Hi I would like to bring up an issue with office actions that was brought up elsewhere. There has been an issue on commons with User:Saibo tagging images from WMF staff. He disagreed with a particular office action taken by WMF staff. He gives an explanation with relevant diffs here[1]. The issue is rather complicated, and the specifics of it seem to be in secret. And that is mostly the problem here. He asked for an explanation is several places, but so far, the response from Philippe, and the rest of the staff has been that office actions are not explained - that is the crux of the entire offered explanation.
Office actions have historically been used to blank or delete pages, the current listed policy on Meta and commons[3][4] make no mention of Global bans or blocking a user locally, or even globally. I have not known for office actions to extend to users and global bans, the last I know was a discussion going on with Steven on Meta about this. This might be its first usage. The proposed policy[5] and open RfC[6], have not concluded yet. The RfC received comments just today. Is that proposed policy already being used on commons? Office actions, have been limited to blanking pages, though sometimes contentious, they have been exercised with caution. It is a different ball-game when it goes from just blanking a page, to instantly blocking a user globally, and giving no explanation to community members who have known that user for years. if it is stretched to banning a 2 year old user with no explanation beyond, "OFFICE ACTION" it is going to do more than just raise eyebrows. I understand the specifics of the issue here, but banning users with absolutely no explanation can not be this widely accepted. Regards Theo [1]http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Saibo/WMF [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Philippe_(WMF)#Why_did_you_block_a_user_without_a_reason.3F [3]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Office_actions [4]http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Office_actions [5]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_bans [6]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Request_for_comment/Global_bans _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
