Wikipedia talk:Office actions/Archive 1

Some extra information about WP:OFFICE:
 * &#91;WikiEN-l&#93; I am Danny
 * &#91;WikiEN-l&#93; Phone calls
 * &#91;WikiEN-l&#93; Apology
 * Interview with Brad Patrick

Comparison
So a WP:OFFICE thing is like a Presidential Executive Order? Bill Sayre 17:03, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * In that it's a top-down explicit order, yes, but it's also quite different in the implementation and rationale. 68.39.174.238 21:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Older comments
Since many editors aren't familiar with WP:Office I suggest a standard template be created to briefly explain what's happening to Wikipedians. Gamaliel 23:47, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Funny
" This does not signify any authoritarian top-down action without approval." I just love it when top authorities describe their actions that way. I hear the Bush administration lawyers have determined that all of the Bush administration policies are legal and don't need to be authorized by Congress or reviewed by the Supreme Court, too.

In other words, Jimbo should let the community decide whether it's an authoritarian action or not. --The Cunctator 23:32, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, but "There may at times be legal reasons for this." + +Lar: t/c 03:06, 28 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, "This does not signify any may be construed as authoritarian top-down action without approval, but rather signifies is necessary for as a temporary action to allow us to be kind while we sort out the encyclopedic way forward and, in some cases, for legal reasons ." Better? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)


 * How about, "This is a top-down, authoritarian action taken without approval, because while Wikipedia itself operates on concensus, the servers which host Wikipedia are subject to all sorts of legal restrictions, and a court-ordered-shutdown would be really, really, bad, m'kay?" ;-) --DragonHawk 04:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Reasonable response
I think this is a reasonable response to Wikipedia's changing role, balancing freedom with responsibility, responsiveness of content with flexibility of same. Let's face it, Wikipedia must shake the impression that some have that it is simply a high profile blog. User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 12:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The goals are reasonable, the implementation leaves room for improvement.


 * 1) It is based on Jimbo's authority, rather than Foundation Board authority. There is no compelling reason why this should be so. Wikimedia has a Board of Trustees with two community-elected members. It should be this Board, not Jimbo alone, which decides who has the authority to deal with complaints, legal or otherwise. This is especially true as WP:OFFICE has already been invoked outside Wikipedia at least once (on Wikibooks), where Jimbo is almost completely inactive as an editor and actions by him are more likely to be seen as intrusive: the Board not only reduces bias and increases the truck factor, it also acts as a shield against accusations of abuse.


 * 2) It is based on whom Jimbo personally trusts, rather than who is trusted within the community. As a consequence, it does not scale to 8 projects and >100 languages. The case of Boris Floricic in the German Wikipedia is an example where Wikimedia Germany was sued (!) simply because Wikipedia cited Floricic' full name. The situation could have been de-escalated with a properly authorized complaints department of the German Wikipedia that is competent to make temporary (!) decisions in such cases. Wikimedia Germany cannot set up such a department because it is deliberately configured to have no liability for the content (as are almost all chapters). WP:OFFICE has certainly made more drastic changes on the English Wikipedia than (temporarily) hiding someone's real name, so we already see that our standards are currently rather arbitrary. Having an office is useful, but the role of the office should, in my opinion, consist primarily of informing the people in the to-be-created complaints department, rather than unilaterally making decisions.


 * 3) The processes used are neither transparent nor documented, apart from "add a link to WP:OFFICE in the edit summary". This encourages drive-by enforcement, which is unhealthy for the community and susceptible to error and, yes, abuse (think years, not months). There should be a standardized procedure for such cases, which includes a) a page template added to the page in question or the talk page, b) a requirement to report as much information about the nature of the case to the community as is justifiable, c) a documented resolution, d) a consensus-seeking process among multiple trusted people, rather than just a single person (Jimbo or Danny), as to how to deal with a case, e) an appeals process. It should also be clear that we do not modify articles simply because somebody complains -- the validity of each complaint should be debated, and it should (again if at all justifiable, and not necessarily immediately) be explained to the community why a particular case is considered valid. Preferably, all WP:OFFICE cases would at least be documented in an internal knowledge base for future reference. If it is true that only a very small number of articles should be under Office Watch during a given period of time, then all this should be possible.


 * I understand from the page text that this is, in part, an experiment. That's fine; I hope it will evolve into a more scalable, open and transparent framework, and the last words on the page give me hope that this may be the case. It's easy for me to complain, so I'll put my money where my mouth is -- I would be happy to serve on a (Board-appointed) WP:OFFICE complaints team for the English Wikipedia.--Eloquence* 21:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Amen, brother. --NightDragon 01:52, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. While I appreciate that this policy is only enforced by the GodKing and Danny, it still strikes at the very heart of the idea of community consensus. If we must continue with this policy, the safeguards mentioned are above seem a very good idea.
 * And if we are to go down the road of unilateral decision-making, it'd be nice if we could do something fairly rapidly to stem the tide of experts currently leaving by giving them some sort of special recognition. I've suggested an idea here. Dev920 23:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Need for more information regarding action
Danny just did a deletion of a Wikibook citing this policy as the grounds for such action. Assuming good faith I don't see a reason to reverse his actions in this case, as it may have been a copyright violation (based on my own review of the content as an administrator) that he deleted and is for the most part random nonsense that was added by an anonymous user, but it doesn't give me much information to go on in terms of evaluating his justification for this action.

Furthermore, it would have been nice to publish this somewhere on Meta instead, with a note on Goings-on and perhaps a notice on Foundation-l if this was intended to be a Wikimedia projects-wide policy rather than something that pertains to just Wikipedia.

The potential for abuse in this case is rather substantial even if it is done sparingly and only for official actions to protect the foundation due to some external complaint. More to the point, I would recommend that you trust the community to perform the action without direct intervention, and there is no need to bypass the current administrators on any project unless you think the administrators themselves are either out of control or overwhelmed. That also gives a documentation trail to review why the action was necessary, such as "Removal of Random Silly Patent Nonsense is requested by external party due to copyright violation. --WMF-Official (Danny)" In the case of what Danny did on Wikibooks, this is the log entry for his action. I don't see how administrators would ignore basic requests of this nature and would act promptly as well for these requests.

If a forum needs to be provided for official communication like this from the WMF to administrators, that is something else that can be discussed. In the case of Wikibooks, simply deleting a single page may not be enough and there is additional cleanup that needs to be performed (usually). That was definitely the case in this action as well. I'll do the cleanup in this case, however. --Robert Horning 09:52, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Length of action
From Jimbo's Talk Page:

When you change a page under OFFICE, is further editing prohibited (and thus in need of page protection), or are changes allowable within limits? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - &lt;*&gt; 06:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
 * We are still feeling our way forward on that one. The tradeoff is, if I say changes allowable within limits, there will be cases where the problematic bits are just going to go right back into the article. If I say no changes at all, well, that's never a good thing, because it leaves the article in a broken state longer. Probably the safest thing to say is "Use very good judgment, and be particularly sensitive to the liklihood of problems." Certainly, be cautious about adding anything back which might be the source of the problem. I think that WP:OFFICE should never be used for more than a tiny handful of pages at any given time, and a WP:OFFICE situation should last no more than a handful of days in any given case. --Jimbo Wales 10:22, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

reverting a WP:OFFICE may be grounds for blocking.
??? And if a vandal is chaning it. ???

Then just give online access for admins sysops etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.137.250.31 (talk • contribs)


 * "Office" usually protects articels when it edits them, so vandals wouldn't be able to do much. 68.39.174.238 21:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Policy in a nutshell
The policy in a nutshell box for this policy says things which are more than a simple summary of what is described by the rest of the policy page. I think this is completely bogus; the box is supposed to be a quick summary of the policy, not additional material. It should be possible to act as if the box were not there and still get the complete policy. Because of that, I'm removing the box; its contents, if true, should be added to the main text first. --cesarb 20:55, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Seems that it was based on Jimbo's 23:02, 24 February 2006 (UTC) edit but it was converted into the policy in a nutshell box. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:06, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


 * That's true. Well, I think it was a lot clearer in a separate box, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Stevage 07:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree it was a lot clearer; however, a "policy in a nutshell" box cannot add anything new to the policy. If a reference to the desysopping is added somewhere else in the page, it can be put back (since that's the only thing in that box lacking a verifiable source). --cesarb 02:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Speeding articles
Does speedying on apply to deletion discussions, or does it apply to disputed articles also? Just wanting a confirmation. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:17, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Jack Thompson (attorney)
User:Michael Snow has been reported for 3RR on this article. I'm assuming that its covered by Office, but there is a distinct lack of clarity: his reverts are not marked as for that purpose, there is little I could see on the talk page... can someone clarify this? William M. Connolley 23:18, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
 * OFFICE protection of this article was lifted a number of hours ago now, by Danny. I would imagine that any page not so protected (and by protection I figure we mean actual semi- or full-protection) is just Joe Random article. -Splash talk 02:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
 * If you take a quick look at the protection logs, you'll find that, in fact, it was Michael Snow who lifted the protection (closely followed by Danny himself), with unprotect reason "authorized to lift protection". So, I'd guess he's working somewhat closely with Danny on this issue, and probably is playing "changekeeper" for a while. --cesarb 03:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

"Paper trail"
I think adding a "paper trail" to this page is not a good idea. What matters is only current office actions (which already have a section for themselves); listing past actions can cause further misunderstandings (unless they have a fairly detailed account of what happened and its final solution, which is hard to do) and could even cause further problems ("if someone is in the list, they are evil because they tried to destroy the wiki!!!1"). Because of that, I removed it. --cesarb 02:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem is enforcement of Office Actions by admins. Once an Office Action has been executed, should admins enforce that action? If so, how do they effectively enforce it without having some kind of official record to back-up their enforcement? Right now there isn't really any guidance on what admins should do about office actions (other than saying that they might or might not ban people for reverting them). A paper trail and more specific guidelines would go a long way to avoiding the kind of needless edit wars that have occured on Justin Berry for example. Kaldari 02:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * That list is to document current Office Actions. If an article is not listed there, it can be taken as not having any special protection that admins can enforce. -Splash talk 02:53, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I think there are at least a few editors that don't understand that and may be getting carried away with trying to enforce office actions after the fact (above and beyond normal policy enforcement and editorial judgements). How should such overzealousness be addressed? Kaldari 02:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * With a talk page message pointing to the list on the project page which no longer contains the article, I guess. (Disclaimer: my previous post is personal opinion, but the fact that there is a list of currently protected pages must imply that any page not on it isn't currently protected.) -Splash talk 03:21, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Just be careful to keep it updated; Danny doesn't seem to be updating it (the category might be more reliable if he uses the template; since I believe there hasn't been any new WP:OFFICE action since the marker template was created, I cannot know if he will use it consistently or not). --cesarb 03:24, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Are all Office Actions supposed to be listed in the "currently protected" list (at least temporarily)? I wasn't aware that that was the case. What does "Office Protection" mean? Kaldari 03:28, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, there are only 2 people in all the world who can create OFFICE actions. Admins can't do it on their own authority. I would imagine, given the diff in my following comment that, yes, all office actions are intended to be listed there while they last, and only while they last. Protection refers to the fact that this has (most commonly) been used to apply semi-protection to an article that would not otherwise have been eligible. -Splash talk 03:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Danny created the section so it's reasonable to expect him to use it. (Most of the problems with OFFICE stem from the Office's distinct lack of charm in Officiating, so hopefully having them write things down somewhere will help fix that.) -Splash talk 03:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Assume good faith. This will not be abused imho. Do not ask Danny to do the impossible and have him discuss all actions he takes. Assume good faith. Waerth 05:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The issue has nothing to do with abuse or assuming good faith. The problem is this policy is too ambigious and offers little guidance for admins or editors on what to do after an Office Action has been taken. Kaldari 07:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I concurr. While I can assume good faith in most cases, it doesn't take too much extra effort to simply go beyond and add even just a few words as to why the action took place.  Administrators are held to this standard, and it is good practice even when making a major change to an article as an ordinary editor.  Sometimes Danny may have to be deliberately vague for an official reason, but simply stating something like forcing cooling off period or removing due to external copyright complaint is hardly asking the world in this sort of situation.  The room for abuse is really too much without this additional information. --Robert Horning 17:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Confused about this policy
This policy seems to be vague about which actions can be taken under it, and what exactly will be done. I have a few questions:


 * Under what conditions will the policy be invoked?
 * Will material be permanently removed from articles under this policy?
 * If so, what material can be removed under this policy?

Thanks,

-- Creidieki 21:37, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


 * This policy says nothing about these. It just says that the actions Danny takes citing WP:OFFICE are endorsed by Jimbo Wales.
 * However, to answer your questions (note: since I'm not Danny or Jimbo, I can be wrong): it's invoked when someone complains directly to the Wikimedia Foundation and Danny feels it's needed (i.e. not always). Which material is permanently removed depends only on other policies and guidelines, mostly WP:NPOV, WP:CITE and WP:LIVING. Temporarily, it usually means a removal of almost everything (the article devolves into a stub) and full protection of the article.
 * See also the links at the very top of this talk page; they include two postings by Danny himself explaining what, how and why he does it. --cesarb 01:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

All this policy does, IMHO, is delegate authority from Jimbo to Danny - Jimbo can't do everything. The scope of the delegation is defined and the authority to take action is backed by a consequence for those that try to undo what Danny does. When and how it will be used is not as important as that - in other words I think it is purposefully vauge so as to allow Danny the authority to take swift action when needed and Jimbo is unavailable. Trödel

Who was desysopped?
This edit summary suggests someone was desysopped over an OFFICE action. If this is related to the Carnildo-block-unblock stuff, then it wasn't an OFFICE action as such and I don't think it's accurate to describe at as one. -Splash talk 18:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I would also like to know who was desysoped, by whom, and why. Kaldari 19:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It was by Danny himself, and as far as I know the why is for removing a WP:OFFICE protection tag. The desysopping lasted only 3 minutes, and the discussion seems to have been mostly off-wiki, so we cannot be sure of the details, which is why I'm not naming the admin (there's no point in exposing to ridicule when it was probably just a honest mistake). --cesarb 19:39, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh come now, it's not at all hard to look in a log given that information. I would dispute that Danny has authority to de-sysop in such cases unless Jimbo has said he can. I do not think that a 3 minute desysopping over something that was in any case handled poorly by the OFFICE raises a need to hold a knife to admins' throats in the way this page seems to at present. -Splash talk 20:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Anyway, I don't care all that much. It just seems to be rather (a lot) over-egging the pudding to turn a 3-minute tantrum from the Office into a significantly punitive headline for this document. -Splash talk 20:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed, I would prefer that the language be reverted unless there is some indication from Jimbo that he endorses desysoping for violating Office Actions. Kaldari 20:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

After finally digging up the details, I really don't see any need for all the secrecy. Danny protected Poly Prep Country Day School on February 10th. A couple hours later, Howcheng chaged it to semi-protection. About a month later Geni reverted it to full protection. Danny then desysoped Geni for 3 hours. Pretty bizarre if you ask me. So I guess the policy should actually be changed to say "enforcing Office Actions may result in desysoping"! Kaldari 21:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, Geni accidentally didn't unprotect but left a comment in the protection log indicating that to be her intent. She removed the tag. A few minutes later, Hall Monitor had unprotected the article, indicating that he was correcting Geni's mistaken non-unprotect. Ten (10) hours later, David Gerard rolled Geni back like a vandal, and Cyde reprotected the article. An hour after that, Cyde unprotected after discussion with Danny and removed the tag. Danny had forgotten about the page, presumably, exactly as Geni had suspected. So the desysopping was just a temper thing on Danny's part, and it only lasted 3 minutes, not 3 hours. It's not a useful example to construct this page on, imo. -Splash talk 21:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, what a comedy fo errors! So I guess the real moral of the story is "Don't accuse Danny of forgetting something, or you may get desysoped" ;) Kaldari 21:42, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, since most people's opinion here is that it does not count as precedent, I've removed that bit. I hope a better precedent does never happen ☺. --cesarb 02:03, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * My impression of the Geni-incident is that it was a precedent (I mean, if Danny will desysop someone over a "temper thing"; it sure seems likely that he'd desysop someone over a real conflict over office actions). Now whether or not it'd be a permanent desysopping is another matter (I suspect it would be handled much as the Pedophilia Userbox deal was). In other words: I think having that warning in there was a good idea. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 02:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * You're probably right, although adding the desysoping clause seems almost like an endorsement of the action. Really, it should never be necessary to do more than block a user in this case. If we say that you can get desysoped, the next time an admin reverts an Office Action (which has actually happened many times by accident), all of the trolls are going to be pointing to this policy and crying out for them to be desysoped. I think the warning as stated is adequate. If Danny wants to ignore his own policies, I suppose that's his perogative. Kaldari 02:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I could have sworn that that wording was added by Jimbo, but after checking the history, it seems like I was mistaken. Given that, I don't mind either having the text there or not; however, it does convey the seriousness of the situation. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note? ) 22:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Old thread, I know, but it's worth making another point here: WP:OFFICE actions are unlike almost all other actions on Wikipedia...  On Wikipedia we operate under the premise that wrong things can be done (errors inserted, things incorrectly deleted, blocks made incorrectly or undone incorrectly) but life goes on because such actions can simply be undone, it's a good premise and with the right tools and expectations it works for almost everything. However, there are cases, such as where we've libeled someone, and we must act with extreme care and discretion to avoid great harm. In these cases, it is not acceptable for a well meaning admin to stumble in and simple make a mistake, not even for a moment. As such, admins are not permitted to be bold and undo office actions. When someone has broken the trust the project has placed in them to not undo office actions, we must deadmin them right away because it is the only way we can insure another 'mistake' will not be made by them. The deadmining need not be permanent if it was truly a honest mistake. Because of this you should not regard a deadmining/blocking as a harsh action in the case of someone undoing a WP:OFFICE action ... it is actually the most minimal action we can take. --Gmaxwell 21:25, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

:P
And you say there is no Cabal. --User:Lugiatm (talk • contribs) 16:32, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I Think Jack Thompson Is Back
Special:Contributions/172.169.58.156 Best of luck. --Maxamegalon2000 02:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * That isn't Thompson. That is a vandal. --Nick Catalano contrib talk 23:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization
Shouldn't this be Office actions with a lowercase a? Melchoir 20:20, 15 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yep, that would seem more usual. // [ admin ] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:12, 16 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree and recommend a move. 68.39.174.238 21:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

An introduction
Most of the editors commenting on this page have a good grasp of the issues; I'd like to try to fill in the background for the benefit of editors who may lack this experience.

When a project assumes an extremely high profile -- as has Wikipedia -- an astonishing amount of shit comes down the road. I use the word deliberately; no other single noun embraces the range of difficult phone calls, letters, faxes, emails, and hand-carried deliveries that come in the front door, not to mention the occasional difficult person in person. This is a fact of life that has nothing whatever to do with wikis, our goals and dreams, or anything else, really, internal to our community. If we were in the business of giving away rice or bread for free, we would sometimes be threatened with legal action, bomb scares, self-immolation, or many other things best left unsaid.

WMF is in an unusual position, though; it's hard to think of an organization so lacking in discipline, with so many members, each of which has so much power to do harm -- with or without that intention. Most large organizations have a first resort in case of threats: Find the person directly responsible (or create a scapegoat) and throw him to the wolves. This takes care of a surprising amount of potential trouble. Alas, this is not available to Wikipedia. We can, theoretically, block an editor responsible, say, for a libel; but it's just not likely to satisfy the injured party. We must erase every trace of the crime.

Our popularity brings its own risks. If I bad mouth my neighbor in the bar I may be wrong but it's not very public and my neighbor may be content to let me mouth off for a long time before taking action. If I libel a private citizen on a page in this project then it may be only a matter of a few hours before that libel has been copied to many mirrors and archives around the world; it may be practically impossible to erase it. An injured party may have a good claim against WMF if it does not take action instanter when notified of a problem.

 This doesn't work "Bob Smith is a whore"

"We have removed the statement that Bob Smith is a whore because Bob Smith called us on December 31 and threatened to sue our pants off if we did not remove the statement."

The highly public nature of all we do is another, very serious complication. We would like everything any one of us does to be kept public and transparent; but that very desire for transparency works against us in some cases. It does not always satisfy to remove a statement and publicly announce what we've done. To put that kind of explanation out where the world can see it may be considered just as damaging as the original comment. If Danny explains himself on any project page, though, he tells the world. Under some cases, it might even be a poor idea to flag the office action as an office action! You might be surprised to discover the astonishing range of real-world situations demanding good, sometimes creative judgement.

 What this is not "User:Foobar27 was blocked for inserting the statement that Bob Smith is a bartender at a go-go bar; while this is a true, verifiable fact it brought on another round of ugly phone calls from Bob's lawyer so we de-op'd Foobar to quiet them down. Now that we've talked to Foobar quietly and Bob has moved on, we've reinstated Foobar without prejudice." &larr; DO NOT expect to see this note at Office actions notice board.

Believe it or not, there are some things that are required by custom and law to be handled quickly, quietly, and privately. It's no use at all for us to say Well we don't like that or We don't do things that way. We may be big, but we can't hold off the cops if they bust in the rack room and seize the servers. We're not actually there, you know.

Given that an office action -- if taken properly at all -- is extremely important, reverting it or editing over it is very likely to be wrong. By "wrong" I mean you are going to screw something up, quite likely a delicate settlement involving somebody who is still hopping mad and spoiling for a fight. Under the circumstances, it's just about mandatory to deadmin the editor who takes such unwise action. It may be necessary to block or ban the editor; in any other organization he could expect to be nailed to a tree and hung out to dry. In combination for the need in extreme cases to be obscure when giving notice of the office action this leads to the potential situation in which an admin may do the wrong thing without any idea what he's done. He rightly feels he's been treated unjustly. This is a painful but unavoidable effect of the stresses that beset very large organizations. The remedy is to speak to the innocent offender off wiki and manage the situation quietly -- not to make a public scene of it.

The difficulty is that there is little oversight when office action is taken. Some of us trust the Jimbo; some of us are willing to extend that trust to Danny. Some of us would rather see what's going on for ourselves. That's understandable; but we just can't all crowd into the room. Most of us are going to have to trust some very small group of people to watch this process. There is an irreducible minimum need for peremptory, unfair, out-of-process action; that's life. We can expect oversight.

Therefore, the debate is pretty much limited to the nature of this oversight committee. IANAL. John Reid 22:56, 17 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm curious why you would ever want to de-sysop an admin in this case, rather than blocking or simply informing them of their error? I'm not complaining about it, I'm just curious why that would be necessary or a desirable course of action? Is there a practical reason, or is it purely punitive? Or when you say "deadmin" do you actually just mean "block" (which effectively de-admins them temporarily)? Kaldari 23:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to do anything; I'd want to spit in the face of anybody who threatened this project. But that's probably unwise. We -- as a body -- might do almost anything to get a particularly nasty shark off our backs. In practice, an admin can unblock himself, so deadminning is more severe. But in political cases perception is more important than reality. The important (and, yes, disgraceful) thing is to publicly punish a scapegoat. We do not want enemies to explore fully the contents of the can marked anyone can edit or they will descend with pitchforks. John Reid 23:48, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I think I understand now. Thanks. Kaldari 15:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Still in use?
When Danny stubbifies and protects a page without citing WP:OFFICE, is it still an office action? See,. Also is probably of interest. TacoDeposit 14:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Jeez, I wish the Foundation would get a grip on this. Apparently we're supposed to work in the dark with our hand behind our backs and a knife to our throats. Cheers. -Splash talk 14:57, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Per Danny's response to Splash's query, I have listed NewsMax.com and Christopher Ruddy on this page. An administrator should replace  with  on each page, or just manually add the pages to Category:Office protected. TacoDeposit 16:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note? ) 00:27, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Undone. Please assume good faith. Danny 01:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not following the WP:OFFICE discussion closely, but are these pages protected with the office protocol now or not? I'm very unclear, they are listed on WP:OFFICE, but are using a generic protection template, and not the office template. They are also not in Category:Office protected? - cohesion 07:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Judging by Danny's response to Splash, I would say they are Office Protected, but we are not allowed to advertise that fact, due to the sensitive nature of the situation. It seems we should expect for Office Actions to be performed in this manner rather often, judging by John Reid's explanation. Obviously this is a rather tricky situation. We must abide by rules that we don't necessarily know exist. The only way to be safe is to assume that any edit Danny makes is an Office Action. Kaldari 15:47, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * No, that's not at all reasonable since he frequently makes entirely mundane edits that are not binding. -Splash talk 16:12, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Danny, this is just confusing. You say they are office actions, then someone marks them as such and you tell them not to, implying they were not assuming good faith. That's a very unfair standing-on-the-head of Flcelloguy's entirely natural action. If you want anyone to actually understand what you are doing, then at least make it possible for them to do so, or, if you don't want anyone to understand them, then say so and abandon the pretence. It's less and less of a surprise that Jimbo has already had to apologies for the mishandling of all this at least once. -Splash talk 16:12, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * This policy is very confusing, I too was about to change the tag to after seeing Eloquence get blocked and desysoped, but luckily looked at the deleted history first, then I came here. I thought that I would avoid interfering with any WP:OFFICE action by making sure the page isn't in Category:Office protected, but clearly some pages under office aren't in the category, don't state it in the protection log, or in the protection template. How should I make sure I don't interfere with a WP:OFFICE action?  Prodego  talk  18:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * There seems to be a good reason that there is no office tage on these articles, although that reason has to remain secret for some other reason, as far as I could find out. I sincerely hope the block is only temporary, these actions were done in good faith and are results of lack of information. More information can't be revealed right now apparently, so "don't touch anything that Danny touched" seems to be the only right thing to do currently. --Conti|&#9993; 19:01, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Assume Good Faith should not mean "adopt blind faith". I am fine with having a WP:OFFICE policy.  I am fine with not learning all the details of exactly what complaint came in to make something a WP:Office event, etc.  However, to be asked to accept that there will be WP:Office actions that are not even going to be labeled as WP:Office, that is going about 28 steps too far into the realm of blind faith.
 * We should have the transparency to know what is and is not covered by WP:Office and there should be no misleading statements like "This article has been stubbed and protected pending resolution of POV issues." Danny should use the proper WP:OFFICE labels each and every time he makes a WP:OFFICE action.  If he should happen to forget (I am assuming he is human, not a diety) and someone reverts him, then they both should apologize to each other, apply the proper labeling, and move on without anyone getting crucified or de-sysopped over it. Johntex\talk 01:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with this, but I also don't think that Danny does this just to piss us off or because he's lazy. There seems to be a good reason not to have that tag there, and although I can't imagine what reason that would be, we should just accept that for now. This brings up the problem of how to actually identify actions from Danny as office actions, tho. Maybe it would indeed be the best if Danny would use a special account just for office actions, so whatever he does with that account, we all know that we're not allowed to touch that. --Conti|&#9993; 02:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * If the issue is that some edits which are technically under WP:OFFICE need to be hidden so as not to appear like that, then Danny using a special account would hence flag such actions as happening under WP:OFFICE, and so he might not always want to use that either. People should avoid interfering with things that seem like WP:OFFICE actions, I guess, and there be an understanding that people not be treated too harshly if they accidentally undo something if WP:OFFICE is not cited. It's hardly ideal though.. I'm not sure when WP:OFFICE in an edit summary would be a bad idea, but I suppose I wouldn't know. -- Mithent 15:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

You have no idea how confused I am. I check out the WP:OFFICE page to find there's two articles protected under it. The template on both of them have a normal protected template with them added to the office protected category. Isn't that self-contradictory? If it's protected under office, as this page states, it should be noted at such at the article itself. With that in mind, I went ahead and replaced the protected template with the office one. If it isn't protected under office, then please revert my edits on the article and clear them from the office page. --LBMixPro&lt;Sp e ak 02:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that a corollary of the fact that office action cannot always be advertised is that Danny must be forbidden to edit on his own initiative; that is, every edit by User:Dannyisme must be construed to be an office action. (In the event that I use this account, please note that I am acting in an official capacity on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation.) John Reid 23:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

How bad would this have to get before serious discussion about forking takes place?
What are other people's trigger points for this? For great justice. 18:57, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Tell the Wikitruth! Vacuum 21:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Anyone can fork whenever they wish. And better still, they then get all the fun of dealing with angry citizens and their lawyers themselves. Palmiro | Talk 22:23, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I realize that anyone can, I was wondering at what point there would be serious interest in looking at options in doing that, or making changes to the way the foundation is managed? For great justice. 22:38, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, the fundamental issue is that lots of random people are allowed to write whatever they want on a wiki. You can fork left and right, but people are still going to write stupid stuff, and some of that stupid stuff will invariably leave whoever runs the hardware open to legal problems.  Moving from one website to another will have absolutely no effect on that except in as much as the new website has a lower profile.  The only way to solve this problem is to not be a wiki, or teach people how not to write stupid stuff. Tuf-Kat 23:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I was talking about this page, and the issues around the secretive and unacountable actions of the foundation and its employees. For great justice. 23:26, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * What issues? When somebody writes something stupid that could get the entire project in jeopardy, it needs to be removed with finality.  As noted above, you can't remove something with finality and transparency; Wikipedia errs on the side of transparency in all issues except where necessary.  Any large organization that allows anyone to post anything will either have a similar mechanism, or soon die in a flood of lawsuits.  Tuf-Kat 02:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Those issues - secrecy and unacountability. You have no idea whether it was something 'stupid' that was removed, or something critical of the project, the foundation or it's staff. That's a problem. Anyway, I don't want to argue the pros and cons of the action taken, I'm asking people for their opinion on how much more secretive and unacountable it would have to get before a serious discussion about changing the structure of the foundation, or forking, takes place. For great justice. 05:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with stuff being removed from pages. I have no problem with it being irrevocably deleted from the history of the article.  I do think that removing it under the auspices of WP:OFFICE should be labeled as WP:OFFICE.  No further explanation is necesary, but that much should be given. Johntex\talk 02:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It's pretty bad right now. Discussion about this has been removed elsewhere on Wikipedia, so I think further discussion is better at WikiTruth - there's no sensorship there, and no cabal. 165.254.38.126 23:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

If in doubt, ask
I've added that if we're in doubt as to whether any particular action of Danny's falls under WP:OFFICE, we should check first, but not undo. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Reasonable, but I think it needs instructions how to check (properly, with a chance of getting an answer and discreetly). -- grm_wnr Esc  22:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I added that we should check "preferably by e-mail." Does that cover it, do you think? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that's fine (if it's what Danny prefers, of course). -- grm_wnr Esc  22:32, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know what Danny would prefer, but I'm guessing he'd rather be asked privately than have it discussed on the talk page. Of course, I think the reality is that we may sometimes not receive an answer, but the important point to get across is not to revert Danny. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:35, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It is really a shame that we are stuck with guessing what Danny would want and what changes we should make to this policy so that other editors do not accidentally run afoul of Danny. Danny should label his WP:OFFICE actions as WP:OFFICE actions.  He doesn't need to explain them to us, just label them so we know to stay away. Johntex\talk 01:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The "Nutshell policy" states, "Do not unprotect or revert a WP:OFFICE edit without authorization from Jimbo or the Wikimedia Foundation". Regardless of how you feel about the policy, if people can't know which actions are office actions and which aren't, the policy is a failure. Don't run red lights, blindfolded. I don't see this working out. If there is some reason someone thinks they can't say that it's an office action then they need to rethink the policy. If you can't tell us when actions are office actions then a policy saying not to revert office actions is untenable. - cohesion 05:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with 'when in doubt ask', but given that Danny had himself removed the office tags from the articles in question I don't think I would have been in doubt... that would seem like a clear indication that WP:OFFICE was not in effect. Except that apparently it was. Or something. Double secret WP:OFFICE. At which point the procedure may need to be, 'if Danny did something (anything) ask before you change it'. --CBDunkerson 11:53, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd say don't undo admin actions if you have any reason to believe they come from the Foundation. It may not be the usual wikiway, but there's a real world out there with real laws. SlimVirgin (talk) 12:02, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem is that in this particular case there was no reason to believe that Foundation issues apply, and in fact all indicators pointed to the contrary. Of course, we might well say that any action by Danny is an office action - but if that is the rule, I would expect Danny to do nothing else (at all!) with that account in the interest of fairness. -- grm_wnr Esc  15:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * What people are overlooking is that we're not supposed to undo any admin action without checking first with the original admin. The blocking policy, for example, makes that clear. And given that Danny works for the Foundation, anyone undoing an admin action of his without checking is not applying common sense. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Do you discuss every unprotect action, unblock, et cetera with the other admin first? When I unprotect templates which were 'indefinitely protected' due to high use but then subsequently deprecated do I really need to track down who the original protecting admin was and discuss with them whether the template now linked to just three old talk archives really needs to remain protected? When admins unprotected the Main Page on April Fool's day would the proper course of action have been to discuss with them before re-protecting it? Et cetera. Yes, 'discuss with the other admin first' is a good practice, but it is not the absolute which is being claimed. I think it would have been a good practice to follow in this case even if the other admin weren't Danny, as the action taken was odd enough that 'I do not know what is going on here - better ask' would seem a reasonable course. However, there isn't anything engraved in stone to that effect and reversing what would normally (barring WP:OFFICE - which wasn't invoked) be an 'incorrect' protection was not unreasonable either. --CBDunkerson 21:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * As a rule, I try to avoid undoing the original admin's actions. If I disagree with them, I usually try to persuade them of my point of view. In the case you mention where an admin unprotects a page that someone else had protected, that's undoing an undoing, and I have no compunction about that. But I try not to reverse the original admin's decision. There appeared to be no reason for Danny's action in this case to be reversed, yet it was somehow an instinct: an admin didn't understand it and therefore undid it. That's the attitude that needs to stop, and not just with Danny. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see why this is so unilateral. What's wrong with having a rule which says "Any Office action should be explicitly marked as such"? David | Talk 13:36, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. There shoulde never be any form of doubt regarding office-actions. Zanaq 10:27, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Office template
If there's now so much problem using the office template, I have made one new office nocat that is simlar to the office template but dont put it into a category, Danny, if you is to use this template then use it by subst it so the article don't register in what's links here. ( {{subst:office nocat}} )→ A z a  Toth 15:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the decategorised template; it will not decrease the visibility, and it simply should not be done. Controversy over Office actions is irrelevant to its application, much like it is for Neutral point of view or No personal attacks. To use an example similar to Cohesion's above, hiding the application of this policy is like a law that drivers must stop at a red light that may or may not be there, and must call their local police department to verify if the green light is actually red in disguise.


 * That said, I've added the standard category override parameter to the template so that it can be removed by using the template as  , and deleted the now-redundant . // [ admin ] Pathoschild (talk/map) 16:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * To clarify my above comment, I'm not opposed to the decategorisation itself, but to efforts to hide office actions. // [ admin ] Pathoschild (talk/map) 18:16, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The template   is now available also. Prodego  talk  21:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sometimes Office actions should be hidden from the typical user. Perhaps we should create a template that looks exactly like a regular  template, but those of us who are watching would know it is an office template (only because it was used instead of the regular template). The typical user would not catch onto this, but we would know not to remove it.  NoSeptember   talk  18:48, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I fail to see how a cloak and dagger approach will resolve matters. The template is much more like the approach I suggest. It provides a reason for its protection, explains how matters will proceed, and notes that it is temporary. Ensuring that our articles are verifiable and balance is not a shameful thing to do, and hiding such actions only serves to emphasise the opposite. // [ admin ] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not suggesting it should become routine, but each case is different, and if the subject of an article does not want to have the appearanace that "upper management" of this site is doing special favors for them, such an action may be preferred in that instance. It does not appear that Danny or Jimbo want to make a big deal out of every case that comes along. Having options to choose from, ranging from transparency to flying under everyone's radar, can be a good thing. NoSeptember   talk  20:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The issue, aiui/ianal, is that there are occasions (on WP and outside) where the requirements of the situation (threatened or actual legal action) require that an immediate - if temporary - action is taken which may also be required to be as unobtusive as possible, thus to exlicitly label a particular edit or course of action could be construed as either drawing attention to the problem or against an injunction or whatever. I do not know the circumstances regarding any use of the 'office' procedure, but my experience outside WP suggests that these reasons might be applicable to the actions taken. This also demonstrates why an immediate block might need to be made on an admin in order to retain the stability of an article without making an explanation (which might itself be prevented legally) but which can then be safely reviewed once the immediate threat to WP is past. --Vamp:Willow 22:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * When would this be the case? I understand that there's a need to not reveal the actual complaint, but how is the mere fact that a complaint was dealt with sensitive? Also, does it follow that it is forbidden to discuss the cause of an Office action (on Wikipedia)? Evil saltine 02:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Paul Barresi
Jimbo semiprotected the article yesterday as a stub. It has been rebuilt into a full article. Someone familiar with the subject may want to look at it. NoSeptember  talk  17:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The explanation he gave was "ongoing trolling due to slashdot". Doesn't sound like an Office Action to me, but of course, how can anyone know for sure :P Kaldari 17:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Since both Danny and Jimbo have been involved in this article before, it may be. And on the talk page Jimbo encourages us to write the article, but Hollywood bores me, so I'm not going to muddle through it :-P. NoSeptember   talk  17:50, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The Big Time
I'm surprised to see seasoned editors hashing over this issue. Danny can, and will, and sometimes must edit pages and not call attention to the fact that he has done so. We should encourage that such articles be tagged when possible for the benefit of clueless newbies. But the real list of office actions is found at Danny's contribs. Now, please don't obsess over that or he'll have to sprout another sock.

This relentless demand for full transparency simply ignores the reality of the larger world. This is The Big Time; we are playing at very high levels indeed. CEOs of major corporations all watch their bios here, youbetcha. There are quite literally men and women in this big world of ours who can and do have people shot and killed at whim, never mind the lawyers. As much as this stinks it is the world we do live in. And Wikipedia is just far too big and notorious to evade notice. We can't go around like a street nut, secure in his obscurity that grants him the freedom to ignore all rules. We are subject to the sometimes-baffling, always-annoying, obscure rules of The Big Time; one of which is: Sometimes you have to do something and not tell anybody outside of a very small group that you even did it.

This does lead to the obnoxious fact that innocent parties can and will be hurt. We can work to minimize this in many ways but we cannot stand in the face of enemies much more powerful and unscrupulous than we. Not, at any rate, when we have so many weaknesses, so many hanging copyvios and other embarassments. People who live in glass houses shouldn't tell people who are angry with them, We insist you look in the mirror.

The most important question; the only one worthwhile, I think, is the makeup of the oversight committee. We can reasonably request that a small group of trusted editors look over Danny's shoulder and demand an explanation of every single office action. We can't all insist that we belong to that group as some sort of committee-of-the-whole. Okay? John Reid 00:11, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You more or less miss the point. The problem is not that everyone wants reasons, explanations, whys and wherefores. It's not transparency. It's that people would like to know if their heads are going to be cut off and they are going to be literally punished by the Foundation they volunteer for when they press save. A long lecture on how naive we all are doesn't really make a lot of difference to that. And dreams of an oversight committee, well....Now that Danny has a sock, at least there is some clarity over whether people must bow and scrape before e.g. rewriting a paragraph Danny once edited. As to the keeping it quiet thing, that is more or less impossible. This is a top-20 website. People will, eventually, spot things. If not an admin who opts to quiet, then an inexperience user who knows no better, or just one out to cause trouble. Hell, even the admin who keeps quiet can go fetch an account on one of the many detractor sites, and trumpet it from there. Who ever managed to keep anything secret on the Internet for long? -Splash talk 02:19, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Splash that the problem of notice is difficult. My apologies if any editor feels slighted by my tone; it's not meant that way. Oversight is not a dream; it is a necessity. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. We must be prepared to watch the guardians. I do agree that total secrecy is always impossible -- in the long run. But there is a positive value to temporary secrecy, however imperfect. You and I may not agree on the quality of this value but outsiders frequently value it very highly. In practice, it is an essential tool for getting along with the outside world.

The inevitable result of secrecy is injustice. That is why we are so strongly opposed to it. It is an ugly fact of life that some situations are best resolved behind closed doors and without announcement. In most cases, it may be highly appropriate that Danny flag office actions with appropriate template notices. In some, it may only lead to more problems. The question of whether it is appropriate in any given case is, unfortunately, not one that can be debated openly.

I find it highly annoying to think that somehow I may stumble carelessly across a page obviously in need of some fixup, make the correction in good faith, and quickly find myself hauled before the Jimbo or some star tribunal on charges of reversing an office action. Should this happen, though, I will be quick to notice the office action label attached to the proceeding and submit with good humor as I'm tarred, feathered, and run out of the project on a rail. I know that it's all for show and that as soon as the offended outsider has turned his attention away, I will be readmitted to the warm embrace of my fellow editors, with no hard feelings.

It is a problem that other editors may be embarassed as a result of this sort of scenario and fail to have the objectivity or good humor to submit quietly to what is patently unfair. We cannot really ask them to consider it fair, when it is not. We can speak to them privately in sidebar and explain the situation. And we can certainly insist on oversight to ensure that the potential for such Kafkaesque trials is reduced to the absolute minimum. John Reid 07:01, 23 April 2006 (UTC)


 * John, is what you are saying here consistent with one of the passages on the main page itself, which states "Since WP:OFFICE is done publicly and under intense scrutiny from the community and the external world, I hardly see any need for a special narrow committee to be specifically tasked with overseeing it"? User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 14:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
 * That has to be one of the most amusing bits of misdirection I have ever read. John Reid 21:58, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I would be perfectly happy with tasking an oversight committee to verify the appropriateness of office actions, so long as the committee consisted of editors trusted to represent both the interests of the Foundation and the community. I believe it is important for the health of Wikipedia that the community not feel completely left in the dark on such actions, even if their inclusion in the process is only by proxy. Kaldari 16:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think full transparency is what people are asking for. Why is it unreasonable to briefly explain an OFFICE action in the edit summary, with something as simple as "WP:OFFICE due to legal issues" etc?  That's four extra words that would ease the minds of confused editors who may have no idea why a page was edited. -- tomf688 {talk} 23:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 100% back the statement made by User:tomf688. I mean really at the very least make sure every WP:OFFICE is marked Eagle (talk) (desk) 00:08, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Some office actions are not made by Danny or Jimbo. Prodego  talk  21:28, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * For clarification, I was authorised by Jimbo to make an 'office' edit this morning via IRC while he was on the telephone and Danny was out of the office. You may rest assured that I would not do so on my own recognisance. --Vamp:Willow 21:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I just meant Jimbo or Danny can authorize other people to do Office actions, I am not suggesting you didn't have authorization, sorry if it sounded that way. Prodego  talk  22:27, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Are office actions all on this page???
If they are not, than I have to question the spirt of this.
 * 1)The policy states that it is public and scrutinized, but by the talk page, this does not seem to be the case.
 * 2)Fine, I can't know why office actions occur, but I want the security that I won't edit a semi-protected article by mistake. (If we are supposed to check, than this policy has been very poorly advertised. Today is the first day that I have even heard of it.)--- and not to parade edits but I think I am around 4000, i.e. I am not new
 * 3)Unfortunatly I can see why this is needed, the real world is not nice, but as I have read, I have concerns about how well this policy is carried out... being in the dark(about the specific info) is not a good thing, but is acceptable because of the legal ramifications. Being in the dark and a gun pointed to one's head is not acceptable... I hope I am making mountains out of molehills... I really really do... Eagle (talk) (desk) 04:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

P.S. on the oversight thing... That may not be nessacary right away, first I feel that the community should be able to know what "not to touch". Eagle (talk) (desk) 04:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * hopefuly the powers that be have geven up on secret office actions.Geni 21:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Fixing perceived and real problems with this policy
A1kmm 10:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose in the current form. However, I think that the policy is needed, and the problems can be repaired with some minor changes, in which case I would change over to support or strong support. I would suggest the following:
 * Instead of a single individual, there should be a small jury of people who decide (I would suggest around 20 people, spread out so that at least 12 are online at any one time). These people should nominate themselves (if they can make a commitment to be on Wikipedia enough), and be approved by a process similar to WP:RFA. There should be term limits (I suggest 3 month runs), after which individuals must not serve for another 1 month (Rationale: I think the short break is necessary to ensure accountability, but due to the high level of commitment required, the pool of candidates is probably limited, and so we need them back if they are good at the job). Both false positives (i.e. unnecessary office actions) and false negatives (office actions which are rejected but shouldn't have been) are bad, but I believe that where a office action is highly contentious, it should be disallowed. Therefore, I propose a quorum of 12 jury members (abstentions don't count in the quorum), with at least two more votes in favour of the office action than against. Unless the majority of the original quorum agrees otherwise, failed office actions shall be made public immediately. Where the original quorum voted not to release the information, the rest of the jury may add their vote, and when the majority of jury has voted in favour of release, the information should become public.
 * Anyone should be able to propose an office action confidentially to the jury. The jury should consider all office actions, regardless of the source, unless they believe that an indidual or (formal or informal) group is trying to flood them with requests to prevent legitimate office actions being processed.
 * Except as described above, jury members shall have no power against proposed office actions which they believe are in bad faith. However, they may make the office action public, allowing normal community processes, like WP:RFC, to take place.
 * The jury mailing list must only be read by members of the jury. No archive should be kept by the jury mailing list. Jury members must promise not to disclose messages of the list without the majority of the jury, and to delete all messages after 1 week (unless the specifically choose to keep a particular message).
 * Jury members may send to the legal mailing list without moderator approval, and legal members may send to the jury mailing list without any approval.
 * Each jury member forming the quorum should give reasons for their vote. These reasons will become public on the date approved by the jury. Where it is unclear on what date the reasons for an office action should become public, the jury should approve a date when they will vote again (which must be no later than in three months). If, no sooner than six months after an office action comes forward, the jury has decided to suppres publication of reasons three times, it may vote for indefinite suppression.
 * The dates and outcomes of votes for suppression should be public.


 * I think you may have missed the point of WP:OFFICE. Official requests (which are the ones we are worried about) go to the foundation. OFFICE is in theory the mechanism by which the foundation deals with those requests/complaints that have merrit.Geni 13:05, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Exactly. OFFICE is reserved for those actions that don't allow time for an elaborate process and for the development of community support.  An extreme example would be the Foundation being served by a court order to remove some content.  To my knowledge, this exact situaiton has never arisen, but if it does, then Danny (in conultation with our attorney) needs to act swiftly.  I don't think it is necessary or helpful to have a jury to consider OFFICE actions in advance.  I will repeat once again that I do think WP:OFFICE actions need to always be labeled as such. That provides sufficient transparancy to avoid inadvertantly interferring with the policy, while maintaining needed confidentiality. Johntex\talk 15:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It also gives more accountability to our readers. For example, somebody looking at a recently-unOfficed article might think 'why the hell is this so short?' or 'why has Wikipedia only had an article about this subject for two weeks'. Maintaining a permanent list of all articles that have been under WP:OFFICE protection at some point (without giving the reasons, which I appreciate can't be disclosed for legal reasons) would let our users know why certain articles may not be as extensive as they could be. In fact, I think that something like Category:Articles previously under WP:OFFICE protection would add significant transparency to those readers who might not have seen the article in its protected state, or checked the history for Office protected revisions. Cynical 12:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

OTRS
What is the relationship of OFFICE actions and OTRS actions? Is the OTRS "OFFICE-lite"? Are there any procedure, policies, or guidelines for actions which are not OFFICE actions? -Will Beback 22:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Would you care to explain what you are talking about? Kaldari 23:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I would if I could. I'm hoping that someone else can explain all of this. "OTRS" doesn't even have a project-space article. -Will Beback 23:32, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * What is "OTRS" Prodego  talk  23:35, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Presumably it is a form of OTRS, "Open-source Ticket Request System". It came to my attention when an editor removed some material from, then semi-protected it even though no one else had edited it in months. When I inquired what it was all about another editor responded mysteriously that it was in response to an OTRS complaint. Does OTRS exempt admins for following normal protection policies and procedures? Is it a part of OFFICE? -Will Beback 23:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * For information on the Wikimedia Foundation's volunteer OTR system, see OTRS. These volunteers do not have the authority to use the Office actions policy, although they can respond to queries as normal editors or administrators. // [ admin ] Pathoschild (talk/map) 23:56, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * So then volunteers handling OTRS complaints are required to abide by all the usual policies and procedures? -Will Beback 23:59, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, although as always, you should recognize that the administrator may have his/her reasons for the action. (However, a side note: a search of OTRS for "Kerry Bolton" doesn't produce any results; also note that all emails to info-en, which OTRS handles, are strictly confidential.) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note? ) 00:44, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

There are links for OTRS and the shortcut WP:OTRS now, though they just lead to OTRS. ~Kylu ( u | t )  03:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:BEANS compliance
People may want to keep in mind WP:BEANS. This page mentioned a person's name, when mentioning the person's name is part of the problem according to some people. I've changed the name to having "this article". Andjam 01:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I put it back, since Danny added it. Plus anyone could just have clicked... Prodego  talk  02:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Issues with policy
I have often read complains about administrators abusing their powers on Wikipedia, and this policy seems an extreme way to do so. However, since it has been explained that Office actions are often to deal with legal issues, this is not my main concern.

My main concern is: Many people fight vandalism on Wikipedia and thousands, maybe millions, of reverts occur every day. How would a user know that the revert he is about to make would violate this policy? For me, I usually add information to articles on websites and Singapore TV shows, but I do revert vandalism occasionally. Vandalism sometimes takes the form of removal of important information, and Office edits are likely to fall under this category. What if I accidentally revert something without knowing that my revert would violate this policy? The policy states that one can be instantly blocked for violating this policy. This seems to be very newcomer-unfriendly.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 10:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Pages under Office actions should be fully protected, so that shouldn't be any problem. → A z a  Toth 10:52, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The answer to your question is that you may be temporarily blocked or even desysoped, depending on the circumstances, not so much as a practical or punitive measure, but so that the Wikimedia Foundation can keep their asses covered by showing due diligence. In other words, it's nothing personal. Well, that is, assuming Danny keeps a cool head and all parties are acting in good faith. Kaldari 16:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but where the policy says that an action is supposed to be public, and the person invoking that policy takes positive steps to prevent its invocation from being publicly known, then bad faith is fairly apparent. Remember that WP:AGF only applies 'until presented with evidence to the contrary'. Cynical 01:02, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

A perception worth dealing with
"WP:OFFICE is getting to be the all-purpose way for the handful of bigwig insiders with the proper Wikimedia Foundation connections to cut off all debate on something and insist that something be done, and nobody else has the right to object or even to know why. It's kind of like national security to the government.  Whenever it's invoked, it's supposed to be the ultimate trump card that overrules everything else, even including any supposed rules or principles regarding how, and by whom, WP:OFFICE is supposed to be invoked in the first place.  It's no longer even necessary that the magic word WP:OFFICE even be recited in the course of such actions; they can be retroactively declared as such later." WAS 4.250 19:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Question-- legalities
Ok quick question:

If all written work is owned by the contributor (the way it works in your average forum... read the AUP.. all posts are property of the poster)... then why would we need a wp:office policy? After all, its hard to prove wikipedia libelous if we did not commit the act of libel.

Personally, i think that this policy is a great example of what wikipedia shouldent be-- i mean in its purest form, wikipedia (or the idea) should have no king. but since someone has to have their name on the DNS servers, obv. that can't happen.

but should the man who owns the DNS servers and the hardware that wikipedia is hosted on be held liable for someones elses contributions?

I think not.

I think that we shouldent bend over and assume the position every time someone threatens legal action against wikipedia. Thanks! --NightDragon 01:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It is my understanding that, although the host of libelous information is not liable under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, they become liable if they are informed of the libel's presence and do not fix it. That's exactly what OFFICE is for. -- SCZenz 03:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * This is correct. Taking the comparison to a personal webpage hosted on an ISP's website, then simplistically that webpage (content) is the personal responsibility/liability of the creator (editor), however once the ISP (WMF) has been made aware of the problem and legal threat then they become legally liable for the impact of that problem remaining in place and must takes steps to repair the situation. Once they have done that they cease to be responsible for the future development again. When such complaints are received, therefore, a reasonable speed of response and a clear path of immediate action will help reduce any damages should a court case result from the initial problem. Ideally, of course, the ISP/WMF dealing with it very quickly will result in the complainant being satisfied and not taking things furter. Of course, in the case of most ISPs finding themselves in this situation about a customer they simply ban the customer and delete their whole website not just the offending item. --AlisonW 21:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * So if libel is found fix the article. Why do we need these draconian measures?--God Ω War 06:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

NewsMax, etc still OFFICEd?
Under Category:Office protected, two temp pages which haven't seem to be sitting there are listed as OFFICE, although this page doesn't show them as being under the policy. Did this page not get updated, or did someone forget to remove the templates? 68.39.174.238 03:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)