AJ, > "Just because volunteers are competent enough to deal with something doesn't > mean that they should be."
Can you clarify that, please? > "Again, the difference here is between these > sensitive cases being handled by trained, experienced, legally accountable > professionals, or by volunteers who are part-time at best." I am puzzled by your lack of faith in the quality of work of our peers in the community. Why be so negative? We have produced Wikipedia; surely that is evidence that volunteers can be highly capable. Certainly not all volunteers are, of course, and some of them end up banned for good reason. But in general, I think there is good reason to have faith in our peers. I'm not sure how volunteers are not "legally accountable"; perhaps you could clarify that point. > How much time are you expecting the community-vetted volunteers to put in > here? Do we not already have our own responsibilities? I agree with you that a good use of WMF funds is to pay staff to work on investigations and enforcement. This can be done in such a way that there is always some kind of community element in a decision-maker role regarding whether to ban a member of the community. In addition to staff resources, I would like to see WMF put more effort into expanding the population of the volunteer community, particularly long-term volunteers who gain sufficient knowledge and experience to serve in higher-skill roles such as CU/OS, technical development, outreach to GLAM+STEM organizations, and mentorship of new Wikimedians. > You say that the current > system is broken, because... why? I say that the current system is inappropriate (not broken) because WMF should not be making decisions about who is banned from the community. The purpose of WMF is to serve and nurture the community, not to rule it. > The community doesn't deal with it? > That's a good thing. The community shouldn't need to deal with this stuff. > It's a blessing, not a curse. I agree that having staff involved in investigations and enforcement is a good thing. But as I said, I find it inappropriate and unwise for WMF to (1) have a largely opaque process for making these decisions and (2) exclude the community from the decision-making process. > It might be worth explaining some more of the > bans process publicly, perhaps on a wiki page, to alleviate fears that it's > just being used to get rid of people that the Foundation doesn't like. I agree with you. I think that global bans are reasonable options in some cases. In terms of quantity, I would like to see more of them and to see bans initiated more quickly, such as against undisclosed COI editors who violate the terms of service. I would also like to see better technical tools for enforcing bans. But I want the community, in some fashion (probably through some kind of committee, as has been suggested elsewhere in this thread) to make the decision about whether to impose a global ban, in consultation with WMF. Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
