, which contain attacks or unproven allegations against users on Commons, but do not add substantial value to the discussions on Commons, should be warned and the link removed. If the link is inserted again, despite the warning, it should be counted as a violation of the rules on Commons and might result in a block, like with any other personal attack. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 20:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC) [reply]

consensus - oppose
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
consensus is that any such issue raised can be dealt with by implementing current policies it therefore unnecessary to create further policy. Gnangarra 17:49, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


  •  Support Of course i support this idea. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 20:54, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose I see what you're getting at, but the wording is hopelessly vague ("substantial value"? to the discussion on the external page, or to the Commons discussion?). And really, if it's obvious enough that the link is provided maliciously, then we don't need anything written down somewhere to act on that. Rd232 (talk) 21:32, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    • To the Commons discussion of course. No, it is not always clear and that is a problem and common practice. In recent discussions the links where inserted @random or off-topic, but contained further down allegations against users involved inside the Commons discussion. Such links should be removed and there should be a warning that this page shouldn't be linked again. Of course this doesn't count for external comments issued after the link was made (common sense in practice), but still a removal of the link would be appropriate in this case. (Either a source is good enough to divide between useful content and trash, or it isn't worth a cent anyway)

      PS: Since it are usually groups of users with same goals on external pages, this makes actually sense. It is easy to let one write down allegations and attacks and let the other link them. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 22:00, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

      • "It's not always clear" - well exactly, and trying to make written policy for unclear situations is a recipe for disaster. If it's clear, we can act anyway. If it's not clear, we need to use judgement about context and user history, and no written policy will help us do that - but it may well hinder us in some way by trying to prescribe something inappropriate. I really, really hate it on en.wp when people cite en:WP:CREEP in discussions - but I think it may actually apply here. Rd232 (talk) 22:24, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • To keep it simple: I meant with "It's not always clear" the practice to link to one section of a page with the hidden implication, that is clear, to also show an additional part of the page that contains the actual attack. A good example would be the link to the sock allegation against Saibo, that was totally out of place (off topic) and contained personal attacks just some lines above. Such links should be removed, except you like drama. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 22:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • It's not really an example if you don't provide a diff. From what I can retrieve from memory and a search, there was a link as part of a direct request to you to comment on the Saibo/Niabot alternate account issue (here). That's supposed to be a "good example" of malicious linking? Or are you talking about something else? Rd232 (talk) 22:54, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • Yes it is. The content of the link, presented in the [1], starts with a personal attack against me and other users. Then the next comment is a pure allegation with no evidence whatsoever, mentioned in an unrelated discussion [2] and then put onto my talk page [3] as an reaction. Always nice to read that you are "kiddy fiddler", "enabler" or something, when the link is posted by a well known participant (Michaeldsuarez) on such off wiki pages. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 07:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • Well, it's certainly an excellent example of a loss of perspective. A made a claim of sockpuppetry offwiki, the claim was alluded to onwiki by B, and C asked you to comment in the onwiki discussion, and provided a link to A's claim by way of context. Regardless of the personal attacks A included with the claim, this is not an example of a malicious provision of a link to an offsite discussion. Rd232 (talk) 12:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • I'm not surprised to hear that from your mouth since it is well known that you support such activities. But it is surely just coincidence that A, B and C are actively involved inside this kind of off-wiki discussions, knowing very well what was written. You really should stop to play to be blind on both eyes. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 13:54, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support and if the wording is vague, I suggest Rd232 propose something more substantial considering his experience as a Wikipediocracy contributor. --Fæ (talk) 22:03, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm sure you spend more time reading it than I do - so why don't you try. Rd232 (talk) 22:24, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sure, thank you for your confidence in supporting my opinion, I guess this overrides your previous opinion above. I'll go for it as it is. If an admin that were not someone who is also writing on the same site were the one making a decision to remove such a link or sanction the person involved, I think we can all fully trust their judgement. Cheers --Fæ (talk) 22:33, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Edit conflict) Neutral I agree that people shouldn't insert links for the purpose of spreading information about a personal attack; that in itself would often count as a personal attack. However, I think that ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼'s proposal is a bit vague. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:34, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose – Despite substantial evidence, people here denied the obvious and screamed, "No evidence! No evidence!" during the Beta_M incident. Even when allegations are sound, people here will claim otherwise and attempt to censor the link. I don't believe that most people truly have the ability to judge how "substantial" a link is, and almost anyone would abuse an opportunity to censor. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 23:29, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose. Michaeldsuarez' point is well-taken. --JN466 02:18, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral OK this proposal gets more to the spirit of what I think is wrong, i.e. enforcing individual culpability on abusive posts. In this regard an external link should be treated no differently than text itself, and only counts if it is posted HERE. Stuff discussed OVER THERE, if not linked, is irrelevant. If behavior HERE is adjudged abusive then the standard talk/warn/block/ban trajectory can be followed. It isn't perfect but compared to the other proposals for external site bans (unworkable) or external site patrolling (out of scope) or external site collaborating (laughable), this one has promise if it can be made un-vague. If no one likes this then I dunno what to do. -- Ultracobalt (talk) 15:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral I wouldn't link them though. -- SERGIO (aka the Blackcat)
  •  Oppose you can't censor everywhere Tetrisforaliens (talk) 20:44, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose This can be handled with common sense. Of course adding links to attacks made elsewhere can be seen as making those attacks on-site, if the link serves no other purpose - but whether it does is up to common sense, so a rule adds nothing but lawyering. --LPfi (talk) 08:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose I don't think that an additional rule or policy is necessary since I believe that currently the regulations allow to handle this matter. With other words it would just add bureaucracy without improving the situation. --Dimi z (talk) 12:53, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Censorship. I'd make the exception if the offensive comments where made by the same editor who inserted the link, however. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:55, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Good idea in theory, but in practice common sense should already cover this; if it doesn't, adding a vague rule-thing that would still require common sense to apply effectively won't help matters anyway. -— Isarra ༆ 19:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose per Piotrus. SkyBon (talk) 21:50, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose - no way to define "substantial value" and given the level of bullying and admin-power abuse here on Commons, it would just serve as a way to censor legitimate criticisms and an excuse for even more bullying. I suggest people focus on fixing the problem at the source - Commons culture, atmosphere and wacky power structure, rather than try to silence criticism of these dysfunctions.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:06, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Problem is, as you should be well aware of, being from Earth and all, that some users cynically label any kind of legitimate criticism of their actions as "personal attack" or "insult". That's why your proposal is plainly ridiculous, and ill motivated.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:49, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You should be well aware, even if you are not from earth, that there is quite a difference between criticism, even personal criticism and simpleminded malevolent attacks against others. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 15:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but it's stupid to let the person being criticized have the authority to determine what is legitimate criticism and what is "attack". They're not exactly going to be impartial and the temptation to abuse one's power quite substantial. Hey, even without this proposal we see it happening all the time. The bullying would be even worse if it's legitimized by something like this.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:21, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes this should not happen and the person that feels attacked should point out the problem at the legitimate discussion pages to have another uninvolved admin to review the case independently. With "independently" i mean that ideally such a case should not allow any canvasing. Only the involved users speak for themself in offense or defense. Canvasing and lawyering should be removed immediately. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 17:29, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose I was there in the action, To pursue allegations of corruption and user account management Personal attack is made Be blocked. There are examples of the record.This.Than problem-solving as a result Ascertain the facts alleged Give the impression. In addition, the Led to abuse of administrative authority.--MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 06:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 CommentAn adversary of the Wikimedia cases increase ... Exsample) Blocked user's out site comments -google translated , It's Originals. And Develop into a court case (Bluff) . <- View at your own risks. --MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 07:25, 20 May 2012 (UTC) add a Develop into a court case (Bluff) -google translated/ that user block case ,so difficult and burned , more large problems.--MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 07:30, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To manipulate emotionally consensus by slander, anonymous examples of external sites, personal opinion. Have evaluated the expulsion of the game like a block.Ex) 2ch Anonymous site(ja)-- I think Rigging of the main site. ,2ch Anonymous site(ja). -- I think Rigging of the sub site. and other.->Resault Google:Motoi Kenkichi Wikipedia block(ja),Google:Motoi Kenkichi Wikipedia block(en).--MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 08:38, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Petitions

Request/collaborate in constructing a stricter moderation policy for the offsite forums themselves

  •  Comment Maybe this is incredibly naiive, but I like to assume good faith, so let's see...
consensus collaborating with other sites to address isues is a good thing
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The consensus is attempts to work with other sites to address concerns raised on those sites about contributors here is a good thing. Even if its not something that the community here can address with policies or practices, individuals under taking such efforts do have community support. Gnangarra


Is Thekohser or anyone else who runs/moderates offsite forums about Wikimedia interested in collaboratively developing/improving some minimal public groundrules for discussion on their site to ensure that the most egregious violations can be prevented? (P.S. Remember publishers, you have some legal liability for the content hosted on your site.) --99of9 (talk) 07:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support if they are willing. --99of9 (talk) 07:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support - and noting that the exodus of much of Wikipedia Review to a new site (Wikipediocracy) makes this less implausible than one might think. At least some of the people involved seem to want to tone things down on the new site and moderate it more strictly. Some clarification of what that means wouldn't hurt. A clear appeal mechanism for Wikimedia users to request moderation without needing to sign up for an account would also help - and be a rather good sign of good faith. (Such a mechanism could also avoid people getting into the situation I find myself, where having signed up for an account in order to request moderation and defend myself I'm now attacked regularly as being part of the problem.) Rd232 (talk) 08:13, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Rd232, you seem perfectly comfortable with contributing to these websites right now, and using your admin tools in matters directly related to the same travelling circus and the issues they create. As a matter of record, how would you expect such websites to deal with faggot "fae got" related comments about Wikmedia Commons contributors as we have seen by Greg Kohs thekohser in the last few hours, and what specific practical sanction would you expect Wikimedia Commons to apply if they refuse to deal with these problems? I note that Wikipediocracy in their own policy claims to be intolerant of homophobic comments, however I would be very surprised if Greg Kohs thekohser gets any meaningful sanction on the website he owns for calling me a faggot "fae got". Thanks --Fæ (talk) 08:44, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      By the way, the policy from Wikipediocracy states: You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “Wikipediocracy” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us. The IP address of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. This policy is completely meaningless if not enforced when hate speech such as "faggot" bolding the words "Fae got" is casually used as part of a personal attack. --Fæ (talk) 09:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      Those posts were out of line. I have removed them, and posted an apology. (The word faggot was not used, but a fairly transparent wordplay evoking the word was, and this is unacceptable. There should be no repeats.) Greg likewise has apologised for the taunt. He still has beef with you, and you with him, but perhaps we can work those issues out in a way that does not involve public name calling. Regards, and allow me to apologise to you here as well. This nonsense has to stop, and it will. --JN466 11:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      Apologies from me as well... I didn't pick up on the wordplay (or font-play) until I saw your post above. --SB_Johnny talk 12:13, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      Apologies from me too. I saw the post, but I was not familiar with the word "fagot" and did not understand what the play of words means. --Mbz1 (talk) 15:57, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      And apologies from me, too. I'm a forum mod on Wikipedocracy and would have removed them immediately. I'm just back from vacation today, though :/ - Alison ❤ 11:11, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      Let's make a few things factually clear. Yesterday, I pointedly asked Fæ to cease using my real name to disparage my reputation, and if that had any traction, I intended to ask him to stop name-calling ("traveling circus") the members of the website I helped launch. He deleted that advice as an "advert". It was not an advertisement at all, so he was using word play to taunt me. SB Johnny replaced the comment, encouraging Fae that if he wanted to remove it, use another edit summary. Fae was defiant, and he removed SB Johnny's restoration with the exact same edit summary -- "remove advert". Russavia has now rev-deleted other content from Fae's page and locked it down, so clearly we are not allowed to critique Fae on his Talk page, but he is allowed to make libelous, fabricated critiques wherever he pleases. To wit, above, he stated that I called him "faggot", when in fact, nothing of the sort happened. I said, "It looks like Fae got upset with my post to his Talk page." I put in bold the words "Fae got", as a tongue-in-cheek wordplay poke at Fae, because he called careful and polite critique an "advert", he insists that we are not allowed to use his real name on Commons, yet he continues to drop the name "Greg Kohs" in multiple places on Commons, multiple times. "Greg Kohs" is a film director in New Jersey, so I'm sure he's just loving that his name is now associated with "faggot", thanks to Ashley Van Haeften's bumbling over the phrase "Fae got", and his urgency to call me publicly by a name that I don't really use professionally. (Are we allowed to say those three words, Ashley Van Haeften, here on Commons? If not, go ahead and strike them, as I have struck above Fae's reprehensible lie and misattribution to the wrong person. I, for one, am tired of Fae's preening like a peacock in the warm heat of the drama he generates.) I see right through it. Anybody else? -- Thekohser (talk) 13:32, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      I think everybody, including Fæ, could do his part to reduce the amount of on-wiki drama we are seeing here. Some of it really does not belong on-wiki, but is a matter for you and him to sort out privately, if you can. (And Fæ is of course welcome to join Wikipediocracy if he wants to reply there.) --JN466 14:07, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      I would love to have a polite and informative conversation with Fæ, in whatever venue makes him feel comfortable. I'm available by Skype (video or audio-only), e-mail, telephone, Google Chat, or just about any publicly-viewable website that welcomes open discussion. I promise that I will refrain from even one iota of personal attack. -- Thekohser (talk) 14:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      Are you striking "Greg Kohs" because it's actually "Gregory Kohs", as in your current tagline in the blog post currently on the front page of wikipediocracy? Rd232 (talk) 14:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, it's mostly for that reason. I try to avoid cross-confusion with "Greg Kohs" the film director, so I attempt (though don't always succeed) to publicly use the name "Gregory Kohs" as a distinction. In special cases, though, when online pseudonyms are belligerently aggressive that I am not to call them by their real name, I prefer that they not use my real name, unless it is in a complimentary tone. (I know, that's a biased rule, but if they think they get to make their rules about "outing" people who already "outted" themselves, I get to make my rules about how my real name is and is not used within their pseudonymous playgrounds.) -- Thekohser (talk) 14:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      [4], [5] – Just so everyone can be aware, stating "Greg Kohs" instead of "Gregory Kohs" really does cause confusion for some people. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 17:34, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fæ, quite a few WP administrators were participating in Wikipedia Review at the time when I was there. That included such notables as Lar (who commented in threads frequently) and Newyorkbrad‎ (on occasion). WR users were there for a wide range of reasons, and your generalizations about the off wiki forums are a form of stereotyping. Nevertheless, I did find the general attitude, and the moderation, on WP rather reprehensible. (I am sure they will not be surprised when they read this because I made my criticisms plain at the time.) I suppose Wikipediocracy is similar. But it is not my job, nor is it the job of Commons, to act as thoughtpolice; and the importance of free speech outweighs many objections to the content of the speech (on the basis of the principle "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."). Malcolm Schosha (talk) 11:57, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • One reason Wikipediocracy was set up was a shared understanding, among those moderating Wikipediocracy now, that the moderating policy in Wikipedia Review limited the quality of discourse. So over time, you should notice a difference. Lastly, Wikipediocracy is open to anyone interested in debating Wikimedia projects: present members include Wikimedia admins, checkusers and oversighters, as well as present and former en:WP arbcom members. I hope we will continue to attract members of this caliber. --JN466 13:01, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • With Eric Barbour as a global moderator there I'm sure quality of discourse will improve with lightening speed. Here's a thread that could use a little work, for example --- wikipediocracy(fucking censorious blacklist)/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=261--TungstenCarbide (talk) 03:38, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment – I've alerted both the Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy to this petition. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:11, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd like to know whether a stronger moderation policy on wikipediaocracy, as Jayen has said will occur, will result in a more intelligent moderation policy on commons. As can be seen here [6], Fae has associated his real name, Ashley van Haeften, with his account on the WMUK. It seems a perverse and wrong approach to rev delete any edit that makes this connection on commons. He is the acting general manager for Pete's sake. Ocracy dude (talk) 15:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support - I can't speak for the mod team on Wikipediocracy, but I don't think this should be a problem - Alison ❤ 11:17, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support per Alison. --JN466 22:14, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment – Every page of the Wikipediocracy forum now possess a hyperlink to mailto:support@wikipediocracy.com entitled "Email Support Staff". I hope that this is satisfactory. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support Moderation of malicious activities like outing, intimidation, and unsupported accusations are absolutely essential for any forum, and doing so could really make such a forum into something useful. I really have no idea if they'll listen to us though. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment Any expectation that Wikipediocracy or Wikipedia Review are going to take a firm stand against outing, intimidation, and unsupported accusations is a pipe dream. We don't even take a firm stand against those things on Commons, so how can we expect that from them? In this very thread we have Thekohser trying to intimidate Fae by accusing him of libel (which would get him banned from en.wiki). But of course we don't have a legal threats policy on Commons, and no one really seems to care about such abuses here. Kaldari (talk) 23:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to respond to Kaldari, in that I wasn't "trying to intimidate Fae". I was stating a fact that for Fae to say that I called him a "faggot", when I did not, is in fact a libelous act. Kaldari, how would you feel if I stated here that you called me an "abuser" above, and that you expected a "piped ream" for me? Can we stop the silliness now? -- Thekohser (talk) 13:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose How would we feel and react if a group of users and wikipediocracy came to a group decision to enmasse ask for a change of policy here that better reflect how they think Commons should be run, not very kindly I would think. If any individual becomes a member of another community with the full intention of being a member of that community rather than with an agenda to "help" Commons, than by all means in a personal capacity act and post as you please, however we would not tolerate outside intereference with Commons, nor should Commons sanction such interference at other sites.--07:32, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
  •  Oppose to this as a Commons policy on jurisdictional principles. Deryck Chan (talk) 08:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment WY is still a work in progress, but (thanks in part to this discussion) the "complaints department" has been cobbled together and should be working fine now. OTOH, it's never going to adopt behavioral policies (CIVIL, OUTING, etc.) that are as strict or complicated as the ones here on commons (much less those on en.wp). --SB_Johnny talk 11:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose I'm not willed to read external trash just to inform a unresponsive host/admin to remove the trash. Doesn't improve anything. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 12:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose Again, Commons should not be sticking their nose where it does not belong, this is not an advocacy group. Individual users want to go offer help offsite, fine. Wearing your "Wikimedia Commons" badge offsite trying to influence others should not be tolerated. "The views are my own, not those of the Wikimedia group etc nor do I represent them as their agent..." Leave your badge and gun at the office so to speak. Oaktree b (talk) 03:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Support of course, try that first … --dealerofsalvation 13:27, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Oppose on jurisdiction. I'm not opposed to the "make nicey" concept of collaboration, but it's naive to expect it and in the end an unnecessary errand, as external sites may run their operations as they see fit.-- Ultracobalt (talk) 14:26, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support I support this. Today I found out that yahoo had used my photograph in an article without crediting me, but have used other snaps [14 others], all from the Commons and have credited the original authors. I know my comment sounds dumb, but I'm still saying it. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 04:59, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


The Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy should have disclaimers

out of commons community scope
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
consensus is that this is outside of the communities ability to address. Gnangarra 09:09, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Requests_for_comment/offsite_discussions&diff=70049483&oldid=70049384

This is a petition requesting that the Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy create disclaimers for themselves. The disclaimers should state the the Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy aren't owned by, operated by, licensed by, or in any way officially affiliated with Wikipedia or Wikimedia. There should also be a disclaimer stating that posts and threads can be modified, moved, or deleted. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 16:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think every tree in the US should be labeled with both their common and scientific name. This is a problem that someone must deal to avoid the serious risk of trees being misidentified. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 16:38, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
[7], [8], [9] – I'm simply trying to resolve one of the issues Rillke listed as being a basis for his or her support of the blacklisting. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 16:50, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Blacklisting"? What bitter memories that word has for many in the US who are old enough to remember. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:21, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support Can't hurt to clarify these things. I think it's pretty obvious, but then disclaimers are mostly there for the once-in-a-blue-moon situation of someone not recognising the obvious... Rd232 (talk) 09:50, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support for the same reasons --Christofian (talk) 22:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Disappointing...to me this could be as simple as adding a single sentence on the "Mission statement and welcome to the public" page (http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=15). At the bottom of that page it says "This discussion board is operated by a cooperative with no intention to profit. No one individual will ever control the editorial policy here, and those who support it financially have no more say in policy discussions than those who do not." It might be as simple as, after the word "cooperative", inserting ", unaffiliated with Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation," or something similar. cmadler (talk) 18:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose Unless WMF is going to put a disclaimer we're not associated with WR/WC on its sites. Too silly for words -- these sites are obviously not Wikipedia (url, look and feel). Nobody Ent (talk) 15:53, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Nobody Ent, welcome to Wikimedia Commons! --Fæ (talk) 16:23, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
According to Fæ and Ymblanter, one needs to be an active member of the community volk in order for one's !vote to count. Fæ is politely and subtly telling you that your !vote won't count towards anything. Newbies aren't welcome to speak out openly; no immigrants allowed :( --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 18:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Tut tut (finger wagging) if you must accuse people of being Nazis have the courage to do so openly, anyway an accusation that only card-carrying members who have paid the dues having a vote would be a better metaphor than one based on blood.--KTo288 (talk) 10:00, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Considering Michaeldsuarez's history as a supporter of a website that defames gay people with descriptions such as "faggots" and black people with "niggers", the thought of claiming that somehow I am abusing people's human rights, by welcoming them to Commons, is truly bizarre. --Fæ (talk) 10:06, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
wikipedia:Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Fæ#View_by_certifier_Nobody_Ent – Don't play dumb. Nobody Ent is one of your enemies (for lack of a better word) on enwiki. Although you appear to be welcoming him or her on the surface, there's a deeper subtext to it. In addition, I support Encyclopedia Dramatica because I support free speech, including speech that you or I might dislike. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:55, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So, you support defamation, libel and hate speech under the claim that this counts as "free speech". Nope, that's a weird and false interpretation of what free speech really means for the rest of us. As for that failed RFC, I do not keep track of all the names, I'm not the Nazi U-Boat Captain from Dad's Army parody of hatred you would like me to be. --Fæ (talk) 13:16, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Be reassured this is not a vote-although consensus does mean taking into account the mood of the community at large, I have faith that closing admins will take into acccount reasoned and thought out arguments from where-ever and whoever they come from.--KTo288 (talk) 10:00, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Neutral Their choice, but I don't see how we can force them to do so. Oaktree b (talk) 03:11, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Discussion

I am rather confused by this proposal to be honest. It's scope is unclear.

On the matter of "Offsite"

  • Regardless of the location if you are being a dick... you are being a dick.
  • No one should ever get blocked on commons even for hate speech on an external site (a non WMF related website) as anything on non-WMF websites can be fabricated. Furthermore it would be more than difficult to prove if the person posting the comment and the person editing commons is the same individual.
  • People can be blocked on commons for their conduct on other WMF projects. We have no reason to wait for bad conduct to repeat to the same level of intensity on commons.
    • We have seen cases where users attacked a contributor on wikipedia then followed them here or vice-versa.
    • While preemptive blocks are not be helpful, people can be blocked on the first sign of them causing trouble here.

On the matter of "Canvassing"

  • I do not really see the point of Canvassing policy to be honest.
  • The policy is unenforceable as people can bulk email people to fish them in.
  • It would be more honest if people were not sent to the "underground". It would be more transparent if people were allowed to advertise discussions openly. At the end of the day it is the integrity of comments that count, not the number of mindless "voters".

-- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 10:46, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Regarding your second point, although many things can be fabricated, some things can be definitively associated with a specific user, especially when they have acknowledged their use of the external site. I don't see why we should give a completely free pass for bad behaviour just because it's hard to prove. When it is proven, some bad behaviour is certainly grounds for blocking in my view. --99of9 (talk) 11:38, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It should be handled on a case by case basis. If it is one bloke that is posting angry tweets with a username similar/identical to Commons one, I think that can be safely disregarded. If it is campaigning on an external forum just to troll/disrupt commons, that is something else. I am a fan of Common Sense™ on Commons. When I was an administrator we had a lot less policy and a lot more Common Sense™. My experience on Commons is an absence of Common Sense™ lately. Commons need less policy. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 13:39, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
  • My worry is people getting blocked over simply discussing issues on non-wiki medians such as IRC. People should not be penalized for for example seeking admin assistance for the quick(er) review of a page marked with {{Editprotected}}. Likewise if people decide to rant on their google+ page. We shouldn't attempt to regulate off wiki activity such as these. Coordinated Efforts of Disruption℠ is an entirely different issue that would not be tolerated by anyone with Common Sense™. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 10:15, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
  • In my view many of the behavioral rules on WP and Commons have succeeded only in turning users on those projects into sneaks, whiners, complainers, squealers, informers, and (sometimes) liars; while defending the anonymity of users hiding behind aliases. The proposed rules here will just add one more wiki-rule which will succeed only in making that approach, (snitching in apotheosis) even more effective than it is now. On the other hand the proposed Commons rule concerning pedophilia, which is an actual crime, languishes. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 15:35, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I feel it has "tied" the hands of the community preventing removal of truly disruptive users over bureaucratic definitions. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 10:10, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
    Anything on a Wikimedia site ought to be considered "onsite", including Wikimedia Commons, the Wikipedias, Wikisource, etc. "Offsite" would be on sites out of Wikimedia's control, such as anonymous boards, independent wikis, school sites, and critics of Wikimedia. People have an identity on Wikimedia/Wikipedia. Their identity is not necessarily the same elsewhere, and, furthermore, offsite activities are outside of Wikimedia's jurisdiction. Nonetheless, it might be appropriate for Wikimedia to block links from most of its site to boards and other websites known for trolling. Rickyrab (talk) 08:41, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment - For the record, I still support the indef banning of anyone who contributes more than a few posts to WR/WD/User talk:Jimbo Wales, those places exist for no reason other than to cause harm to Commons and Wikimedia in general. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:38, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm here since the very start of Commons, have been a contributor since then and am an admin here. I'm also a forum moderator on Wikipediocracy. From your statement here, I should be "banned as a troll". How exactly does this support the project? In fact, what it amounts to is the ultimate in censorship by banning someone solely based on who they associate with off-wiki, regardless of what they actually say off-wiki. This is draconian in the extreme and will just lead to people not being open about who they are and who they associate with off-wiki, thus leading to an even greater lack of accountability as people are driven underground in order to speak freely - Alison ❤ 23:03, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • For the record, I think that edits like this one by you (which happened to be discussed on WY) may be far more harmful to Commons. Is it really educationally relevant that some anonymous fellow streaked through a UK railway carriage on December 9, 2007, such that this educational charity should use its resources and donations to ensure that any member of the public looking up Category:December 2007 in England or Category:9 December (or any of a number of UK railway-related categories) on Commons should find this naked dude prominently on their screen? Do you think this is what this educational charity should teach people about December 9, and December 2007 in England? --JN466 00:12, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not the best example of a real problem image Jayen466, might be an idea to pick another to illustrate your case. Streaking and (presumably the context here) student pranks, are quite representative of British culture, even for chaps who were once in the Bullingdon Club, such as my current Mayor. I would much prefer this to be an image of a Bullingdon wally streaking, however in the interim this seems to have such a use for illustration. It is not sexual, just some guy without his strides on, I certainly can't get terribly worked up about it. Yes the over-categorization is pointy, I'd agree this verges on trout-slap-worthy but can be fixed by a bit of weeding. --Fæ (talk) 00:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Are you saying that Boris ran about Oxford with his Johnson out? John lilburne (talk) 09:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Fish and chips are also representative of British culture. That's no reason to splash them in various tangentially related categories. Rd232 (talk) 00:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          It's a British train, British trains get categorised in a particular manner. If you're really going to throw a hissy fit over things being categorised according to the content of the image, you really picked a bad wiki to edit. -mattbuck (Talk) 00:33, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          Try to bend a teensy bit Mattbuck, you know I'm highly supportive of a wide and liberal interpretation of educational images, including nudity and sex education images. I see no case to have this amusing prank photo deleted, but the categorization that Jayen466 links to, would appear pretty pointy to most onlookers who see this as a slightly blurry image of a nude student who happens to be streaking on a train, rather than an image of a train representative of British trains. Sorry, strange as it feels, I do understand the opposing viewpoint on this one. Anyway, I'll say no more, we are re-digging the particular image discussion all over again. --Fæ (talk) 00:52, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          Well Matt for someone so keen on tagging, you messed up and that particular image, even assuming that it should have the categories of tags you added, is wrongly tagged. John lilburne (talk) 09:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • (Edit conflict) Typing in "devoirs" (homework) will get you a movie of a nun fucking a dog, right on this site. That example work for you? This was discussed on Wikipediocracy before and I notice that it's still the case here. You can imagine what French kids think when they type that one into our search box - Alison ❤ 00:35, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yes, a much more difficult image to illustrate the problem. No disagreement from me on this one. By the way, though Jayen466 has mentioned this several times I have never viewed it. I really don't want to get upset by it. My understanding is that it has historic value, how we preserve it but handle access well, it is the tricky question in my mind. --Fæ (talk) 00:54, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • I do agree with you that access is a key issue here. If we had an Age 18 wall, like Flickr, YouTube and everybody else, the whole playing field of these discussions would change. --JN466 01:33, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I find many of the Keep decisions here – and most of these are by Mattbuck – really odd. Take this one. The Keep votes read like trolling to me. :) Tan lines? Would any educational re-user use this image to illustrate tan lines? Most people would see it as poorly lit amateur exhibitionism. About a third of the keep decisions here would strike anyone involved with a bona fide educational project as absurd. Start at the top of the left column, and work your way down. --JN466 01:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • Correction: Ignore the top 20 or so in the left hand column; they are all the result of a recent bulk nomination of innocent bikini shots. It would be better to start in the middle of the left column, and work your way down from there; i.e. from the deletion discussion for Anal 3.jpg onwards. --JN466 01:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Back to Mattbuck's statement. Mattbuck, maybe as an admin you are in a good position to pluck out one of the worst offenders and go for a ban discussion to set case history here? I would have thought it easy to trip over evidence, particularly for those folks with a nasty track record in some combination of WR, WF or ED. --Fæ (talk) 01:09, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Mattbuck didn't mention ED - his third BADSITE was Jimbo's talk page (presumably the one on English-language Wikipedia). Apparently Jimbo's talk page exists "for no reason other than to cause harm to Commons and Wikimedia in general". Seems like an odd view and probably not one that should encouraged. Although I am curious, Fæ, did you have any editors in mind when you were encouraging Mattbuck to run with scissors? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:55, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • There's one person on here who's a mod on Wikipediocracy, was a regular on WR, and who was also an ED sysop at one time. I wonder who that could be .... O_o - Alison ❤ 06:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't agree with the statement that Jimbo's talk page exists "for no reason other than to cause harm to Commons and Wikimedia in general". Rather it acts as a magnet for those who think that by influencing Jimbo one way or another they can get pet ideas put through against established procedures and consensus. The thing is Jimbo kind of encourages this kind of hanger on for his own purposes. I once heard on the BBC that Jimbo describes himself as a constitutional monarch, and expanding on that simile, what Jimbo's talk page is his court and his coterie courtiers, the wikimedia projects needs volunteer bureaucrats to keep the whole shebang working, but when those bureaucrats get in the way of something Jimbo wants done he can either wield the knife directly, use office actions and raise the ire of the community, or find which of his coterie are willing to get rid of the troublesome thing irking him. As with all such hatchet men through history, Jimbo washes his hands of them sooner or later and lets the mob have them, however there are always new editors who think that petitioning/sucking up to Jimbo is a great shortcut to getting what they want.--KTo288 (talk) 11:42, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment This issue is probably worst for big Wikipedias than for Commons, since articles are more likely than images to cause passionate arguments than images. Has any Wikipedia taken actions against it? If it has, a link to relevant pages could be a useful guideline.--Pere prlpz (talk) 22:48, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment Hola, escribo en español. Mañana escribiré la traducción al inglés. En principio, censurar, bloquear, excluir un sitio www//...... es contrario a la libertad en la Red. La razón por la que se prohiba por decisión de commons o wikipedia, publicar algo, debe ser, 1)además de la política de derechos de autor, 2) la notoria falsedad de la información. Se entiende por notoria la que no necesite una comprobación. (Ej.una imagen de Madrid con la estatua de colón de barcelona y un pie de foto "estatua de la libertad" EEUU de México)3) Los insultos, amenazas. revelación de datos, etc... a usuarios de Commons,Wikipedia,etc. son infracciones contra derechos de esos usuarios, por lo tanto deben prevenirse, evitarse y en su caso sancionarse, con medidas de protección que, en su caso, pueden llegar a ser el cierre o suspensión, decretadas por autoridades administrativas y judiciales. Lo que commons puede hacer es confeccionar listas del color que sea, pero en vez de para censurar, pueden usarse para respaldar, apoyar, desde commons, a la persona agraaviada y para someter a la página al mas estricto proceso de verificación de fuentes, a fin de facilitar la edición de artículos y contenido en commons cuya fiabilidad sea difícil, tediosa, etc de comprobar.4)Otra cuestión es que esos sitios www... contengan imágenes constitutivas de delito si bien, dada la diversidad de legislaciones penales y jurisdicciones, covendría mejor hablar de imágenes que vulneren derechos humanos. Recientemente en es.wikipedia se planteó el borrado del artículo misandria en cuyo debate sugerí que una de las definiciones podía incurrir en delito tipificado en el código penal español. Finalmente el artículo se decidió no borrarlo si bien, se está editando un artículo diferente abordando el punto de vista neutral con metodología propia de este tipo de silogismos. o cuyo contenido promueva o favorezca. 5) Hago un apartado especial para comentar el problema de menores que consulten wikipedia y encuentren en fotos lo que relata. "Díselo a wiki" podría ser una forma de educar. Una plantilla dirigida a menores y a profesionales de la enseñanza así como a madres y padres, que informe de por qué Wikipedia no quiere publicar ese contenido: atenta contra derechos humanos. Me he extendido mucho, pero el tema me interesa y algo he investigado sobre ello. Mis disculpas por no escribir en inglés. Prometo traer todo traducido --Mjblanco (talk) 03:49, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for offering to include a translation later. I think I agree with your general point and also agree that the exception should include websites that publish insults, threats, or unwarranted disclosure/intrusion into the private lives of contributors. Some of the websites mentioned in this discussion do exactly that and pretty much only exist for those reasons of gossip, scandal and abusing the personal lives of Wikimedians for sadistic sport. --Fæ (talk) 10:44, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find this whole discussion a rather disturbing example of the sort of "regulation creep" that actively discourages potential editors from participating. Usually when these sitenotices show up, I just sigh and reflexively click the "dismiss" button. Just on a whim I read this one all the way through and found it quite shocking how far this community has gone towards redefining abuse to include disagreement and criticism. (I'll omit the usual historical analogies here as being unnecessarily hyperbolic; a mere Web site, no matter how powerful, does not (yet) have the power of life or death over its volunteer contributors. But with every new regulation, my desire to continue being one of those contributors is gradually diminished.) 121a0012 (talk) 04:25, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sitenotice

Why is this in the site notice? This IS canvassing. Village pump is where this belongs... -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 11:32, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

No, it is not. Besides, closure of the rfc was requested at VP and inviting more input per sitenotice was discussed on COM:AN. --Túrelio (talk) 12:06, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's absurd. The sitenotice is never canvassing. Canvassing is recruiting interest from a select group of people who you believe will support your view, while not recruiting others. The sitenotice recruits everyone. Dcoetzee (talk) 12:13, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It might be thought of as canvassing Commonists who are less likely to be Wikipediocracy supporters, compared to those drawn here due to several existing threads on that website canvassing this discussion. As off-wiki canvassing has already been going on, your concern seems irrelevant unless you thought the site notice was non-neutral in its wording. Personally, I consider this RFC irretrievably manipulated by a travelling circus, it should be of general concern that it was created and phrased by a regular poster to Wikipediocracy, a complete waste of time as any outcome will be a cause of division and dispute rather than meaningful consensus, and propose that it is closed on that basis. --Fæ (talk) 12:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There isn't any canvassing on Wikipediocracy. Wikipediocracy is documenting and reporting on these discussions. We have the right to talk about these discussions anywhere. You can't tell a reporter not to report the news just because you're afraid that the news article will cause people to learn about an upcoming election. There shouldn't be any limits on the spread of knowledge and news. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:41, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You have the right to talk and think wherever, whenever you want. But shouting out that "there isn't any canvasing" is the joke of the day. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 13:52, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#Commons:Requests_for_comment.2Foffsite_discussions – "[T]he obvious conclusions from it will be disputed on the grounds of who has participated," "Any conclusion would be rejected as 90%+ of the participants[…]" – Despite of participation from 29 users (sixteen of whom aren't actual WR / Wikipediocracy members), they felt that the discussion had too few participants and that the discussion was too contaminated by WR / Wikipediocracy members, even though WR / Wikipediocracy members made up less than half (13/29) of the discussion's participants. There's a sitenotice because some people don't like some of the people who were participating in the discussions.

Don't Commons users who are also WR / Wikipediocracy members have the right to participate in discussion that concerns them? Hypothetical situation: There's a discussion about possibly disenfranchising Japanese users. Japanese users participate in the discussion because it concerns them, but someone says, "What are Japanese users doing here? They'll be biased towards preventing themselves from being disenfranchised! I won't accept the current results. Let's have sitenotice so that the voices of Japanese users will be drowned out." That's basically why there's a sitenotice. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki:Sitenotice has the advantage that everyone sees the notice. A notice at COM:VP might not be seen by people who only follow COM:BB, COM:BI or any similar page. The initial discussion was only held at COM:FORUM, so many users probably missed it. --Stefan4 (talk) 13:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict) Weird, my highlighting blatant canvassing off-wiki is now compared to racism. Though considering how Michaeldsuarez's supports real racist hate speech on ED, I guess these sort of extreme arguments should not be a surprise to our Commons community. Just a quick reality check, if you are an active supporter of Wikipediocracy this does not make you protected as a racial minority group (Wikipediocians?) or a member of a recognized political movement. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:47, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
While I do think that a discussion about how the interest/opinion-defined communities of the internet are worth taking into account in a hoped-for post-bigotry society would be philosophically interesting, I also think comparing Fae to the NAZIs is a really stupid thing to do. --SB_Johnny talk 17:52, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Particularly as even though I am über-gay, I don't have a suitable costume to go with a Nazi role, perhaps a Wikipediocracy moderator could lend me theirs? SB_Johnny, your name is on the list, but you will no longer be the first I have up against the wall. ;-) --Fæ (talk) 19:09, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as an über-boring-long-married-dad, I'm afraid most of my costume wear has been thrown out (or composted) due to the molds and moths that tend to be attracted to neglected costumes. While I'm glad to hear I'm no longer on the list, I'm curious how I got on it in the first place... ridiculous accusations of bigotry aside, you do seem a bit quick to dismiss the individuality and humanity of the members of a loosely-knit group! I sincerely hope that this hasn't occurred to you before (you couldn't be blamed for not pausing during the heat of battle, but the battling is getting rather tired). --SB_Johnny talk 20:26, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You make a reasonable point on the surface, however it would be a bad thing for our projects if the only people who could "safely" contribute to Wikimedia projects were those that hid their real life identities in fear of persecution, defamation and threats, or those with a personal history of no relevance to our projects. --Fæ (talk) 09:00, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Enough

Great example of why this is stupid right here. What the hell is the matter with you people :-/. --SB_Johnny talk 20:50, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

sic. [w.] 21:49, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
:-D Lotje ʘ‿ʘ (talk) 06:28, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed, per decision at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#Is something going to be decided? that such a use of the spam blacklist should have strong consensus before it is implemented. John Vandenberg (chat) 11:45, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Which reminds me, only three individuals expressed their opinions at the time that wikipediareview.com and wikipediocracy.com were added to the blacklist. [10] – The discussion was less than eighty minutes old at the time of the blacklisting. Two non-spam websites blacklisted at the whim of a few users. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:19, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was also discussed on the German language COM:FORUM only (441 watchers) instead of COM:AN (851 watchers) and COM:VP (1736 watchers). John Vandenberg (chat) 13:33, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, what is it this page and why was I directed here? I can't unsee this. Grrrrrr Bastique ☎ appelez-moi! 15:22, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clarity please

I have been called over here by a hatnote. I would like a clear description about what I am discussing. "there are some sites- well known to long term contributers...." Well, I have been around for 8 years and I haven't a clue what you are talking about. If the problem isn't serious enough to be clearly explained then it is not a problem. I just wish people would get their act together before they waste my time. No problem so no changes- simple. --ClemRutter (talk) 20:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As header 3.2 shows, it's mainly about "Wikipedia Review" and "Wikipediocracy". --Túrelio (talk) 20:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If it was essential to mention the specific sites, I would have done so in setting up the RFC. But in fact the issue is mostly general principles of how to deal with this type of site - principles which would also apply to any new ones popping up in future. Rd232 (talk) 20:34, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's about external pages which might/do/will/can contain comments/allegations/hate speech/personal attacks about/against users at Commons and which are linked inside discussions on Commons with the possible/actual intent to circumvent Commons policies regarding privacy/manners/canvasing/etc.. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 20:41, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion is about control vs freedom. They fear media and information that they can't control or regulate, so they seek on-site means to censor, suppress, and disenfranchise. They feel threatened by off-site discussions because they don't have any control over them. The lack of control and regulation is what makes off-site discussions freer than on-site discussions. Some people don't like it when others to have the ability to speak their minds freely. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 23:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Get a grip! Every Web site on the Internet "might/do/will/can contain comments/allegations/hate speech/personal attacks about/against users at Commons". Must every external link be pre-approved by a cabal to ensure that it meets the Speech Regulation of the Week? 121a0012 (talk) 23:56, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, the original formulation of the RfC is exceedingly overbroad, as is Niabot's characterisation. I knew it was code for "Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy" based on previous discussions, but if you want to encompass future sites that are primarily used to attack contributors to Wikimedia Foundation projects, that should be specified clearly. At this point it's rather moot since there's obviously no consensus to take action against these sites. Dcoetzee (talk) 04:59, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Restate RfC or Withdraw it

The RfC as originally stated makes no sense to non-insiders. It needs to be better phrased for me (and obviously many others) to properly vote. Any such RfC should be about legalities, not whether there is some personal war on external sites to which few are privy. In absence of voting, I interpret the current RfC to mean:

  • A) Wikipedians and non-Wikipedians are talking trash about eachother on other sites
  • B) These disputes have spilled over to here, including the potential recruitment of meatpuppets
  • C) Site bans have been put in place here to stop data flow and/or limit recruitment
  • D) A vote is being held to validate this action

If my inference above is correct, then this RfC is inappropriate on its face. What happens here is our jurisdiction, what is discussed outside is none of our concern, no matter how nasty. The only special cases to worry about are:

  • If a known user is requesting admin or similar status here, then their offsite actions can be taken into account. But, this is merely an extension of "our jurisdiction" and can/should be handled in existing Wikipedia/media procedures for editors/admins, not debated here nor handled in site bans.
  • If an external site's usage of Media constitutes a violation of applicable Copyright Laws or some other legality then site bans are appropriate per policy. Any other bans are not germain and merely appear spiteful. Again, that is all handlable in existing policy and does not require debate here

-- Ultracobalt (talk) 08:09, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ultracobalt, would your understanding of dismissing challenges to links to off-wiki material as simply spiteful or nasty, cover a situation where an established Commons contributor were using such websites to post death threats, blackmail threats, false criminal allegations or privacy invading material to directly facilitate such threats against other Commons contributors with the obvious intention to harass, hound or intimidate? By the way, welcome to Wikimedia Commons! Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:17, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is my own intepertation of what is going on for those who have been taken to this Rfc by the site header and can't make heads or tails of what this is about. This is an Rfc to repudiate an action already taken not to endorse it. The site bans were put in place to prevent linking to sites critical of Commons and the Wikimedia projects in general, this decision was made by a small number of individual administrators at a page not frequented by the majority of the community. The initiator of this Rfc User:Rd232 disagrees that the spam filter should be used in this way.
Being an admin the initiator could have reverted those blocks himself but, because he has been identified by some users as a contributor to those blocked sites, such an action would have been seen as a conflict of interest and biased and be reverted. Rather than risk this course of action User:Rd232 instead iniated this Rfc to see if the community endorses the blocks, however the neutrality of his introduction has lead to some to wrongly conclude that he is in favour of using the spam list to block those and similar external sites.
Initially those commenting on this Rfc were users who also contributed at the blocked sites and their votes have been opposes, those wishing to keep the block believed that the Commons community at large would endorse their view of the block and added the site header to bring in more users. Amongst the new voices to this Rfc were individuals who did not like the idea of using the spam list to censor external sites, but did think that something should be done about it, from their individual ideas about how to deal with these critical sites came the proliferation of things to vote for and against.
Because this Rfc is going in the direction he wants it to go, that is a repudiation of using the spam list to block critical sites, User:Rd232 can now neither close or withdraw this Rfc, for fear that he be accused of only doing so because the consensus of this Rfc is in his favour.--KTo288 (talk) 10:25, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If any trusted user has a track record of using their trusted authority in ways that can be challenged as a conflict of interest, their judgement and ability to meet the goals of this project should be assessed in line with the abuse of power section at Administrators/De-adminship. I agree that Rd232 did the correct thing by avoiding inappropriate action, similarly for this RFC to be considered at all relevant it must be closed by someone without a direct interest in off-wiki attack websites. --Fæ (talk) 10:39, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist&diff=69847152&oldid=69804589 – Actually, Rd232 did attempt to remove wikipediareview.com and wikipediocracy.com from the spam-blacklist, but then Leyo reverted him or her. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:46, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I missed the removal and the revert, but this whole thing is convuluted mess.--KTo288 (talk) 15:14, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fæ, in case you can't read between the lines, I think that User:Rd232 has acted with exemplary restraint, judgement and even-handedness in this debacle, he would be the last person in this debate in need of censure.With regards the comments below, if what you really was trying to do was be friendly to new users the same could have been better achieved on their talk pages. Its going to be a bit rich coming from me, so I'm not going to use as strong a language as I had intended to, but in real life you would face serious censure if during elections you took to hanging around polling stations to harangue and hector voters who had come to a decision different from your own, please respect the decisions that others have come to.-KTo288 (talk) 15:14, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@Fæ: Your continual passive-aggressive identification of new users contributing to the discussion is spiteful and juvenile (especially one who has unrelated constructive edits from 3 weeks ago). You could simply say "Note: this user has no edits outside this discussion" or "Note: this user has had limited participation outside this discussion." And in case you get it in your head to insinuate again that I'm a Wikipedia Review supporter for merely having posted there in defense of the misrepresentations they made against me, consider that they have dealt terrible emotional injury to several of my closest friends, and placed some of them at risk of assault and death. If I can be objective on this matter you can too. Dcoetzee (talk) 10:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A nice welcome seems rather nicer than pointy notes, just my opinion. Thanks for your personal tips on civility. Oh, by the way, we all have a choice that we can choose not to post on attack websites and thereby avoid the inevitable consequence that we make them more popular or legitimize their abusive contents. That's not intended as an insinuation, merely a statement of fact. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:39, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A welcome that is really a secret message directed at the closing administrator is not nice, it is sinister. And the concept that merely posting on an website inevitably legitimizes or popularizes abuse conducted elsewhere on that website is patently absurd. A forum does not in itself possess a moral standing - it is the criminal actions conducted by (some of) their users that must be stopped. Dcoetzee (talk) 11:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How do you suggest they are stopped from their "criminal actions"? The only pragmatic suggestion I have seen is that mega-rich contributors to our projects can protect themselves by employing their international lawyers, while the rest of us commoners can expect personal allegations to creep into our on-project discussions and, as we have seen, on Commons we can even expect legal threats to be posted with the intention to intimidate and hamper free discussion of these problems. I recognize that we have different points of view, however I still believe that the independent advice to avoid feeding trolls by not writing in reply, is the best practice to deal with off-wiki attack sites. Perhaps you might give me some space to hold that view and from time to time express it on our projects without making a parody of it as absurd, paranoid, or seeing it as a personal attack against you?
In advance of someone saying, "ah ha, but you are feeding the trolls here", we are attempting to discuss a policy change to permanently improve dealing with these problems rather than picking away at old wounds. As we have seen on Wikipedia as well as Commons, this is difficult when the same old tedious travelling circus arrives to create mayhem and starts abusing and ridiculing participants off-wiki and attempting to troll them on-wiki by "pressing their buttons". Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:53, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"we can even expect legal threats to be posted with the intention to intimidate and hamper free discussion of these problems" - a thread at COM:AN concluded it wasn't a threat, but you're still repeating the claim here. Even if it were, it's an onwiki post and doesn't require special "offsite discussion" measures. Rd232 (talk) 13:04, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is worth repeating. I might have been able to accept your conclusion if you and another deeply involved user had not stepped in to derail the discussion, virtually guaranteeing an unnecessary early close as pointless, despite me pointing this out several times. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:15, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So now you're explicitly accusing me of bad faith ("stepped in to derail the discussion")? I just want to be clear. And for the record, no-one derailed that discussion but you: your aggressive responses made an admin reckon the discussion should be closed sooner rather than later. Rd232 (talk) 16:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Refer to Mattbuck's opinion of your behaviour in that thread. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 17:47, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
He didn't accuse me of bad faith. Have the balls to stand by your own accusations, or withdraw them. Rd232 (talk) 18:13, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Can we please start posting welcome messages on user talk pages instead of posting them on this RfC? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:53, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
They're not welcome messages, they're snarky factless attempts to devalue input. If someone is actually a new contributor, or hasn't contributed in a long time, it's OK to annotate their first comment (not every comment, if they make more than one) if there is reasonable suspicion of a canvassing/advertising effect. But then the annotation should state relevant verifiable facts, like "first contribution in 2012". Rd232 (talk) 14:37, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See {{Offsite discussion annotation}}, which I've just created. Rd232 (talk) 15:00, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RFC creator's personal opinion of results so far, in no way shape or form intended to represent a close or summary or any kind of representation of opinion other than his own

Since someone has suggested withdrawing or clarifying the RFC, let me summarize the results so far:

  1. Discussion clarifying some of the problems in handling these matters. Previous discussion has been very acrimonious and unproductive, and while some of that has continued here, I think we've still managed to clarify some issues.
  2. Creation of a support email address on one website, so that people can contact moderators without having to get an account. In view of my own experience of having signed up for two sites in order to be able to respond to attacks on me, and then being constantly attacked here for making contributions there, I personally think this result is worth all the RFC trouble by itself.
  3. Much wider input on the issue of whether MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist should be used to prevent links to non-spam sites. This has clarified that the wider Commons community emphatically doesn't support this, where the views in the initial limited discussions that led to the move and immediately followed it were less clear.
  4. Creation of a new page for summarising how offsite discussion should be handled: Commons:Offsite discussion.
  5. Creation of a link template that can be used to link to offsite discussion: {{Offsite discussion link}}.

The question then is: what else can we hope to achieve? We can certainly develop a second RFC, or continue discussion on other pages (eg the talk page of a policy that someone might want to amend). But what would that RFC do differently, and what would it hope to achieve? New proposals, if anyone has any, can after all be added here. Rd232 (talk) 13:00, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For obvious reasons, I would prefer someone less involved to summarize, thanks. --Fæ (talk) 13:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
nonconstructive discussion
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
struck per your request. Please let us know who has your permission to comment on what, it would make life a lot simpler. Rd232 (talk) 13:07, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, a wise decision. As for who would be uninvolved, common sense applies. We have seen people attracted by your site notice who have said they had never heard of these attack websites before, it should not be impossible to expect a summary or close by such an individual. You might be surprised to know how small a proportion of our Commons community ever pays much attention to websites owned by "MyWikiBiz" or "Garrett E. Moore" when their supporters are not trolling Commons by adding links to abusive material. --Fæ (talk) 15:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was obviously not intended as a close - it was just my view of what the RFC I started has achieved so far, and asking what else could be attempted. Unstruck, since you've signally failed to take the obvious opportunity to say "well that wasn't necessary, I'm not trying to stop you saying what you want to say". Oh and You might be surprised to know... - I doubt it; I was a Wikimedia admin for years and got by ignoring Wikipedia Review just fine, but in 2012 I saw some comments about me I felt I had to respond to, and shortly after that Wikipediocracy was set up, and I was given an account automatically and used it when there were further comments about me. As for your repeated false claims about site ownership - you really don't learn, do you? Rd232 (talk) 15:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What a pity your un-striking of this summary. Rather than silly sarcasm, I read this as a genuine attempt by you to address your position in being both a Commons trusted user so involved in off-wiki attack websites and yet taking such an active part in both creating and closing down attempts to have open discussion about possible policy change.
My "claims" about site ownership are easily verifiable fact. This search http://whois.domaintools.com/wikipediocracy.com is a public legal truth that any reader can check. --Fæ (talk) 17:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It has already been pointed out to you that registration of a domain is not the same as ownership of a website. I don't suppose pointing it out again will stop you repeating the false claim again. Rd232 (talk) 18:13, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"a Commons trusted user so involved in off-wiki attack websites" - this is a direct personal attack, a deliberate accusation that I go around attacking people offsite. Strike it, or I'll see you at COM:AN/U, because I've seriously had enough of your attitude on this topic. Rd232 (talk) 18:16, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fæ, I am rather surprised to see that you have linked to the WHOIS information for Wikipediocracy.com. When I posted on Wikipedia Review the public WHOIS record for a site that you owned, there was an immediate attempt to have me banned from English-language Wikipedia, despite the fact that including the phone and address information was an oversight on my part and was very quickly corrected by a WR admin with my complete agreement. If it was wrong for me to have posted your WHOIS info then, is it not equally wrong for you to link to Greg Kohs' WHOIS info now? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:12, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
WHOIS info is in the public record, and shouldn't really be considered the disclosure of private information in any case, no matter which side of the argument does it. Some registrars offer privacy of registration if the registrant chooses to use it. Dtobias (talk) 23:11, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The point is the double standard. Fæ wanted Delicious carbuncle site-banned for much the same thing Fæ himself has just done. The other day, Mattbuck, a Commons admin, referred to an off-site forum member in the title of a barnstar he was giving a fellow editor as follows: [11] Let's Make Ottava Even More Paranoid That There's A Conspiracy Against Him (High-five) Barnstar. I also see a Commonist referring to posters at one of the sites as "crazy idiots" here on this page, while complaining that someone on one of these forums called him a name. The lack of self-awareness is, frankly, a little disturbing. --JN466 01:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If we want to pry into people's off-wiki activities, I can also offer a link to the Twitter account of a Commons admin who regularly posts abusive tweets about other Wikimedians, recently for example referring to various people as a "bande de cons" ("fuckers" or, more literally translated: "a gang of cunts"). I see tweets as quite comparable to forum posts. --JN466 03:47, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Jayen466. I hope you can appreciate that there is a big difference between discussing a block or ban for someone who, by their actions, [rephrasing after legal threats: their actions being to post my home phone number and address in public on Wikipedia Review less than 20 minutes after a threat was posted by a Wikipedia Review reader (based on the wording of threats) on to Commons] was facilitating a direct personal threat of blackmail against me and my husband, to my actions on this talk page. As for someone's abusive tweets, I suggest you complain in the right place, this RFC is being diverted all over the place as it is. I have complained myself about abusive tweets from trusted members of our community, and because I complained to the right people, in the right way, their offensive behaviour did change. Unnecessarily re-posting "cunts" here may be amusing from Father Jack Hackett but seems a bit beneath you if you want to present a real case. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 04:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the threat (I believe that you're referring to the one made by "98SA447") was made at 06:47 AM, while that WR post was made at 7:07 PM. Unless you're referring to something else, that's a 12-hour difference, not a 20-minute difference. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
On a site where we have an unfiltered video of sex between a dog and a (woman dressed as a) nun, and much else besides, I hardly feel it necessary to type c*** and f***. Not even newspapers do that any more. These are honorable and venerable parts of the English language. The point is, there is no difference between you linking to Greg's phone number here and what Delicious carbuncle did, except that you did it on-wiki. Regards. --JN466 04:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea what Greg's phone number is. The domain registration is current and references MyWikiBiz and the contact number for that organization. If you cannot appreciate the difference between a case that involves making direct threats against the person and one that does not, or for that matter have the decency to respect matters relating to the safety of me and my husband, then there is no point in continuing our dialogue. --Fæ (talk) 04:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Are you now saying Delicious Carbuncle made threats against you? I believe you said otherwise in the past. If not, then just bear in mind that both you and he have no way of predicting what anyone will do with anyone's contact info that either of you posts. Regards. --JN466 04:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please be careful answering this question, Fæ, since your words so far strongly suggest that I am in some way complicit in threats made against you and or your husband. If you do not strike your statements or provide some very clear statement that you do not believe I am involved, I will have little choice but to follow this up. I suggest you do this as soon as possible. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:32, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Interesting Result of my Request

Thanks KTo288 for your cogent summary, it is the first purely analytic thing I've read on this page. Thanks also to Rd232 for trying to answer. Your style of writing is more convoluted, but I took it as an objective approach and appreciate that. I did indeed arrive here via the site header, and because it's prominent I'm sure many other unsuspecting wanderers arrive and also become confused. The reasons for the RfC being made and why it can't be withdrawn makes sense, so I withdraw my withdrawal request and accept KTo288's description as more than sufficient "restatement". The bulk of the debate is composed mostly of nonconstructive paranoid ranting from various sides, making it nearly impossible to digest. I hope my question and your answers might help inform anyone else stumbling here, if there is anyone left who can bear to read it.
So what to do. We have the problem of people saying nasty things offsite, and a few of those same people coming here and inserting links to the nasty things over there (why seems irrelevant, but exactly how its done I'm not sure, in the media itself or on associated talk pages? sorry to have to ask, I've used a lot of commons media in WP:EN articles and never seen the problem). We have the added problem of people both here and offsite coming back here to fight, using both upfront and sideways methods, resulting in some people here feeling harassed, legitimately or not. Those feeling harassed might unwisely choose to further engage with real or perceived enemies offsite. Then both sides, both here and there, create more links to one another, completing a full circle of insanity. Whew.
Site bans for this madness are then just not going to work. They'll need repeated updating as the various fighters take up new positions at new sites, with the # and degree rediscussed (how nasty is nasty, how blue how green etc) ad hoc into infinity. They can even forgo links and just cut/paste nefarious comments directly. Site ban therefore focuses hysterically on the symptom, not the problem, which is the handful of users doing the fighting. Why can't those who violate policy here get handled by well-established procedures, i.e. warned then blocked? And the corollary is, if you don't like what someone says about you on another site, you don't read it. It seems so simple I can't believe I have to ask.-- Ultracobalt (talk) 13:29, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"why seems irrelevant, but exactly how its done I'm not sure, in the media itself or on associated talk pages?"
It's done on talk pages or operational pages (deletion requests, administration pages, ...) usually related to controversial content and as a "weapon" against the opposition.
"Then both sides, both here and there, create more links to one another..."
That isn't correct. There are the so called "commons/wikipedia critics" which host the external pages to exercise a type of communication that would be block-worthy if done on-wiki, while also being involved in on-wiki discussions, throwing in the links to the external pages. In recent times the actions were more and more directed against single users to put them under (external) pressure. A counterpart (as far as my knowledge goes) does not exist. So there is no real cyclic dependency.
"Why can't those who violate policy here get handled by well-established procedures, i.e. warned then blocked?"
I asked for that kind of reaction under the point Offsite personal attacks linked inside discussion. But it seams tragic that we even have some admins that are actively involved in the external discussions and support this kind behavior. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 13:47, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Why can't those who violate policy here get handled by well-established procedures, i.e. warned then blocked?" - because that's not the problem. There are well-established mechanisms like COM:AN/U for discussing possible policy violations (and violations of things we don't really have policy for, like harassment). The problem is that a handful of Commons users (i) don't want to use those mechanisms because they wouldn't work for the situations they want them to (ii) can't get support for more draconian measures that amount to variations on the theme of censorship. Actual examples of real onwiki problems are few and far between; the real issue is that some users want to punish people for not pretending that these sites don't exist. One obvious symptom of this is constant attacks on anyone who has dared to post on those sites in order to respond to offwiki attacks and comments (an approach which would be less foolish if it didn't affect so many people). These attacks include constantly making anyone who has ever posted on those sites responsible for everything said on them - and apparently no amount of pointing out how ridiculous that is can prevent them from doing so. In short, we can't even have a rational discussion onwiki about this - maybe we should just give up worrying about things said elsewhere unless something is said which demands action, and focus on setting our own house in order. I'm starting to think that ignoring the constant attacks seen in discussions on this topic is a mistake and that instead users who do it need to be tackled head-on. I've personally cut people a lot of slack who have been attacked offwiki - but then I have been attacked too, and managed to set up the RFC so neutrally that (apparently) some people thought I supported the blacklisting... Rd232 (talk) 14:29, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Actual examples of real onwiki problems are few and far between; the real issue is that some users want to punish people for not pretending that these sites don't exist."
That isn't the reason. The reason is that this sites are full of garbage and hate speech and that they are linked/referenced by the same users that write or contribute to them. Maybe a little exaggerated in wording, but thats the way i see it. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 14:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"full of garbage" is subjective and "hate speech" (en:hate speech) is blatantly untrue. I said in the RFC opening "may include personal attacks and personal information (including outing)", and I see no reason to go beyond that. Occasional linking to and referencing of these sites by people who contribute to them and by people who don't is not intrinsically a problem - it depends on context and purpose. Generalising will not work here - only looking at particular cases as they arise will work, and the offsite comments and onwiki links to them judged in context. I think Commons:Offsite discussion is the sort of very general advice we can give - anything more is neither necessary nor productive. Rd232 (talk) 15:08, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What do you think about a page, it's content and their contributers that would contain the following wording put as link by C on your user page?
A: "Rd232 is a kiddy fiddler that supports the pedophile Mr. X"
B: "Yeah, look here, the enablers have taken the next step"
C: "Now he declined that is is one. Review says 50:50?"
Will it make you happy? --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 15:25, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Either make up a hypothetical example, or just use your own example and change the name: changing your own to make it worse is... bad. offsite discussion:  [12] Nobody called you a kiddy fiddler in that thread - and your example implies the 50:50 remark has something to do with that, rather than quoting an onwiki statement about sock identification. As to your question: would it make me happy, no. But then I'm not happy about your example either - it's a hardly a criterion for action beyond commenting. Rd232 (talk) 15:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You do deserve credit Rd232 for wording the RFC so neutrally that your own position on it was not discernible, at least to a cursory reading, which is a nontrivial achievement. I also agree that the actual # of people involved in this must be relatively small, and/or incidents rarer than the heat of this debate suggests, because I've cruised around Commons looking for stuff for several years and was completely shocked to stumble on this page. And yes Niabot I do see that the "fight" (as I put it) or "hate speech" (as you put it) isn't strictly technically cyclical, the behaviour tends to be back and forth he said she said. Lastly I do see it's easy for me to say "why can't people be adults, why don't existing policies work" when it's not happening to me personally and emotions are not involved. If, as you state, some admins themselves get enmeshed, which I take to mean they either participate in this, condone it, are paralyzed by it, or look away from it, then the culture will continue no matter what policy or ban is in place. Wow I learned a lot today, I did my duty and read all this then voted above, and now I need some soothing medication as I log off. Best Regards from EN:WP -- Ultracobalt (talk) 14:58, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, calling people "niggers" and "faggots" is part of hate speech. Forums that allow general defamation as part of acceptable behaviour are not just allowing "fighting talk". In many countries, use of "social" websites in this way is a criminal act and has lead to successful prosecution. --Fæ (talk) 15:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, chopping someone's head off with an axe is classified as murder. What exactly is your point? That a single now-deleted comment proves a forum is "full of hate speech"? And are you really now up to implying "a criminal act" on the part of anyone posting on Wikipediocracy? Rd232 (talk) 15:29, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fae is just being his usual sleazy self by insinuating that someone used the word "nigger" on Wikipediocracy. As far as I know this is simply false. But truth hasn't stopped Fae from making atrocious insinuations in the past. THAT kind of thing deserves a hefty block as it's extremely offensive and defamatory, even if it's carefully worded for possible deniability, especially when it's part of a long established pattern. That kind of behavior is frankly disgusting and way beyond the pale of civilized discussion.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:25, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was not referring to Wikipediocracy. Not everything here is about Gregory Kohs, thanks. --Fæ (talk) 15:31, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"I was not referring to Wikipediocracy." Riiiiiiiiggggggghhhhht. What the hey WERE you referring to then?Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:25, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Probably WR, where some idiot did indeed toss around the "n" word in a recent thread. Dtobias (talk) 18:32, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipediaocracy seem to consist of no more than a dozen or so active participants, with an over inflated sense as to the value of their owm wit, cleverness, themselves and their opinions. By acting and over reacting, we are just feeding their desire to prove their own self worth. The thing is such personalities do not get along even with each other, the thing that brings them together will soon enough drive them apart, give them time and they will bicker amongst themselves and before you know it they will fracture into antagonistic cliques that will leave in a huff to start a new site more to their own liking. By giving them any credence at all we give them a common goal and target, and are infact just helping to delay the date of their next schism. All they really are is a fly buzzing in your ear, they may sound loud and scary but really they are beneath disdain and notice, so please can we just ignore them.--KTo288 (talk) 15:19, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you can't or don't want to engage with them, ignoring them seems far more sensible than gearing up for war. Rd232 (talk) 15:29, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I understand Fae, but if that speech (which I agree is hateful) is at an external website, all the liability (if any) rests with that site. There are plenty of websites which permit all manner of speech, no matter how unpleasant, which is not our job here to patrol. If you think a site is committing acts worthy of prosecution, then pursue them by legal/regulatory means. Ofcourse, if a link to such speech is posted here, that becomes grounds for acting on that person's behavior individually. In the specific case you are worrying about, KTo288's advice is right on: they only receive power by goading you into giving it to them. -- Ultracobalt (talk) 15:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're making the mistake of taking Fae's accusations at face value, even as you dismiss their relevance. So he's already "won" half the battle through his false insinuations by managing to portray the situation as if there was "hate speech" on the side under discussion. There ain't. He's lying, though the way he words his comments appears to be purposefully designed so he can always claim "I wasn't talking about Wikipediocracy" when called on his BS. Don't buy into the false premise in the first place.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:25, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
LOL. Worst comment i read today. At least they do anything at Wikicrazyidiots to make Fae a celebrity. --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 18:35, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Taking a statement at face value and then applying Adult Reasoning™ to show how it can be handled differently is called constructive debate. Perhaps that is just a lost art here. What is painfully obvious is that a few players use flagrant logical fallacies and memories of past sleights like an old divorced couple that no one is interested in. Tossing around the word "criminal" is indeed silly, but tossing around the word "liar" equally so. As for who has "won", I see precious little evidence of any "winners". -- Ultracobalt (talk) 23:55, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A simple solution

no consensus
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The basic have already been discussed above and closed this discussion was an alternative approach for the same/similar solutions while there is only a support vote! with strong reasonings I can not ignore the substancial discussions above where consensus was clearly establish while consensus can change there wasnt sufficient discussion for me to conclude that a new consensus has been reached. Gnangarra 17:56, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

first some obvious points:

i) we have NO way of controlling off-site discussions.

ii) if we "identify" an off-site locus as "bad", people (those who care) will simply move their conversations elsewhere...

which makes it whole effort futile.

therefore, i suggest this as a policy:

treat all off-site conversation as "bad" sources; i.e. dubious information & having no validity

1. all off-site discussions should have NO MERIT in on-wiki decision making, & no on-wiki actions are to be based on them.

any issues raised off-wiki NEED to be discussed fully & openly within the community on-wiki FIRST, before any decisions are made or actions taken.

  • i) any on-wiki decisions or actions that can be shown to have been decided by off-site conversations are instantly reversible, & subject to automatic & fully-open community review.
  • ii)ANY admins who are shown to base their on-wiki actions upon off-site decision-making should be instantly & permanently de-adminned. zero tolerance. the only grounds for appeal are factual error in the findings. an admin who uses their "powers" to implement off-wiki, non-community-based decisions should NOT be an admin.

2. all off-site discussions have no merit as decision-making/consensus or as evidence/proof of anything; other than the fact that said off-site conversation did occur.

3. any records of off-wiki conversations being referred to, or used as "evidence", must be coped IN WHOLE (& include history/time-date info) & not simply linked or excerpted. we have no control over off-site records, & records can be changed.

3. in cases where an on-wiki editor can be clearly identified as a specific participant in an off-site conversation, their behaviour off-wiki is understood to NOT be subject to on-wiki codes of conduct, & the user may not be sanctioned for their (exclusively) off-wiki activities, HOWEVER if that user's off-wiki comments can be shown to reflect inappropriate on-wiki behaviour (including but not limited to edits, votes, commentary, administration, etc.), OR if the user is shown to be implementing decisions taken off-wiki (therefore without proper, open community discussion), then that user IS in violation of our rules, for their activities on-wiki. They should be sanctioned accordingly, & their off-wiki conversation can be used as part of the record-of-evidence, to whatever degree it is relevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lx 121 (talk • contribs)

What about "linking in" personal attacks inside discussions on-wiki meant to attack users on-wiki, while not posting the attacks on-wiki? How would you handle this situation following your proposal? --／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 署名の宣言 09:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
it depends on the purpose of the link. if the purpose is to cite the material as "evidence" (for example; of off-wiki discussions influencing on-wiki actions), then it should be given due consideration, as appropriate (although the material should be copied over into the record here & not just linked). if the purpose is to "endorse" the comments, then the action of linking it should properly be considered as equivalent to making the comments directly on-wiki. Lx 121 (talk) 12:29, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Such a rule is far too broad. Instead we focus on cases where there is clear abuse. If a user or admin acts on facts found off site they should be able to act on that information provided that:
  1. clearly stating that they are acting on off-wiki discussion
  2. If not obvious explain how they concluded that the information is accurate
  3. The action is clearly done according to policy and is uncontroversial
-MorganKevinJ(talk) 04:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
but the admin should provide a COMPLETE RECORD of the off-site discussion (text as well as links), & there should be opportunity for on-site discussion within the community before actions are taken. this is important for at least 2 reasons: i.) transparency & clarity of the record ii.) community-process decision-making; actions should be decided on-wiki (& on-the-record), where everyone affected has a free & equal chance to participate in the discussion. something like "parliamentary procedure".
we can't stop people from talking off-wiki, nor should we; but when decisions are made & actions are taken, that needs to be done HERE, it needs to be open & the record of it needs to be clear & complete. Lx 121 (talk) 23:25, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support Completely agree with this proposal of comments made offwiki if they were made onwiki and I invite all those who oppose to it to contemplate it once more. Just apply real world policies: Can a policeman, a military, a member of the firefighter department, a journalist, a member of the government, etc, make comments off-work without no consequent actions in-work? What if a Senator comments in an online forum that he thinks certain congressman is a stupid? Does the Congress will ignore his observation ONLY because he said it out of the Congress, even if his colleague is completely offended for it? If someone participates actively in this project, he must be responsible for what he/she says outside the project too. If a Wikipedian goes out to promote vandalism, isn't illegal to apply our internal policies to this Wikipedian for his irresponsible behavior? The user can hide (creating puppet identities) to make hideous comment off-wiki the same as a journalist can hide his/her identity to speak against a companion or against his/her editor-in-chief, but, it is also easy to discover their real identity now or later. See the case of Yuri Wright, expelled from the school for comments he did in his Twitter!!! --AlbeiroR24 (talk) 05:07, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I could not agree more, but... suppose it is to do with a sting operation... :-), then all parties concerned would know it, except... :-) Lotje ʘ‿ʘ (talk) 05:16, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • In that case we can outlaw such sting operation as a provocative action, thus the provoker should face the law. Then I would say it would not be a claim on following only rules, even outside the project, but to keep an ethical behavior Regards :) --AlbeiroR24 (talk) 06:17, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • You can be blocked for trying to make a political campaign here (and the policeman should act as if he had no political thoughts), but that does not imply that you may not make political campaigns at all (and the policeman might also be allowed to). --LPfi (talk) 11:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why should a politician be forbidden to call other politicians stupid? It's true; they're stupid, and other politicians shouldn't be offended by the truth. The truth even offends people here. When the truth is stated on-wiki, it's censored. When the truth is stated off-wiki, people here forbid links to it. All this is because the truth could lead to feelings becoming hurt. It's unfortunate that a kid who didn't know any better was expelled for using his freedom of speech. I don't approve of what he said, but I'll defend to the death his right to say it.--Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well-mannered people usually refrain from calling each other stupid, because it distracts from the discussion at hand. Where not everybody is well-mannered you might have to enforce a rule forbidding insults, however true. Off-site there is not the problem about distraction and thus you should have the right to call Commons people stupid, if that is how you feel. The way and degree is of course up to debate. --LPfi (talk) 20:01, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Folks' online presences are generally less open than their main lives, though. Conversations occur in intended private, folks with similar names are easily confused for each other, there is little cross-site accountability, and littler still practical means to enforce it... perhaps we may as well apply what little we can, but is it worth the trouble? If folks can't even be nice to each other right here, bringing in whether or not they're nice to each other out yonder seems kind of silly, although maybe I'm just completely misunderstanding this entire thing, I dunno. -— Isarra ༆ 19:44, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Commentex.) w:Uncyclopedia text is not true and other sites are taste of evil,so they call evil comment is not yet.So think difficult - place of w:ja:TPO --Time,Place,Occasion(or Opportunity).We are life is happy.Imagines.more better than life and we are community taken real life goodness on yesterday to tomorrow.--MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Close RfC

The results in the formal Proposals and Petitions sections above have all been reached. Can this stop now? New issues are not germane to the original request, additional "voting" in subsequent sections is confusing and the current discussion is obviously not constructive. I move that this RfC be closed.-- Ultracobalt (talk) 17:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is closed, and will be archived soon.
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