Wikipedia:Contentious topics/2021-22 review/Consultation

2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review

Status as of 20:32 (UTC), Tuesday, 6 August 2024 ()

• The final decision has been posted and announced.
• The initial implementation period has concluded and the updated procedure has come into effect.
• Any editors interested in the ongoing implementation process are invited to assist at the implementation talk page.
• To be notified about updates, subscribe to the update list.

Timeline

The revision process will be conducted in four phases: Phase I community consultation (March – April 2021) (closed) Closing statement posted (May 2021) (closed) Discretionary sanctions topic amendments (February 2022) (closed) Phase II community consultation (September – October 2022) (closed) Proposed decision (November – December 2022) Public review (November 13 – 18, 2022) Final decision (December 2022) Implementation: The drafting arbitrators will implement the Committee's decision in conjunction with the Committee's clerks and interested volunteers designated by the Committee. The revision process was managed by drafting arbitrators designated by the Arbitration Committee (CaptainEek, L235, Wugapodes).

All community members are encouraged to participate in this consultation, which is the first step of the Arbitration Committee's 2021 discretionary sanctions revision process. The first section of this consultation asks general questions about discretionary sanctions and editors' experiences with them, and the second section asks for feedback on more specific elements of the discretionary sanctions system. Please participate in either or both of the sections, but do not duplicate your comments in multiple sections; the Committee will fully consider feedback whether it occurs in the open-ended section or the specific feedback section. Comments may be moved between sections by a clerk or arbitrator when appropriate.

Open-ended feedback

Purpose

What do you see as the purpose of discretionary sanctions? What do you view as the problems that discretionary sanctions were designed to solve?

Comments by community members (Purpose)

• If you ask me, Discretionary sanctions provide two pretty important purposes: structure and expediency. There's a lot that can be said for both, but I honestly think that the expediency part is the aspect the current regime find itself lacking of. I think that's what I want to talk about the most during this consultation, so expect to hear more from me on that topic. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:55, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Discretionary sanctions have a misleading name which took me some time to puzzle out. All admins have discretion which they use when applying any routine sanctions such as blocking an editor for vandalism. These special sanctions might be better described as unilateral sanctions as their key feature is that they may not be lightly reverted or changed by another admin. They were designed to make arbcom rulings effective by giving the advantage to the first-mover in the case of a controversial sanction. Previously, there was a second-mover advantage due to the way that edit wars between admins have traditionally been ruled per WP:WHEEL and this tended to make rulings such as civility paroles ineffective. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Effectiveness

What problems have discretionary sanctions been used to address? What uses have been more or less effective? What problems do you wish discretionary sanctions would better address, but are not currently suited to addressing?

Comments by community members (Effectiveness)

• In my opinion, the best feature of discretionary sanctions is the arbitration enforcement (AE) noticeboard. The sectioned format of AE is significantly more effective than the incidents noticeboard (ANI) for resolving complex disputes involving many editors, as it requires editors to supply evidence in the form of explained diffs, is resistant to disruptive editing (such as bludgeoning), and encourages involved editors to direct comments to uninvolved reviewers instead of arguing against each other. If discretionary sanctions were to be significantly overhauled, there should still be some dispute resolution venue that allows editors to opt in to using a sectioned format like AE. — Newslinger talk 00:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  I second this. The structured format of AE is probably the greatest thing to come from the DS system. Thryduulf (talk) 01:14, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Thirding this. AE is so much better than ANI, which is often a mess and often creates endless bickering. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Wie. Been saying this for years, but thought it best if someone else were to raise the matter here. El_C 11:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I do not particularly like AE, since it suffers from the same problems as arbitration cases, namely if a bunch of people have issues with a user they can uncover so many diffs in no time, that the user has no chance to respond in a comprehensive way; it is also very different to get anybody sanctioned for long-term continuous violations just below the bright line. However, there is one feature of AE which makes it much better than AN/ANI: every case there have to be concluded somehow, it can not go archived without being closed. (Technically, it can and sometimes does, but in practice cases always get closed, even if they need to be returned from the archive).--Ymblanter (talk) 12:00, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I mean, nobody likes WP:AE, but what's the alternative? I'm open to ideas. El_C 12:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  There is no alternative as such. However, the question is (this is still being discussed at the proposed decision page of the arb case about to be closed) whether the system is good. For example, instead of merely evaluating presented diffs, admins could go and search for their own diffs. I am not necessarily saying that this would be a better system (and certainly it would be more time consuming), but this is clearly something different. I mean, users (I guess) go to AE with two ideas: (i) I will explain my business, and wise admins would figure out what to do; (ii) I will get as many diffs so that the accused party will not have a chance. (ii) is more or less how the US legal system works; (i) is not how we operate but ideally - well, AE admins are supposed to be users with more experience and better ability to figure out what to do.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:49, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Sackerson loose at the beargarden

• Discretionary sanctions cover most of the English-speaking world, including America, the British Isles and SE Asia. By being extended to the pandemic and topics like the Holocaust, they now cover most of the globe and modern history too. It's not clear to me that they have had any effect in dealing with controversial topics which seem as intractable and as fraught as ever. We'd need to see some detailed statistics and analysis to establish whether they make any real improvement or whether they are just another layer of complexity per WP:CREEP. My personal experience is that they tend to chill topics when applied so that prudent editors will walk away rather than risk rough justice. For example, I mostly stopped working on pandemic topics when it became clear that RexxS was using such sanctions to police them in a draconian way.

RexxS' style of vigorous patrolling seemed to be the original intent of such sanctions – giving an admin the power to clean up a trouble-spot in the style of a Federal marshal. The AE noticeboard seems to have subverted this as it's a beargarden like ANI in which partisans feud and wikilawyer to try to influence the result. The admins act collectively at AE rather than individually and so it's a political process which returns to the original problem – some admins won't uphold arbcom rulings that they don't agree with. For example, I wrote an article about a BLM activist – Erica Garner. An AP partisan took exception to this and tried to delete it. I noticed that they seemed to be violating a topic ban and reported them at the AE noticeboard. This seemed to be a straightforward matter but there was much noise and confusion and the outcome seemed weak. I'm not an AP regular as I'm British and again the experience seemed chilling – such topics are best avoided and so will be left to the extremists.

Andrew🐉(talk) 12:51, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I have no objections to editors being allowed to opt-in to the structured form, but I actually prefer ANI as I find things like AE force me to bounce up and down and disrupts my understanding of the case. Requirement for diffs etc is of course a clear positive, but I'd say that either is/functionally is/should be the case on any conduct board. With regard to opting-in @Newslinger: this would seem to further enhance the first-mover advantage in multi-disputant (I was amazed to find out that was a word) cases. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:41, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Yeah, you said that before, but what's the actual basis in fact for that assertion? My experience, and I think it is shared by many others, is that outside of the really simple AE-at-ANI threads, the tendency is toward a dead-end downward spiral that only topic area regulars are able to follow. Then, there's the extra chaos brought by a no word/diff limit freeflow threaded discussion... No, structure (including word/diff limit) is better for AE matters that aren't immediately digestible. El_C 14:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• @El C: I mean of course I've said it before, but logically I'd say it again at the DS review page? In terms of having to bounce up and down - that seems to be a fairly obvious conclusion - if individuals only make a single statement it's fine, but where they're replying to comments made below them, obviously it has that effect. In terms of disruption, it's actually an opinion, "my understanding", but a look through the last 6 months of WT:ACN and Case Request (talk) and Evidence (talk) pages at ArbCom see similar views being raised. I couldn't answer as to what the majority view of the Community is on that particular facet - maybe I am in the minority, maybe I'm in the majority, hence why I was fine with editors requesting it. If you meant the last part of my comment, apologies for dragging you through all of the above! But if the first individual to post gets to set it as "AE-style" or "ANI style", while the other parties to a dispute would disagree, and feel it places them at a disadvantage, that seems to me to be inherently a first-mover case. I didn't mention the (no) word/diff limits, as my comment was primarily meant to be an ANI style with relevance to the facets discussed. I'd be open to further discussion on those particular areas. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Right, but I meant that I had challenged your position (substantively, I felt) when you did assert this before, but you never responded. Sorry, I'm still not seeing how ANI is anything but a recipe for disaster for most AE disputes that aren't of the simple (immediately parsable) variety — and even then, it often still turns quite chaotic by virtue of the format alone + an un/healthy dose of partisanship. El_C 14:56, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I may have missed that, but to answer yours, I'm not blind to the negatives of ANI and how separating aggressively disputing parties can ease the process. I would also say that AE is not immune to partisanship, but avoids some of that not merely by form but just by lesser numbers participating. That is partly because of its status as not the primary conduct dispute board and partly because of the complex difficulty of AE. Those are not the only factors, I'm well aware. There are likely areas where even I would say that the benefits of the AE split outweigh the negatives of it being harder to read through the whole case and understand how comments, rebuttals, and diffs apply to each other. I'd also say some of the benefits don't belong to the non-threaded style but just due to the other factors that are at ANI but not AE. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:22, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Confusion

Have you had confusing experiences with discretionary sanctions, or with editors or templates referencing discretionary sanctions? What were those experiences? What problems have resulted from DS confusion – either your own confusion or someone else's?

Comments by community members (Confusion)

• Every time I think DS is the right tool, I re-read the instructions. I typically get a bunch into it when my eyes glaze over and I realize I don't understand how it works well enough to try using it. So I back away and either use some other tool or just leave the mess for another admin with stronger DS-fu than I possess. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:25, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• Finding any manuals is a nightmare. I still do not know which template I must put on the talk page of the editor I sanction. Many administrators are unaware that all admin actions related to DS must be logged at WP:ACDSLOG, this includes a few arbitrators from the committee which made this mandatory. I can imagine that for an ordinary user using DS (for example, to report another user) seems similar to, I do not know, operating a submarine.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:04, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Essentially, there's the stuff at T:DSA, and there's {{AE sanction}} and {{uw-aeblock}}. Just have these links prominently displayed at the top of key AE pages (or in some FAQ), and I think we're good, no? El_C 12:39, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, it would be a good starting point (though I remember I spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out what goes to the article talk pages, and what goes to the user talk pages), but a comprehensive FAQ would be much better. The problem is usually nobody is willing to invest time to document such stuff (in particular, writing a FAQ).--Ymblanter (talk) 12:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Ymblanter, this is explained at the bottom of T:DSA — maybe also refactor it to the top...? El_C 12:55, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Even this would help (I guess many users do not make it to the bottom), but a visible link in all templates would be even better.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:02, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Wie. El_C 13:07, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I avoid using DS or handling DS for the reasons stated above. We have so many layers of sanction, if I can't just use standard admin discretion, I tend to let someone else handle it. We desperately need some simplification, not just for admin who are supposed to know all this, but for the editors on both sides of DS. I think the main issue is we have expanded "sanction" in so many areas over the years, it's hard to keep up unless you devote a lot of time to it. Not everyone wants to do that, which is why only a small subset of admin want to mess with it. No one's fault, it's just time to reorganize how we do special sanctions on the whole. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Pain points

Have there been any other pain points in your experience with discretionary sanctions? What, and where, were they?

Comments by community members (Pain points)

• For some really hot topics, or for some high-profile editors, AE really turns into a bloodbath with hundreds of diffs, some relevant, some not, which no admin is willing to wade through.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:07, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Sorry, what is a "pain point"? I don't think I've ever seen that word combination. Anyway, wrt to Ymblanter's point above: a more proactive enforcement of the word/diff limit is what's required here (and doing away with the practice of adding these through the back door via collapsed comments). El_C 12:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  El C, it's a buzzword, refers to a recurring problem that impacts your business and/or drives away customers, my understanding is usually that it's a process issue. For example, if your ecommerce website were set up such that an employee had to manually update the in-stock counts after a customer made a purchase, that would be a pain point for everybody - employees are spending time on an easily automated task, the in-stock counts might be wrong since an employee forgot to update them...that kind of thing. In this context, it's basically asking "what parts of DS are unnecessarily complicated?" ^{SubjectiveNotability} _{a GN franchise} (talk to the boss) 13:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I learned something new. Thanks! El_C 14:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I find that the burden of evidence on trying to appeal AE sanctions is insane. It's functionally "clear and present error by the sanctioning admin" - I find this unacceptably high. Particularly non-experienced editors have to clear a very tough hill to reduce sanctions. The methodology also has the perverse incentive of making an editor have to concede fault if they want to request an easing six months down the line, even if that requires them to lie. That's not just AE, but for other things (like, say, siteblocks applied under normal sanctions) getting there required a better burden of evidence. Here, if a sanction was questionable but not clearly overturned, the odds of an editor having to fake guilt are significantly higher. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:38, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• As you yourself note, this may be more of a WP:GAB spillover than an AE-specific matter (but with AE's extra complexity attached). El_C 14:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• On the latter point, that may well be the case. It is an issue, but I would say it is secondary to the first point (and if that was addressed, as a side effect, I'd mind less about it). It's not relevant here, but a discussion on how to handle Sock cases where someone is blocked on a "probable" and this exact issue is another minor bug bear of mine. One injustice at a time, though ;) Nosebagbear (talk) 14:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Section-by-section feedback on current procedure

In this section, please provide thoughts on individual sections and aspects of the discretionary sanctions procedure. Comments can include, but are not limited to: (a) support for the current section, (b) problems arising from the current section, (c) suggestions for improvements to the section, specific or general, and (d) provisions that should be addressed in the section, but are not currently included.

The fact that a section is included below does not mean that the Committee expects feedback on it; some sections that are likely to be uncontroversial are included for completeness.

Definitions and terminology

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Definitions as well as any other terminology-related feedback.

Authorisation

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Authorisation.

Comments by community members (Authorisation)

• All authorisations should be reviewed periodically to see if they are still required. Reviews should have a lightweight first step that can produce one of three outcomes relatively quickly without the need for much Committee effort - obviously still required (→ no further action), obviously no longer required (→ authorisation withdrawn), (lack of) need is not obvious (→ more detailed review). The more detailed review would lead to possible outcomes of keeping, withdrawing or modifying. Thryduulf (talk) 01:11, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd agree with this. Timeline for an initial review should perhaps be custom in the originating motion/case, with a standard timeline after then (some DS has specific reasons that trigger it that may indicate a logical review period). We'd need an initial run-through over a period of a few months, so as to avoid killing off the arbs, but that would also mean they were spaced out in the future, which would be good. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Guidance for editors

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Guidance for editors.

Comments by community members (Guidance for editors)

• I do not understand why AN is a permitted venue for DS requests/appeals. AE is so much superior in all respects.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Awareness

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Awareness.

Comments by community members (Awareness)

• The principal problem with WP:AWARE is all the wikilawyering over DS alert updates, with these often involving a loophole for topic area regulars, who, ironically, themselves may be more familiar with the respective arcane rules of this or that arbitration case than even yours truly (which says a lot!). Note, for example, my March 2021 ARCA, which involved an AE decision on my part being questioned because the annual DS alert update was 10 days overdue! El_C 03:17, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• "In the last twelve months, the editor has successfully appealed all their own sanctions relating to the area of conflict." - sanctions already expired can not be appealed, but #2 still includes them.--GZWDer (talk) 03:26, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• The intent of the awareness system is good, but it has become overly burocratic and isn't achieving it's goals - I think reform rather than abandonment is the ideal here. It should be extremely hard to wikilawyer out of awareness, so go with approximates, examples and ranges rather than absolute limits. If you were alerted three years ago and haven't had a break from the topic area then you are still aware, even without a formal reminder but if you made a handful of edits 8 months ago - attempting to wikilawyer about awareness should be regarded as evidence of awareness. Thryduulf (talk) 04:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Wie. El_C 10:53, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• The awareness system is broken. Discretionary sanctions are more frequent/regular currently than when implemented, I'd guess. It should change to an editnotice based system. The Committee should use its leverage, along with Jimbo's endorsement, to get the WMF to fix the editnotice issues in User:Suffusion of Yellow/Mobile communication bugs (in particular the fact that mobile editors can't see them). Then move to a system where DS is announced in page editnotices instead. Most people see editnotices, some might naturally skip over them due to banner blindness perhaps, but DS awareness isn't really (anymore) the kinda thing that absolutely needs user talk page acknowledgement via alerts. Some technical quirks of making sure they display would have to be worked out, but relatively minor detail. For example, for BLPs you'd probably want to add a sentence into Template:BLP editintro rather than add a new notice. Admins should still generally give warnings for conduct regardless, as they (probably) do now, as rectification is always better than sanctions, but it would cut through this bureaucracy. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:54, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Don't disagree with much of this proposed expansion, except its key assertion: not sure getting rid of user talk page DS alerts is the way to go here, actually. El_C 12:02, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
    • I don't feel user talk page alerts can be reformed. People can genuinely forget about DS authorisations in topic areas so reminders are appropriate. To fix the "10 days overdue" issue you'd have to add more exceptions/awareness criteria, which accounts for topic regulars but not irregular editors, which adds more 'awareness law' and complexity. In contrast, editnotices are always on pages so it's impossible to say you can't see them (unless using mobile atm, or using some kinda script to hide them). I dislike the ideology behind ds/alert in general; most times I see editors seeing them for the first time they're either confused or offended. I think informational non-fault alerts is an unintuitive concept. And given many DS sanctions would probably be made as normal actions if DS didn't exist (compared to just allowing the conduct to persist) I also don't think it's entirely necessary. But just my views on it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:18, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
      • Sure, but it doesn't seem that practical to me, to start picking and choosing which user requires a DS alert for extra emphasis. And needing to customize these here and there, if the entire set up were to be removed, is likely to prove to be a lot of work — maybe not for you so much, but for me, certainly. El_C 12:30, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
        • To clarify: in my suggestion above no editor would need a DS alert for extra emphasis. But the idea has a gap in cases where DS sanctions extend to 'edits relating to' (for example, WP:GENSEX could presumably apply all the way to userspace, which wouldn't have relevant page notices). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
          • I dunno, I think there's many users, new or just new to DS, that would benefit from a user talk page DS alert, which would also give them a chance to query about this or that DS-related matter (i.e. prompted by the "extra-emphasis," which may lead to quicker resolutions). El_C 12:53, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Agreed with those above that the issue is that wikilawyering is easy. I would simply extend the period for which the awareness lasts from one year to three or five years. If someone is genuinely not aware of something because they received a template four years ago and forgot then discretionary sanctions against them don't have to be used, and already shouldn't be unless there's a threat of them repeating the behaviour (sanctions are preventative, not punitive). This does give admins additional discretionary power, but not power in a different direction/scope to the power they already have, and I would deem it worth it for the reduction in bureacuracy and book-keeping needed. — Bilorv (talk) 12:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Alerts

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Alerts and related templates.

Comments by community members (Alerts)

• If the alerting system is to remain in place, the {{Ds/alert}} template should have a note indicating that editors can opt out of receiving alerts by placing the {{Ds/aware}} template on their user talk page. — Newslinger talk 00:34, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Wie. El_C 03:27, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this, I sometimes mention it when renewing one. —PaleoNeonate – 03:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Aware.alert wrongly says that an alert template "is purely informational and neither implies nor expresses a finding of fault". It implies and expresses a finding of fault because of the way it is used in practice. Someone wants to report you but you're not DS/aware so they can't, and instead they give the template. Someone you're arguing with gets angry and gives you an alert template mostly to be rude and off-putting (... but you're the troublemaker if you tell someone else that they're doing that as the template ostensibly does not imply fault). The template needs to be redesigned in visual style, prose content and usage so that it is genuinely not a warning/threat. I think of this 2018 proposal regularly, as it hit the nail on the head, but as far as I am aware no substantive change came from it. Bot delivery would be just one solution, but it's not healthy to continue a system where your "enemy" will tell you "better watch out, you can be sanctioned if you do any amorphously-defined 'disruption'". To pre-empt the reply "it already says in the template it doesn't imply bad behaviour, it's worded fine already", in almost every case I have seen a user receiving an alert with no further context does not sit down and read every word in detail emotionlessly, but sees the big scary template and reads "past disruption" and "sanctions" and goes "this user is threatening me".
  Rewording is needed to make the tone actively positive (as the 2018 proposal gives good suggestions for). For instance, rather than "Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.", say "Discussions in this topic area often become heated, so to keep people on-topic and maintain a positive atmosphere, users who violate Wikipedia's policies can be given discretionary sanctions by an administrator. Page-specific restrictions put limits on the number or type of changes that can be made without discussion" (just there to get the gist of tone across, not suggesting literally this wording). — Bilorv (talk) 12:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• Agree with mentioning {{Ds/aware}} opt out in alert banners, proposed by Newslinger above. If my talk page were to be dominated by annual alert banners for every topic it would make me look like a perennial problem editor. The banner should contain instructions on opting-out. -- M.boli (talk) 13:24, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Role of administrators

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Role of administrators.

Expectations of administrators

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Expectations of administrators.

Editor restrictions

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Sanctions and Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Broadly construed, and related templates.

Page restrictions

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Page restrictions and related templates.

Comments by community members (Page restrictions)

• In many cases a page restriction (or protection) is applied like candy and never revisited again. It might've been appropriate for the time it was applied, but I'm not a fan of indefinite restrictions or protections. They should all be expiring (1 yr max?) and reinstated if there continues to be a need for the action. I suspect many DS protections or 1RRs are currently unnecessary. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:05, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
  • The problem is that for many pages, a year will not do it, so unless there is a system that alerts about annual AE protection expiration, the level of disruption (including for BLPs) could prove taxing, at best, and disastrous, at worst. El_C 12:27, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
    • In what way? So on one page perhaps another edit war happens a few months after it's loosened, so the 1RR is reinstated for another year (or up to that). Maybe Donald Trump will, realistically, always need 1RR. But what about Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign, or 2020 United States Senate elections 1RR and consensus required due to edit warring over the order of images in infoboxes. Nov 2020 (unlikely still needed), 2020 United States presidential election in New Hampshire Semi-protected, 1RR, Consensus Required, due to edit warring over early results. Nov 2020 (early results were many months ago, unlikely still needed). Yet they're all indefinite, even though the rationale was time-based. The log is packed with such examples. Antithetical to "Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." imo. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:33, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
      • ProcrastinatingReader, my view is that there's too many perennial examples to even list, for multiple AE topic areas. You cite examples that bolster your proposal, but I don't think they're representative enough for such a drastic change. Certainly, a reminder to be more judicious about setting a realistic expiration, rather than defaulting to setting page-level restrictions not to expire, would be a good thing. But, again, I don't think your universal 1-year limit proposal would be beneficial. Too much hammer in search of a nail. El_C 12:49, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

        I like speaking in terms of concrete examples (in part so everyone's on the same page wrt what's being discussed, but also so vague concerns which may be addressable can be addressed rather than giving up & throwing in the towel). Perhaps an enforced 1 year maximum is too extreme (not imo but your, and the arbs', mileage may vary). But it's a starting point to a solution. There's a real problem with temporary issues being slapped with indefinite restrictions and protections which this review should address. And ideally in a retroactive manner, because there's a lot of pages with these currently. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:56, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

        It's a problematic approach (to use selective examples that bolster one's proposal), again, because of the sheer number of perennial examples involved. But I feel like I'm repeating myself at this point. Anyway, bottom line: to me, the risks outweigh the benefits. Of course, this does not preclude setting up a review mechanism, if it can be put into practice. El_C 13:05, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• There needs to be a more clear and well defined procedure for where and how editors can request that some pages be placed under DS restrictions (or even just to have talk page notices placed of pages being subject to DS). It's unclear at the moment if one needs to file an actual AE report for doing that, or just make a request at WT:AE or do something else. Nsk92 (talk) 13:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I think that for simple AE protection requests, WP:RFPP works well enough, but for some more complex ones, it's a bit too fast-pace of a venue. Still, most of the time, RfPP AE requests are of a simple nature (well, to me at least, which may well not be representative for others). Anyway, a new request mechanism for 1RR (etc.) + complex AE protection requests could prove useful. El_C 13:52, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I would prefer an easier method to have these reviewed, and quite possibly an automatic one. The list of pages it applies to is gigantic, and I think it's (much) more than a few selected examples that shouldn't be under the page limitations anymore. Perhaps one option would be to review instances where the edit count is under a certain number (say, 60 edits a year (5/month avg)). In more active pages, there should be enough editors so that if there is a general thinking that a change would be beneficial, there will be someone around confident enough to ask for it. Likewise, the likelihood of issues is higher on those pages (in absolute terms, if not per edit). Having the default restriction length set to a year might also help without preventing setting indef where needed - nudge theory can work well. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:51, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Enforcement of discretionary sanctions actions

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Enforcement.

Logging

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Logging.

Comments by community members (Logging)

• Just an observation: If one wants to check if an editor is sanctioned (eg, tbanned somewhere), as far as I can tell they need to check Wikipedia:Editing restrictions for direct ArbCom or community sanctions, then (for DS actions) WP:AELOG and a dozen WP:GS subpages. I'm not entirely sure this is ideal. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:01, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Spamming my proposal at AN#No log to record non-AE restriction violations. A dedicated, overarching search function could prove useful, in any case. El_C 14:15, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Dismissing an enforcement request

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Dismissing an enforcement request.

Appeals

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Appeals by sanctioned editors.

Modifications

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Modifications by administrators.

Other

This includes feedback on any other sections of the discretionary sanctions procedure, any other Arbitration Committee procedures that impact discretionary sanctions, any other templates and miscellaneous pages related to discretionary sanctions, and any sections that should be added to the discretionary sanctions procedure that do not relate to one of the above sections.

Comments by community members (Other)

• The Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions page (WP:ACDS) is in need of a lead section that summarizes the system without requiring the reader to skim the entire page to understand it. The "nutshell" template at the top tells the reader what DS is, but does not inform the reader about how DS works. Without a lead section, the WP:ACDS page can be intimidating, especially since it starts with a list of definitions and is written in a more formal tone than many policies and guidelines. — Newslinger talk 00:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• The templates contain a lot of nonsense words that don't seem relevant or make sense. They should be rewritten from scratch. Additionally, some of them just aren't intuitive imo. The alerts, for example, always seem to catch people off (in particular "It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.") probably because people aren't naturally used to the idea of informational notices to alert people to sanctions whilst (supposedly) no-fault implied. (links back to why {{ds/alert}} should be scrapped) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• A bit OT, but can we please refactor WP:ARCA threads into a dedicated archive? (Sorry for the bold, but I've raised this multiple times, though granted, more as an aside.) El_C 12:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  El C, this has been discussed recently on the list on your suggestion, but no conclusion was reached. I'll post on the list about your suggestion and see if I can get it going again. As there is the PD for RexxS, the open ARCA and this going on it might be a while before a decision is made on what to do. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:26, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Oh, cool, Dreamy Jazz, that's good to know. I'll just stress that sometime I end up spending an inordinate amount of time trying to locate this or that relevant ARCA, so an extra- the sooner the better nudge. El_C 13:33, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Currently authorized discretionary sanctions topics

This includes feedback on any specific authorizations of discretionary sanctions, including housekeeping arguments that a particular discretionary sanctions authorization should be rescinded.