Wikipedia talk:Abuse response/Guidelines/August 2010

Scope (unresolved)
I propose adding: "Contact is made with the responsible organization when the abuse is severe enough, such as when a series of blocks for the same user has proven ineffective in stopping abuse from that particular user." bsmithme 02:02, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Support, reasonable outline, but still flexible enough to allow volunteers to use their common sense and best judgment. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Project Co-ordinators (unresolved)
I'll keep this short and to the point, the tool developers given their role in maintaining and developing the interface as well as their need to be able to use all functions of the interface, will in effect be co-ordinators on top of the 3 afromentioned project co-ordinators. This is how ACC works. Thoughts?  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 05:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose. There currently are no specifics outlined here, and that was by design (although, we can certainly change that). I don't believe we need more than three coordinators (in fact, one may be in order) and administrative setup on the Toolserver can be granted outside of being a coordinator.  A coordinator is just meant to be a few people who coordinate and serve as the go-to people.        bsmithme    06:43, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Sigh, The toolserve interface will have an admin permission that will allow alteration for permissions for other users. Developers will inherit this automatically and I'm sure Project co-ordinators will also want this access so why not blur the lines together and made them more or less the same thing? Understand that when the interface is developed I expect a large increase in interest in AR.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 07:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * New idea. The idea of a "coordinator" and "administrator" are, in my view, redundant. If there is any coordinating work to be done, the tool administrators (and active/interested participants) may discuss the issue on the tool or on IRC. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to add a discussion board section to the interface that will be be accessible by those with tool administrator permissions. The two user classes are also very similar. This redundancy will only create confusion and hinder the day to day operation of abuse response in the future. To sum it up, I propose that the user classes be divided into: Reporter, which will be give to all Wikipedia editors that are not blocked, Investigator, which will be given to active participants in abuse response, and Administrator, which will be given to tool administrators. Thoughts? Netalarm   happy holidays!  03:37, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I support Netalarm's proposal. I think it's logical and effective. Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 05:00, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as striking "coordinators" and using "administrators" instead, no argument there. Coordinators was just a carry-over from what was used before.  bsmithme 00:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

<outdent: I said this on IRC earlier, I'm not sure if we want to call them coordinators or administrators though part of me tends to lean towards coordinators mostly to avoid to much confusion with sysops on wiki. This is slightly easier to do when we have the tool up like ACC does (who does indeed call them tool administrators) but even there they have some confusion among people who still think tool administrator = sysop. On the other side of it however I think we have to remember that in the end we wanted these people deciding who gets access to the tool, which means they are by definition the tool administrators who have the technical ability to actually do that, and the tool administrators are by definition part of this group (unless we want to try and tell certain administrators not to use the promote option, but that leaves it open for abuse.

Personally, in the spirit of consensus, I sort of like the idea of requiring at least a bit of discussion to allow a new user onto the tool given the amount of trust put into them. Part of me wonders if we even want to code it a bit into the tool. Perhaps requiring 2 tool admins to say promote for the software to do it?  James  ( T | C )  03:14, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer review (approved)
I propose adding the following sentence: "All investigators are subject to peer-review and new investigators should be watched for quality assurance purposes." bsmithme   08:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment The peer review would mean that all new investigators will be reviewed by all existing investigators? I think the tool administrators should be sufficient in this area. And I agree that new investigators should be watched in the beginning. Netalarm   happy holidays!  03:39, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Agree with Netalarm, I would like this review process to be by tool administrators. I'm mostly concerned about the logistics of asking all investigators to watch all investigators, it would be best to centralize this role. Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 05:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support after additional discussion off-wiki. This would allow for greater oversight and transparency in action by investigators. Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 05:57, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support Same reason as Master runner. Same discussion actually =D. Netalarm   happy holidays!  21:16, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support definitely needed at certain levels, there are some things that we want to keep as private as possible (User IP info etc) but the more transparency the better.  James  ( T | C )  03:16, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Selection process (approved)
I propose adding the following sentence, before "Many of these..." and read: "Interested editors should nominate themselves, after which they will undergo consideration by the project coordinators." bsmithme   06:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. The self nomination of interested editors would happen on Wikipedia, right? This way the process would be open for everyone else to see. Netalarm   happy holidays!  03:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. If there were a well-established place for this nomination to occur within wikipedia, it would be easy to keep track of who's who and past events. Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 05:03, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Note. As you probably already know, I've created a page for nominations to occur. See Abuse response/Nominate. The exact "requirements" are still in draft, as is the questions that are being asked. Netalarm   happy holidays!  05:16, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Criteria (unresolved)
Blocks do not concern me in the least, for I have several. Blocks for specific types of conduct are a reasonable expectation (3rr for instance). I think the only blocks that should concern us are sock and vandal related. Civilty blocks are not an issue due to templated emails and the verification system, I also note that it is easy to get heated up on-wiki, but not to much with off-wiki matters.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 05:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment While I do agree that specific types of blocks generally are not directly pertinent to the operation of abuse response, I believe that all blocks should be reviewed by the tool administrators. We could change the criteria to state that the minimum criteria do not guarantee your addition to the team, but serve as a guideline? So, there are not going to be any hard guidelines that someone has to reach, but instead there will be suggested requirements. Netalarm   happy holidays!  03:44, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support - I strongly support having the listed requirements interpreted as general guidelines and not hard requirements - especially not any kind of guarantee of acceptance. Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 05:06, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * In general I think it would be good to mention blocks etc, but make it clear that the last word is in the hands of the coordinators/admins and that means that yes, they are guidelines but you won't get it just because you meet them and you won't NOT get it just because you don't.  James  ( T | C )  03:45, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Requirements for reporters (approved)
Due to the high amount of false reports we get, I'm thinking reports should be restricted. Requirements? "autoconfirmed" flag on account and no active blocks. Netalarm  happy holidays!  04:26, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. Whole-heartedly!      bsmithme    04:39, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support - this would helpfully cut down on the cruft without causing inconvenience to anyone that has any business filing for abuse reports. Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 05:07, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

support autoconfirmed sounds good and fairly easy to do with the api when they are logging in.  James  ( T | C )  03:45, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Self nomination form
This page may be used for self nominations for both investigators and administrators in the project. The exact details will depend on the result of this proposal. The questions may be changed, as those were modeled after RfA and editor review questions. Please suggest better/more questions. Netalarm  happy holidays!  07:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Contact Records (approved)
The contact between AR and RO's will be posted on the case page for other interface users to see. However, the contents of the emails may not be publicly released. Only brief, non-detailed summeries can be public. This is due to email / privacy disclaimers that appear on most, if not all return emails from ROs.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 05:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 *  Neutral Support. This is a valid point, though I'm not sure that it is explicitly forbidden to disclose the contents of an email.  Matter of fact, I completely forgot, but I was going to propose adding a disclaimer to the email templates that states that communications may be published.  This obviously needs to be looked into, and discussed.       bsmithme    06:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * What do we gain by releasing the emails publicly though? Last time I checked we dont see any emails in the OTRS system being released, we should follow the same policy.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 06:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * That's true; I guess in my mind, documenting cooperative ROs, and documenting success would help in the WP community's eyes. Given the legalities involved, I think it's best to err on the side of caution.  Also, you are right, it is kind of tacky to disclose emails.  Changing to support.        bsmithme    07:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support We shouldn't disclose the emails on Wikipedia, but we should store a copy in the mailing list and/or interface for investigators for archival purposes. Netalarm   happy holidays!  03:47, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. Complete records should be kept, but they need not be public. Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 05:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support Agree per most of the discussion above and on IRC. We always need to SAVE the email however of course.  James  ( T | C )  04:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Transparency and privacy
Due to the level of officalness we are trying to seek, I suggest we only say if a case was handeled, when contact was made and wether a reply was recieved. Beyond this, we say nothing publicly. Thoughts?  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 05:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Was this the same as above? (if so, feel free to delete my reply and conjoin with the other topic)     bsmithme    06:50, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Report location and access (unresolved)
The contents of the reports may contain sensitive personal information if we're dealing with deferred reports from SPI or LTA, so publishing them on Wikipedia would be an unwise move. That being said, I believe the reports should be stored in the interface itself, with a random identification number (toolserver.org/~abuse/reports/JSKD92JD9SJ2) to prevent anyone from randomly accessing it. Password protecting it would not be feasible, as ISPs would also need access to the reports. For consistency, reports for IPs should also be stored on the interface with random IDs. There wouldn't be any records on Wikipedia, but we could add a templated message to IP talk pages that have been processed by abuse response notifying other editors that the R.O has been contacted. Netalarm  happy holidays!  03:52, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 06:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I'm tending to oppose this as a policy.  The purpose behind Transparency and privacy was an attempt to establish that this is not a secret society.  By making reports secret, we are not upholding that principle and portray a sense of secretiveness that in my opinion, need not be portrayed. In my mind this will cause many in the community to question the validity of a project which cannot be held accountable by the community which endorses it.  Yes, personally identifiable information should not be disclosed, but it should be possible to keep that secret on the TS while not keeping the entire case a secret from the community.  Further, under a general policy of keeping cases secret, we won't be able to show the community the cases which have been a success.  bsmithme 8:32 pm, Today (UTC−5)
 * Oppose As a general rule, all reports will be publicly viewable and searchable, as they are a matter of public interest. However, an issue security system can be integrated so that the report can be toggled between private and public depending on need. A public report will have the url toolserver.org/~ar/reports.php?id=, a private report will have a url like toolserver.org/~ar/reports.php?id= &auth=.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 02:16, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I did say it was for sensitive information. I think I'm contradicting myself with this post, but this was what I intended from the first post. Reports that contain sensitive information should be located at random identification numbers and not have any links published on Wikipedia if the information is available on them. However, if the information is removed, it can be treated like any other report. The main point of this proposal is that abuse reports be saved on the interface itself, and not on Wikipedia. Non personal information would be accessible to the public, but personal information would be blocked, as Promethean has stated is possible. Netalarm   happy holidays!  03:03, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

In general we'll want to
 * In general I agree with basically everyone, we want to keep as much as possible publicly viewable (though not searchable on google most likely :) ) We can lock them down if we really need to but in general I think we can keep most private information in the emails that we send out.  James  ( T | C )  04:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Reports should be viewable by the public as a general rule. Obviously exceptions will apply and the system can be setup to make some private, but as a standard, our aim should be transparency.  Further, our records could come in handy to other departments or other people in general and should be accessible.       Thorncrag    21:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Support - support saving reports on the interface and having the default as linked from Wikipedia, but having the option to keep these confidential if there is sensitive information (such as personally-identifiable information on minors). Tim Vickers (talk) 18:52, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Number of blocks (unresolved)
I suggest 5 or more blocks for vandalism, with the most recent block being within the last 7 days. I dont want reports of IP's with 5 blocks when the last edit was over 110 days ago (or even 7), which the currest criteria allows, ROs will not keep logs that long.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 05:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Neutral. This is a valid point; however, I think it needs to be less of a hard-fast rule, and more on a case-by-case basis. The reason is, that even if for instance an IP is banned for a year, if, looking at the history of the IP, it is reasonable to expect that it will resume abusing as soon as the block expires, than a report to the RO is still warranted.  Or perhaps a simple guideline for determining this whether a report would be worth it.        bsmithme    06:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I would think it depends on the type of RO. If its an ISP, forget it. If its a school or organisaiton what we should do is 5 days before the block expires send them an email informing them of the block, that they are soon to be unblocked, ask them to monitor their RSS feed for any abuse and to take action accordingly internally. In short we act on IPs that were just blocked or about to be unblocked.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 07:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose I feel that this should be case-by-case. Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 06:02, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose, I don't think we need rigid criteria, for example, if somebody was making threats or posting shock images on high-traffic pages I wouldn't see the need to wait until we've blocked them five times before contacting their service provider. Some cases may warrant early action and some, such as ten blocks on a school IP for adding "My friend X is gay", are not important enough to bother about. I'm entirely comfortable with leaving this up to people's common sense and not restricting them with red tape. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

General guideline (unresolved)
I propose adding the following, after the outline of criteria for accepting cases: "If a report does not meet this criteria, then it may be rejected; however, it is at the discretion of the investigator as to whether to accept the case or not, if it is outside the criteria. A general rule of thumb to follow when considering whether to proceed with a report is to ask whether contacting the responsible organization is likely to have any effect on the user's abusive behavior.  This might apply if a particular IP is currently subject to a definite block, and due to its editing history, it is likely that abusive edits will originate from the IP again in the future." Thorncrag   21:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Section 6.2: Standards for contact
The interface will have templated emails for different organisation types, though a custom message can be used.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 05:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

TOV (approved)
WP:ABUSE has been known to be involved with TOV in the past, and thus I strongly urge it to become the offical contact point for TOV related incidents.
 * Neutral. Because of the time-urgent, sensitivity, privacy, and legality involved with TOV, it should most certainly (in my opinion) be handled strictly by administrators insofar as actually handling the TOV. However, for contacting ROs to report TOV, that could potentially work.  More discussion on this is needed.       bsmithme    07:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Administrators have no more responsability to handle TOV than we do. I myself have handled a murder-suicide related TOV. I would think, that once we get the interface up and a sizeable user base that we would handle IP TOV's.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 07:15, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The legal risk here is of some concern. We might get complaints that we didn't do enough to prevent some incident due to backlogs. By nature, we were never designed to handle such incidents. Unless there is already some TOV team that could defer reports to us, this is a bit different from what we were designed for. Also, TOVs would have to be reported to local law enforcement, the FBI, or other such organizations for us to be of any assistance. Netalarm   happy holidays!  03:55, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, Promethean, could you clarify exactly what you meant? If you are suggesting that AR should report on users who make TOVs after the threat has taken place and dealt with, but not deal with the threat itself, I am 100% in support of that, since it is abuse of WP. If you're suggesting we should deal with the threat itself, as well as contact law enforcement, I am totally opposed as that should be handled by administrators and WMF staff.       bsmithme    04:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

In general I think the immediate threat should be handled by almost anyone to be as quick as possible, however as bsmithme said further followups could easily fall under us.  James  ( T | C )  04:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * So it seems we agree on contacting when there is a TOV, but is there a threshold at which it becomes actionable? Since TOVs are indefinite bans, it would be on a first offense, but is there some criteria that should be established for severity warranting contact, or is the fact that the account was blocked enough? Or should it be at the discretion of the volunteers?       Thorncrag    20:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Parental contact (rejected)
"Contacting the parents or guardians of minor children is not the function of Abuse Response and must never be conducted under any circumstance!" If there is abuse, we have a duty to report it, to whomever we viably can, parents or otherwise.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 05:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Strongest possible oppose. I have to oppose on this as well. There are so many reasons why contacting a non-institutional person is a bad, bad, bad, bad idea.  This delves into an extremely murky and gray legal area involving privacy, COPPA, and many other potential legalities.  I am very opposed.  We should only report to responsible organizations.       bsmithme    07:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Parents will take action after receiving a report, yes. But finding contact information will be a long process that will involve Googling an offender and looking up contact information in phone records. If we send an abuse report to the ISP, they might issue a warning to the customer, which would be the parent. That being said, I'd have to oppose for now. Netalarm   happy holidays!  03:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Reporting should be kept strictly to responsible organizations, not to the individual level that contacting parents would involve. Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 06:04, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Reporting ISP abuse should be enough. The ISP could warn the parents if needed. Netalarm   happy holidays!  21:21, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Opens us up to too many issues. In the end I have a feeling alot of parents will actually be quite unhappy with us calling and it could easily end up looking very bad for wikipedia and wikimedia. It would be better for us to go the ISP who in turn can contact the responsible individuals (likely parents in some cases)  James  ( T | C )  04:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Section 6.4: Service Level Agreement (approved)
Since an interface will speed things up, I suggest that a case be handled within 7 days, unless there is a reason for delay.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 05:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. Fine by me. The number I chose initially was completely arbitrary.  7 days for processing, as a goal, sounds fine with me.       bsmithme    07:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. Also, could auto-generation of edits analysis, block records and such be added to the interface? Netalarm   happy holidays!  04:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. Master Runner (Talk/Contribs) 06:06, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

The Toolserver
The generals and specifics of any potential use of the Toolserver should be left out of this discussion, which is about general policy of the project, particularly since that is not guaranteed at this point. We should approve this as a general policy, and later if the Toolserver comes to fruition, discuss a way of working that in which conforms to this policy which we are now discussing. bsmithme 8:42 pm, Today (UTC−5)

Mailing List
We should probably start the process of requesting a mailing list. What exactly do we want to use? ACC uses Accounts-enwiki-l. I would think good options for our main list would be Abuse-en-l or enAbuse-l? other ideas?  James  ( T | C )  04:15, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * abuse-en or abuse-en-l? Netalarm   happy holidays!  05:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * tradionally everything is -l, checkuser-l,oversight-l,wikipedia-en-l, etc  James  ( T | C )  06:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Outreach (unresolved)
After seeing this thread, it got me thinking, that maybe we should expand slightly in our communication with school's to include more informative material on WP policies. Perhaps an outline, maybe a PDF attachment. I'll keep thinking and post more as ideas develop. Thorncrag   19:43, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Definitions
We should develop a definition of "actionable abuse". For instance, while any type of vandalism is technically abuse, when does vandalism crossover to being abuse. This would delineate when ROs should be contacted. Just a thought. Thorncrag   20:22, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments
In response to a request at WP:Village pump (policy) I am commenting here and invite anyone else to join in.
 * This is potentially an excellent project and the contributors could provide immense assistance to the encyclopedia since too much time and energy is lost dealing with repeat offenders. While I appreciate the style of Proposal 1, it should be tweaked to remove any possible sense of excitement or humor ("service level agreement"). There have been misguided groups of "Vandal Fighters!!!", and all documentation associated with this project should be low key. I looked here for a sample of a case. It looks good in that it does not glorify the offender, but since that page is about the only thing the ISP contact is going to look at, perhaps it could start with a short paragraph that would make more sense to an outsider, along the lines of "IP addresses from the [NameOfISP] network have been used to abuse Wikipedia. Verify by clicking "contribs" next to an IP address." Also the email to the ISP is too ponderous and too long. First para: omit "an incident or". Second para should assume the reader knows what Wikipedia is, and should immediately spell out what we want the ISP to do: use the following link to verify the abuse, then notify the user that their actions may violate the ISP's conditions; emphasize (exaggerate) how if the abuse is not reduced then other subscribers may be inconvenienced by being unable to properly use Wikipedia. The project page gives due concern regarding WP:DENY but I really hope that all messages and documentation will be carefully crafted to avoid providing vandal stimulation. In fact, I'm now wondering whether my above suggestion for an introductory para on the report may violate WP:DENY. Johnuniq (talk) 01:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's true, I plead guilty to introducing the term "service level agreement". Sorry for using the business jargon that I am accustomed to, but it's what came to mind.  Open to suggestions for a better wording here!  As far as the contact template, it's true it could be more succinct.  It is by no means final, and we will be looking at it again with your suggestions in mind.       Thorncrag    20:13, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Transparency
After looking through some of the discussion currently in progress, I feel that the AR project may be shooting for efficiency at the loss of transparency. This is a wiki, and as a philosophical matter transparency is always the ideal (There's probably some WP: shortcut for this, I don't know them off of the top of my head, though). I think it's important that transparency be maintained (even if I may not have come off this way earlier), and for that reason I would encourage adding a note that contact records will be publicly available. A toolserver system, while it could increase efficiency, could inadvertently (or perhaps all too intentionally) restrict access to all records to members of the project, which would not be a good thing. Contact records should be public, even if certain limited things are censored (which I think would seldom be necessary or advisable). The Real Jean-Luc Talk/Contribs 05:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In general everything that happens on-Wiki should be transparent. However, contacting other organisations about particular people may impact the people involved in unexpected ways in real life (thinking about shared IPs for example). Therefore I'd err more on the side of noting on Wiki that an abuse report was made, but not making all the details publicly available. This is particularly important because most of the problem users will be children, I do NOT want Wikipedia to "name and shame" children, even if they have acted irresponsibly. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The proposed toolserver system is identical in nature to that of ACC, giving us precedent to go down the same avenue. Furthermore, the contents of emails WILL NOT be made public, period, mike godwin would have and absolute shit fit about violation of company disclaimers and privacy rights if they were. Rathor, the reports and a brief summary of contact will be publicly available on the interface, and a notice on the IP talkpage (with a category) for IP's that have an abuse report. The lack of more effiecency has almost killed this project, thus I am more than happy to use the toolserver (which is an arm of Wikimedia) to help elleviate this issue.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 04:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

"Investigator"
This may seem like a minor quibble, but I think it's important if this is going to move forward: given that people receiving these emails may rightly or wrongly perceive them to be representing an "official" response, and that such a perception might color the tone of correspondence and could potentially affect Wikipedia's reputation, it's important to put our best foot forward and make a good impression. Referring to project members as "investigators" may imply an awful lot to someone not familiar with our norms, and not all of those implications are going to be helpful. I personally would suggest something a bit more disarming, possibly along the lines of "abuse response volunteer" -- it gets the point across without seeming official or threatening. – Luna Santin  (talk) 00:11, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Investigator and "Wikipedia Abuse Response Team" / "Wikipedia Abuse Reports" have been long running terms since inception back in 2006. ACC, currently uses the same style of name to refer to itself. At this point of time, I personally see no reason to change the long running norm that as been without issue.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 04:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Community approval of Volunteers and co-ordinators
If people are going to pursue matters with outside agencies with the approval or in the name of the community, they should be selected in some manner similar to those with administrator or checkuser responsibilities. I am not sure all of the current Project Coordinators would be approved for this-- one of them very recently narrowly escaped a block by me for RL harassment of an editor. (the matter was unfortunately dropped due to lack of interest at AN/I). I would have commented much earlier had I been aware of this proposal. I do not want to appear to be pursuing an individual, who might well have learned from this, so I do not want to go into the details here. If anyone wants the link, they can email me.  DGG ( talk ) 19:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * When you say coordinator, I will assume you mean investigator. I am anticipating that the vetting process setup in the proposal will alleviate this concern, as it applies to both.       Thorncrag    22:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * For some reason I kept on typeing most of this message and then not saving it.. and then closing the tab for one reason or another. I tend to agree with you to be honest, As Thorcrag said this is part of the reason for the new system (and the toolserver tool) because we would be able to vet for access similar (but harsher in my opinion because of the trust involved) then ACC now. One of the issues we had was that when it is just a normal wikiproject on wiki it is very hard for us to tell someone that no you are not allowed to participate for whatever reason. I would love more community involvement and I know we've discussed it before, one of the concerns was that there just wasn't enough community interest (we've been advertising for comments on here for example and have had precious few recently). I would be very interested in any thoughts you had on how to strengthen that interest and what you think of the current proposed standards (I would assume you would like them stronger).  James  ( T | C )  06:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * From the email discussion, I believe that the vetting process should solve this specific problem, as the whole process is open to the community for input. For the early draft that has been created, please see here. Netalarm   welcome to 2010!  21:06, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with the above except for most of what DGG has asserted and my reply is primarily directed at DGG. WP:ACC and WP:OP have operated for years by self-vetting and with all due respect to DGG, vetting similar to RFA or Checkuser would be a step backwards that would harm the intended goal of the project and slow things down. 95% of communication will be via the interface will be using automatic templated emails and we have planned appropriate verification systems to ensure the reports and contact meet community standards, removing the very basis of your concern. Lastly, you raise an issue at ANI (that I know nothing about) which recieved little or no attention as a concern about one of the co-ordinators, I would assert that if it recieved no attention then it was no doubt a farce without basis or interpreted as something not worthy of administrator attention....both of which hold little or no justification for your concern and makes it looks more vandetta like... which I'm certain is not the case. Although I largely disagree with your input I am thankful for it and look forward to your continued interest in Abuse Response during the ravamp process.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 04:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)