I see two issues here:
1. Lack of logging of autodisabled accounts means that confusions such
as this may arise, but more especially, we appear to lack any way to
track for false positives of accounts from new users who do mean well,
who instead of going to someone to bring up the issue, simply give up at
that point - this is a major issue. It sounds like this feature will be
going out soon, though, so that's good.
2. What the fuck is going on with the Code of Conduct (committee)?
* How are variants of 'wtf' inherently problematic? They convey a
generally very relevant meaning ('I don't get this', 'this makes no
sense', 'this is just strange', etc), which, while it could be used as
part of a larger attack on a contributor, by itself is something we
/need/ to be able to say.
* Did anyone actually reach out to MZMcBride before blocking him with an
explanation as to why the 'wtf' was a problem, or ask him to otherwise
fix it or amend his behaviour? Immediate escalation to banning, unless
to prevent actively ongoing disruption, is nothing but disruptive. Users
need to be told why what they're doing is a problem and given a chance
to fix it on their own - only if they refuse or persist doing that same
thing after can that possibly become an instance actively ongoing
disruption and merit a ban, which given that this appears to have come
out of the blue only several days after the comment was made does not
even remotely seem to be the case here.
* Transparency and actionability of CoCC actions/warnings in general
seems to be very lacking. This doesn't just mean that it's an issue that
the information as to why action has been taken isn't available to
everyone for scrutiny (though it is - barring extremes, this is not just
the wikimedia way, but also basically the only way to ensure a body
doesn't wind up with effectively absolute power to do whatever with no
accountability whatsoever), but that said information often isn't even
available to the one being taken action against is downright
counterproductive, as they thus have nothing to go on. The warnings
become meaningless and unactionable (as was the case with the prior
warnings MZMcBride has received for unrelated... things), the blocks
just confusing (as this one is).
Ironically this also actually sort of comes back to the main issue with
the lack of logging - an established user like MZMcBride has recourse to
actually call out this and complain, thus bringing the issue to
attention. Any newcomer who gets bitten by this, however, is almost
certainly not going to... and the rest of us will never have any idea
anything even happened. So this needs to be addressed, not just for his
sake, but for everyone else we DON'T know about.
-I
On 08/08/18 13:01, Alex Monk wrote:
So are we supposed to be careful about using 'wtf' now?
On Wed, 8 Aug 2018, 13:53 MZMcBride, <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote:
Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
I disabled the account and now I disabled it again. It's part of a CoC
ban. We sent the user an email using the "Email to user" functionality
>from mediawiki.org the moment I enforced the ban.
We rather not to discuss details of cases publicly but I feel this
clarification is very much needed.
Ah, I found the e-mail:
Subject: Temporarily ban from phabricator
Hello,
We received reports about your comments in phabricator. While we
encourage criticism and productive comments to improve the software,
comments like "What the fuck" do not contribute to the discussion and
turns the discussion from respectful criticism to folks swearing at other
folks.
We asked you to stop making such comments that do not contribute to the
discussion. We have no choice to issue a temporarily ban from
phabricator. We hope you notice this type of behaviour is not welcome in
our technical spaces.
Please read Code of conduct in depth:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
Best
This email was sent by TechConductCommittee to MZMcBride by the "Email
this user" function at MediaWiki. If you reply to this email, your email
will be sent directly to the original sender, revealing your email
address to them.
This is re: <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742>.
Greg Varnum created a mess, inappropriately closed a valid bug, and
removed its parent task because he didn't want to even acknowledge the
bug. I expressed exasperation with his actions, particularly gaslighting
volunteers (cf.
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2018-August/090841.html
), and Greg then removed himself as the task assignee and hasn't responded
on either the task or the wikimedia-l mailing list since. And there's
still German text prominently and confusingly at the top of
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/>. Amazing.
MZMcBride
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