Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy

Case Opened on 20:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Case Closed on 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Statement by Radiant!
There is a proposal on Protecting children's privacy, which boils down to protective blocking of accounts from people known to be children, iff they post personal information on themselves. Now I know it's not the ArbCom's job to set policy; but the dispute here is that one party claims that this proposal has consensus and therefore is policy/guideline, whereas the other party claims that objections to the proposal have never been addressed and therefore it's neither consensual nor policy/guideline.

There are a few minor issues of behavior on either side and allegations of various violations of civility, but none of that has been so disruptive as to need ArbCom intervention. I would like to keep personal issues out of this. However, the situation needs some outside party to determine whether consensus has been reached.

Clearly mediation is not helpful here, and a RFC would only result in a repetition of the already-lengthy debate. Since the proposal has a legal angle, Brad Patrick has been e-mailed, but has so far declined to comment. Hence, a request for arbitration to put this matter to rest. The talk page is rather lengthy, but most of it is summarized in the bottom two sections, labeled "Snowball clause" and "Accepted?".

I request all involved parties to leave personal issues out of this. Everybody involved has been working in good faith. It is easy for the subject of protecting children to raise tempers and there have been various accusations from both sides on the relevant talk page, but that really is not the issue here.

 &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  18:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Thatcher131
In as much as I wrote the first draft of this proposal (following the Cute 1 4 u situation) I would like some version of it adopted. However, it seems to me that if you don't know whether consensus has been reached, it hasn't.

Question to Radiant! I have not been following the page lately. Has there been a straw poll among contributors, and what were the results? How many editors in total have expressed an opinion one way or the other? Do you think it would be helpful to run a new poll, advertised heavily on noticeboards, community portals and the village pumps, to bring in a wider view? -- Thatcher131


 * There has been a kind of straw poll, by asking everyone to briefly restate their position. The main proponent of the proposal has made a count of people who commented on the talk page, and found between 61% and 65% in support, depending on the counting method. He has concluded (via the "supermajority" clause on WP:CON) that this indicates acceptance of the policy.
 * I do not personally believe in polls on policy because good policy is arrived at through compromise, and polls preclude compromise. Note that (from whatlinkshere) the debate has already been widely advertised, so I do not think that further advertising would help.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  18:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I think this diff is instructive regarding whether any straw poll was made, and why not. Herostratus 01:13, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't obfuscate the issue; you made a straw poll, canvassed everyone to vote in it, and concluded it had 61%-65% support.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:37, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf
I am one of the people who does not support any version of this policy that has been proposed. There are many reasons for this, including censorship, assumption of good faith, disrcimination, unenforceability, NPOV, lack of clarity of purpose and doubt that it would acutally be able to solve the problems it claims it desires to. There is not, as far as I have been able to tell, even consensus on such basic things as whether the problems it tries to solve exist or not. There has been extensive attempts at debate on the talk page, made difficult by refactoring and, imho, excessive summarising. Those opposing the policy have asked many questions and expressed many concerns, almost all of these have been repeatedly ignored. There has not been any apparent attempt recently to make changes to the policy to seek consensus.

Recently there was near unanimous agreement that consensus had not been reached and was unlikely to be reached. The policy was first porposed on 26 August, and the debate has hardly moved anywhere since the beginning of September, despite being advertised on the current discussions template since the start. Following this the Rejected tag was added to the page, with the edit summary pointing to the talk page. This was reverted with a comment to see talk, with no posts made to the talk page. The tag was then reinstated with another comment pointing to the recent talk page discussion. Later on the tag was again removed and another extensive summary made of the page, which claims a supermajority of editors in support (although the count seems to be of people who have expressed support in principle or for parts of one version of the policy, as well as those who support the current version of the page).

To avoid another revert war (a previous addition of the Rejected tag was met with a revert war and administrator's ignoring page protection), the tag was not replaced at the issue was brought here for clarification. Thryduulf 19:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Note that I will be away from Wikipedia from later today until the 22nd or 23rd of October (I'm going on holiday to Spain). Thryduulf 09:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by User:Herostratus
This is quite an interesting request. There are no sanctions being requested here. As I read it, it's asking the ArbCom to serve as a sort of court to weigh in (set 'case law' if you will) on the question: can a community-initiated proposal become policy when there is not near-unanamity and, if so, how? This isn't really in the ArbCom's brief, but it's a good idea anyway, if they're willing to take it.

Just to clarify, we're talking about policy proposals generated from regular editors in the community. Naturally, policies requested or required by the Foundation are treated differently.

Granting that no one person or group can really answer these questions definitively, some questions which I wish I knew the answer to include: is near-unanimous support or absence of of significant contention required for a community-initiated policy to be considered accepted? If not, what methods are available to determine if a proposal is accepted? What is the role of show-of-hands in this process? Should this be part of the methodology for determining whether a policy is accepted, or not? If so, how much of a part? If not, can analysis and categorization of existing comments be used instead? Should show-of-hands be weighed differently than it is in, say, XfD, RfA, etc.? If show-of-hands is permitted, what constitutes a supermajority sufficient to have significant weight in the determination process? 60%? 70%? 80%? 90%?

At Consensus we have "the numbers mentioned as being sufficient to reach supermajority vary from about 60% to over 80% depending upon the decision, with the more critical processes tending to have higher thresholds." Policy proposals may be considered to be "more critical", yes? But are all policy proposals equally critical?

In this case, at the last snapshot taken, best guess at acceptance was running between 61% and 68%, depending on how you count (Details are at Wikipedia talk:Protecting children's privacy). That seems awfully low for a policy. On the other hand, it's not a major policy; it would affect very few editors. Furthermore, the discussion continues to be ongoing; I see that new editors have come to the discussion. For all I know the numbers have climbed into the 70's; or maybe they've gone the other way.

Here's another question: when is it permitted to cut off debate and tag a proposal as Rejected?

In this case, we had (in my opinion) a fruitful, ongoing, and functional discussion going on the proposal. Changes were being suggested and made. Acceptance level numbers were not being taken but were surely running in the majority. A few editors came in and decided that the discussion had gone on long enough and was now just a waste of time (I like it when other editors tell me how I can spend my time on Wikipedia) and, prematurely in my view, slapped a Rejected tag on the proposal (and then requested protection to boot).

So one question is, is it not best to leave a proposal in the Proposed state until it would be quite certain to most any reasonable person that it is clearly dead and not accepted? Should not editors give the benefit of the doubt to leaving a proposal in the Proposed state? What's the big hurry?

After all, if a article is protected in the "wrong version", no really great harm is done (provided the article doesn't contain libel etc.). It can all be sorted out in good time. If, however, a proposal is marked as Rejected, and especially if protected in that state, this is fatal. It can take a week or more to get mediation or whatever and sort it all out. By then discussion will have died out and the Rejected tag becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, no one, and especially editors coming new to the page, is going to spend time and energy discussing a rejected proposal. So here's a case where "easily undone" does not apply.

This almost happened here. (Diffs  .) In this case, it only didn't happen because I edit-warred and also edited the protected version of an article in which I was involved, both of which are no-no's, especially the latter. Obviously I don't like doing that, but what other relief is available? ((Editprotected}} can't be used in an edit-war situation, I don't think. Suppose I was up on charges for doing this? How would the ArbCom rule?

Well, I don't expect the ArbCom to answer all this. Nevertheless the ArbCom's ruling on the question at hand (is the proposal accepted, rejected, or still in the proposed state) will allow some of the answer to be inferred, I guess. Herostratus 06:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Reply to BigNate
 * As for requesting the ArbCom to take a look at my use of the sysop bit, you're referring to this diff: (note protected status), and this  and also I guess this . I've already owned up to that and if the ArbCom wants to sanction me, I'll take one for the team, but I hope they at least advise me on what the heck I was supposed to go, given this immediately preceding diff  (reversion of page to "correct version" followed by request for protection) given that that is not an an easily undoable action as I've pointed out.  Herostratus 20:33, 15 October 2006 (UTC) extraneous material redacted out 12:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by John Reid
I am loathe to comment on this issue but I am even more loathe to see it crop up on RfArb. This is another case of core principles in collision; there can be no winners. I read through proposal and associated talk page before this RfArb was opened; I saw no way to usefully comment. I believe I have had nothing to do with this topic at all.

I hope it is not necessary to summarize the conflict. There is a conflict over deeply held values; that is enough. This is complicated by the fact that the discussion is a free buffet for lawyers. I can easily construct the legal argument that simply by having the discussion we are now forced to do something about the issue, since we can no longer claim simple ignorance. I can also construct a contradictory argument that it is utterly impossible for us to do anything without exposing ourselves. If I were twins and admitted to the Florida bar, I could eat for a year on this. As usual in this sort of thing, the only possible outcome is a parking lot full of fat lawyers and a banquet hall in shambles. I'd rather not toss another load of fertilizer onto this mess. Let's just say that there's a highly sensitive policy issue under discussion.

I object to any thought of ArbCom taking this case. This is an unacceptable broadening of ArbCom's authority. ArbCom's ambit is insufficiently bounded as it is. If Wikipedia is not to degenerate into a simple despotic autocracy, there must be things that ArbCom cannot consider. In this case, ArbCom does not merely steal a policy initiative away from the community; it encroaches on the legitimate role of WMF Board and legal counsel. This will set a monstrous precedent.

There are, at the moment, hundreds of policy initiatives floating around -- I don't use the word "proposals" because many are not labeled as proposals, some are explicitly labeled as being "something" else, and at least a good quarter of them are political/social movements with no particular written page at core. These are all the responsibility of the community to work out -- to talk, to argue, perhaps to fight. Some parties to these discussions will go out of bounds -- and admins then have a duty to block combatants until they COOL down. Some of these discussions, unfortunately, will degenerate into WHEEL wars -- and then ArbCom has a legitimate role to play, since wheel-warring admins must be, at the limit, de-adminned and the Stewards who can do this are not likely to listen to anybody's request but ArbCom's. We need ArbCom to act at this extreme; we need to preserve its limited ambit so that it remains useful there.

Community policy is decided upon by community consensus. The mechanism by which this consensus forms is itself hotly contested but this is the method to which we are committed. To the extent that this proposal appears to demand a change to WMF legal policy, it is in the hands of the Board and counsel. There is no "air" between these two into which ArbCom can squeeze itself.

This RfArb opens a bottomless can of worms. I urge ArbCom members to refuse to hear it and all community members to protest it. John Reid 14:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I should have said, and I do, that conduct of participants may be, of course, legitimate grounds for RfArb. John Reid 15:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * This RfArb has been opened against my concerns; I see that expressing them has made me an "involved party". Never having touched the issue in question before, I think this is absurd.


 * The substantive issue is a pool of legal quicksand. If you're not a lawyer and you offer up an opinion about this, I say you're being foolish. WMF has legal counsel to handle this. Again, RfArb is only appropriate in respect of editor conduct in this affair; I have no existing opinion about this and don't really wish to form one. I've expressed myself fully on this RfArb now and unless I'm going to be banned for that, I'm outta here. John Reid 11:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by BigNate37
Being the first editor to have stated in so many words that WP:CHILD was not gaining and could not gain consensus back on 9 September 2006, I feel I should comment here. The discussion has gone round in circles for over a month with little new ground made—there are two or three distinct points of view for where this policy should end up and all efforts at compromise have been shot down quickly. Some of these compromises have even been proposed several times by different editors—this does not constitute progression of the discussion. This proposal would have already been rejected if Herostratus had not abused his sysop bit in his edit warring on the then-protected page. I have made several statements which are ignored and archived or rejected as "vocal and unreconciled" by Herostratus who plays referee and chief opponent to myself and those who share my position in the discussion. I have given a thorough treatment of why WP:CHILD has been rejected here, which was archived off of the talk page with little discussion.

I support the ArbCom to weigh in on whether the proposal fits the definition of rejected or accepted (or neither). Furthermore, I strongly urge the ArbCom to take a very close look at the way in which Herostatus uses his sysop bit and whether he can fairly act as an official in a discussion in which he is deeply involved. I believe his actions consistute a conflict of interest and abuse of power.  Big Nate 37 (T) 17:55, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Please understand that I am in no way condoning anyone else's actions in my excluding them from my comment seen above. To clarify one thing about my comments on 9 September, at the time I was unaware as to how policy proposals were denied policy status.  Big Nate 37 (T) 21:59, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Kaldari
The process of guaging concensus for this policy has been completely non-standard. In fact I would say it has been confusing, inconsistant, and arbitrary. While the lengthy discussion has been ongoing, Herostratus created a "count" of opinions based on his analysis of the debate and declared that the majority of people involved in the debate were supporting it. There was no vote, and certainly no widely publicized vote with a deadline. In fact Herostratus' count doesn't even list who he is counting. There is certainly no consensus on this policy and Herostratus' attempt to proclaim it as such is not in line with Consensus, established conventions and procedures, or even common sense. If it is not clear whether or not there is consensus, why not have an actual vote? I suspect the reason is because it is rather clear there is no consensus on this issue and a vote would only crystalize this fact. Kaldari 19:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Clerks Notes

 * Recused as a party. Thatcher131 11:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)

 * Accept, even tho our decision will be misused to wale on opponents in all future attempts to reach consensus ➥the Epopt 18:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept Fred Bauder 14:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. Charles Matthews 18:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. Jayjg (talk) 21:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 06:28, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

=Final decision= All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Wikipedia is not a soap opera
1) Reasonable measures which forestall the drama associated with interactions between naive children, predatory pedophiles, and sting operations by law enforcement are appropriate.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Ban for disruption
2) Users who seriously disrupt Wikipedia may be banned. In the context of this case, users who self-identify as children, project a sexually tinged persona, and disclose personal information such as links to sites devoted to social interaction are engaging in disruptive behavior and may be banned.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Consequences of absence of policy
3) If there is no specific policy which addresses a problem, it is handled on a case by case basis.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Editing by children
4) Users, including children, are permitted to edit anonymously without submitting identifying information.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Reasonable efforts to protect privacy of children
5) Reasonable efforts to discourage children from disclosing identifying personal information are appropriate.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy
1) Protecting children's privacy is an attempt to adopt the principles of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act to the particular circumstances of Wikipedia.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Current practice
2) When a user self-identifies as a child, especially if they provide personal information, the matter is frequently a subject of discussion among administrators, Requests_for_arbitration/Protecting_children%27s_privacy/Evidence. Sometimes the user is immature and ends up being blocked for disruption. If they are not disruptive, personal information may be removed and the user counseled.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Failure to achieve consensus
3) Protecting children's privacy and alternative policies addressing the same matters have failed to achieve consensus.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Self-identified children
4) Self-identified children may be children, adult predators, trolls, adult privacy-watchers testing our policies, or law enforcement personnel.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Continued work needed
1) The community is encouraged to continue working to achieve an acceptable formulation of Protecting children's privacy, or an alternative, which addresses problems presented by disruptive users, while avoiding the creation of a hostile atmosphere for children who are editing in good faith.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Ban for disruption
2) Users who disrupt Wikipedia by posing as children, projecting a provocative persona, and disclosing personal information may be banned on a case by case basis.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Counseling
3) Users who appear to be children editing in good faith who disclose identifying personal information may be appropriately counseled. Deletion and oversight may be used in appropriate cases to remove the information.


 * Pass 5-0 at 17:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)