Wikipedia:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/Improved tools and workflows to report harassment/Background research

The following are links to discussions and information pertinent to the WMF's Anti-Harassment Tools team 2018 project of building improved tools and workflows to report harassment.

2017 Insights survey
From the 2017 CE Insights survey:
 * In the past six months, how often did you report to the following groups for being harassed or attacked:
 * Functionaries (117.01) — 32% yes
 * Other volunteers (117.02) — 36% yes
 * WMF staff (117.03) — 9% yes
 * Staff of chapters or affiliates (117.04) — 9% yes
 * To what extent was the problem resolved the last time you reported it to:
 * Functionaries (119.01) — 60% not at all resolved
 * Other volunteers (119.02) — 56% not at all resolved
 * WMF staff (119.03) — 76% not at all resolved
 * Staff of chapters or affiliates (119.04) — 79% not at all resolved
 * Overall, how useful was the response you received the last time you reported it to:
 * Functionaries (118.01) — 54% not at all useful
 * Other volunteers (118.02) — 48% not at all useful
 * WMF staff (118.03) — 77% not at all useful
 * Staff of chapters or affiliates (118.04) — 75% not at all useful
 * The following community processes are used for dealing with user behavior. To what extent do they need improvement?
 * Tools and processes for reporting users (113.01) — 50% Quite a bit+
 * Noticeboards (113.02) — 43%
 * Blocking tools (113.03) — 43%
 * Admin selection and review process (113.04) — 48%
 * Policies (113.05) — 49%
 * Other (113.06) — 58%
 * Banning tools (113.07) — 43%

IdeaLab submissions

 * Making it an option to 'flag' an editor, after which a moderator would come and see whether the user should be blocked
 * Make it very easy to report harassment to an anti-harassment force
 * Simplify ways to expose overly-subjective arguments violating WP:NPOV and WP:CIVIL, using "POV-.." and "UW-.." templates designed for discussion pages.
 * Harassment of Editors of an Article (talk page templates as reporting)
 * Stop It Now! Button
 * The Protection of Collaborative Information (anonymous reporting)
 * way of reporting harassment from an admin
 * Simpler, more accessible, feedback options. (buttons to report or rate comments)
 * Require notification first to encourage editors to attempt to resolve things amicably before reporting them for a ban discussion
 * Prompt and Quick Response to Reporting
 * Confidential harassment support 24-7
 * Community discussion on harassment reporting

English Wikipedia Talk page comments

 * Wikipedia_talk:Administrators’_noticeboard & Archives
 * Archiving issue? — confusion on how archiving works (there are many similar sections)
 * A friendly reminder about WP:WALLOFTEXT might be helpful?
 * Discussion archived without closure — Confusion about archival, ‘Resolved’ template
 * Very unsatisfied with process. Could changed be made? (Better for Community Pump?) — proposes that only admins should participate, that participation is mandatory, reduce non-admin activity, and to better signify which users are admins
 * Minimum experience on thread closing — Proposes that only tenured users should be able to archive discussions
 * Please do not One-Click Archive threads until at least 24 hours after close
 * Closing - is it really always necessary? — discussion about making ‘closing’ of threads mandatory before archival
 * Usernames in ANI headings — what should reported cases by titled?
 * A guideline on what to do if an ANI report goes stale?
 * Page is reaching near 750KB and going towards 1MB as of how it is increasing now — performance and mobile data concerns


 * Village Pump
 * ThePahntomBot reporting to noticeboards — a bot that automatically reports identifyable abuse. But why not just use filters?
 * ANI discussion structure and lack thereof — a few suggestions on how to add structure to ANI (limiting word count, use RFC/U’s form/template, limit scopecreep of discussions, separate admin and non-admin comments)
 * Organization of WP:AN, WP:ANI, and similar noticeboards (including this one!) — Use sub-pages
 * Formatted ANI Discussions — use strict forms. Heavily opposed
 * Proposing DRN for user conduct issues — alternative method for reporting and discussing user conduct issues
 * Classified index or subject-tagging for Village Pump discussions — System for tagging old sections for later retrieval.
 * Getting to more productive discussions at AN/I using encryption — using a clerk as an intermediary to keep the discussion civil
 * Automatic notification if a thread is started about an editor on AN/I
 * WP:ARBPOL, Harassment, and Private hearings — opposed proposal to keep more information private after a private ArbCom case.


 * Other
 * en:Wikipedia talk:Volunteer Response Team § Validate OTRS tickets — discussion about displaying some private submission information publicly after closure
 * en:Wikipedia:Dispute resolution/2017 RfC — Discussion about calcifying some aspects of Mediation and dispute resolution. Overall rejected, but the discussion was engaging.
 * en:Wikipedia:2017 ANI reform RfC — Strongly opposed discussion about adding structure to ANI (word limits, templates, waiting period, clerks, and an edit filter)
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Conflict Resolution — Discussion about how a WikiProject aimed at resolving conflict between users could operate. Seems to be mostly dormant.
 * en:Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution § Moderated Dispute Resolution vs. Formal Mediation — Discussion (amongst many others) about why there are so many different forms of dispute resolution
 * en:Wikipedia_talk:Harassment § Need for a better mechanism for private reporting — a designated address to email such private information in the case of COI or undisclosed paid editing
 * en:Wikipedia_talk:Harassment § Flowcharts — Making help/project page instructions more straightforward for all users involved