Wikipedia talk:Probation

Admins in conflict with user
I think it might be a good idea to prevent administrators from banning someone who they are in conflict with. Administrators aren't allowed to protect a page in order to win an edit war for example. The same reasoning should apply here. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 16:28, 28 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Indeed, although it's arguable that that would be abuse of sysop powers, of course, whether or not we explicitly said so. Other than that, however, I think the suggestion is worth trying out.
 * James F. (talk) 13:33, 29 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Suggestion has been incorporated. Fred Bauder 15:00, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

I find this proposal both too broad and vague, and simultaneously another example of instruction creep. What is a "disruptive or objectional way"? What is an "administrator who is not involved in the conflict"? As for administrators not banning someone they are in conflict with, what if they are vandals? Highly disruptive? And what do we mean in this case by "banning"; permanent bans, or temporary block? Jayjg (talk) 18:36, 29 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Editing in a "disruptive or objectional way" means editing in such a way that a reasonable person (i.e an uninvolved admin) judges is not in the best interest of Wikipedia. Revert warring, personal attacks, POV pushing, trolling are all examples of disruptive editing.
 * An administrator who is not involved in the conflict is one who isn't revert warring with the person on probation or exchanging insults with them or fighting in any way with the person.
 * This is not a Wikipedia wide policy. It's a remedy for a select few individuals who otherwise would have to be banned outright. Vandals don't need to be put on probation, they need to be reverted and possibly temp blocked.
 * A temp ban is a ban for a short period of time. The person is banned by an an uninvolved admin rather than by us. They announce the ban on WP:AN/I and everyone takes appropriate measures to enforce the ban. This may involve blocking for a period of time, or it may involve mass reverting of everything the person does, or it may involve reverting and short term blocking. It depends on what works best in that particular instance. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 21:47, 29 August 2005 (UTC)


 * A ban under this remedy would be limited to only the articles the user is causing trouble with. It was created to give us some options. Fred Bauder 22:32, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

It's a long road from "it's no big deal" to "you are the police". Two problems I see. One, your definition of "objectional" behaviour is very broad. Is it POV pushing to push your POV once or do you have to do it a lot before it's "objectional"? I can think of quite a few editors who I object to who actually are admins. And "disruptive" is a catch-all term that tends to mean "I don't like it". In any case, today's "disruptive" is tomorrow's "made no difference". Sometimes, I wonder whether inviting everyone involved to calm down and sleep on it wouldn't actually be the better course of action than propagating and encouraging litigation. Two, an "uninvolved" admin is a rara avis round here. There are blocs of admins who work together already to protect pages from POVs they don't approve of (or to enforce our policies if you prefer to see it that way) and for most POV pushing types, summoning up an admin who will ban the probationer for them would not be extremely difficult. I understand that you want to find another option that will allow you not to ban problem users like Yuber, and yes, Fred, you're only looking at particular cases, but devolving more and more power on admins is a dangerous thing and setting a precedent only encourages ever greater instruction creep. Today Yuber, who crosses the line, tomorrow someone else, who straddles it, the next day, someone that just holds an unpopular view. Grace Note 06:11, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Gracenote, it should be noted, is a reincarnation of Dr Zen, who was previously sanctioned by the arbitration committee for disruptive editing. Take his comments with a grain of salt. &rarr;Raul654 01:21, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I just changed to the template for the suggested procedure for banning to read that the length is subject to the admin's discretion, and not automatically a year, as it had implied. I think that this is the intended meaning, and would be more consistent with the intro: "setting forth ... the date the ban expires (which may be not later than the end of probation)." One of these was wrong, and I thought it was the year one. Dmcdevit·t 03:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Nobody is "entitled"
From the page:


 * A user placed on probation by the Arbitration Committee is entitled to continue to edit in the subject areas in which they are on probation.

I disapprove of the idea that anyone is "entitled" to edit Wikipedia. It is an attitude of entitlement that has led to some of our worse social problems: people believing that they are entitled to use Wikipedia to be heard; that their points of view (no matter how obscure) are entitled to be aired prominently; that they have a right to edit, and therefore that restrictions on their editing are some kind of infringement of their rights; ... or for that matter the conduct of some administrators reflecting an apparent belief that their status entitles them to overrule other editors on content matters. "Entitlement" is a huge, huge problem.

Might I suggest the use of the term "permitted" instead? Even this, though, would suggest to some people that they had some sort of special sanction -- "I'm Officially Permitted to edit this, so don't mess with me." --FOo 04:54, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Probation list incomplete
The list of people on probation is not complete. User:William M. Connolley is not mentioned. I don't know how many others on probation are not listed. (SEWilco 22:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC))


 * He was not on probation but on revert parole. Fred Bauder 00:15, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * My mistake. So what is the difference between probation and Parole?  (SEWilco 04:06, 3 December 2005 (UTC))

Probation permits any administrator to ban the user from editing an article if they disrupt it. A revert parole involved blocking someone if they revert too much. Neither is that satisfactory as an administrator has to get involved which they may not do, as you have found out. Fred Bauder 13:16, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the explanation. Can you expand the definition at Parole?  (SEWilco 16:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC))

Ex post facto penalties
"1) In view of the dissatisfaction expressed by XXX with the decisions reached in this case and the apparent lack of insight into any role his own behavior played in the creation and aggravation of the problems which gave rise to this case he is placed indefinitely on Probation. If in the opinion of any three administrators, for good cause, he is responsible for disrupting the functioning of Wikipedia, restrictions may be placed on his editing, up to and including a general ban of one year. Each restriction imposed shall be documented and explained in a section at the bottom of Requests for arbitration/(Name of case). Should any period of one year pass without any such restriction being imposed XXX's probation shall automatically end." - Created December 16th by Fred Bauder, the same day this extreme and indefinate penalty was proposed against me and another user by Fred Bauder in two arbcom cases after we voiced rational disagreement with his general lack of transparency and unfairness in the handling of those cases.

Hey Fred. You supposedly went to law school, right? Ever heard of an ex post facto rule? They were apparently quite common for Star Chamber proceedings. Rangerdude 17:18, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Page bans
Is it true that each page can be resticted to allow only a few users or block a few users? -- Eddie 11:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Probation
Is SPUI supposed to be here? We're having problems and there is Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 

New motion
Could someone update my and PHenry's entry to note the expiration of probation (WP:RFAR/HWY? Thanks. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Lists of users on probation - update or delete?
The lists of users who are or were on the various types of Probation, and the notes on everyone's status, are now seriously out of date. This may suggest that this part of the page, while well-intentioned, is not very useful as a practical matter. Is it worth our collectively taking the time to update everything (as an ArbCom clerk I'll pitch in), or should we just delete the lists? Newyorkbrad 16:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Please, please, update. It is entirely aggravating that there isn't a central list.  More admins should be aware of probationary users. SchmuckyTheCat 16:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * There are comprehensive lists at Requests for arbitration/Completed requests and Requests for arbitration/Admin enforcement requested, which is a listing and summary of all cases involving enforceable remedies, and can easily be searched with control-F. The problem with this list is that it is incomplete, and only seems to be updated when someone has an "issue" of some kind.  Before Sam Blacketer's update of April, the last major update was by Fys, who was involved in a dispute with ArbCom over his own probation and introduced some rather "interesting" subclasses.  The current dispute over the list centers around one person, and it appears that no one has any interest in actually making the list comprehensive, for example by listing all the editors placed on probation through Armenia-Azerbaijan 2.  I checked with ArbCom via e-mail a few months ago and no one there objected to deleting the list, and my feeling is that an incomplete list is worse than no list at all, especially since there is a comprehensive list elsewhere.  If someone wants to own this list in a benevolent way and really keep it updated, that would be another situation entirely, but that does not seem to be the case at present. Thatcher131 12:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I would also say that if someone really did have an urge to really keep this up, that the list of users whose probation has expired or lifted should be removed entirely (on the Scarlett Letter principle), and the lists of actions taken should be removed and replaced with a link to the Arbitration case page where blocks and bans are recorded. There really is no such thing as dormant probation either. Thatcher131 12:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Um, Thatcher131, I didn't introduce any subclasses ("interesting" or otherwise) that weren't already to be found in the decisions of the ArbCom. And as for being "involved in a dispute with ArbCom over my own probation" the dispute was over me insisting that I wasn't going to have an article ban and suggesting probation as an alternative. My probation has now expired. Is there some sort of Rehabilitation of Offenders Act? PS I think what has happened to Proabivouac stinks. He had a clean block log. If blocks aren't a punishment, then probation certainly isn't, and why he should have to go through it for a year is totally beyond me. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 13:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Namechanges
Is there any stipulation here which states that users on probation may not change usernames, or that if they do, they're required to inform anyone in particular?Proabivouac 09:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I know you want to argue that unless this particular principle is not written down somewhere it does not exist. However, some things are just common sense.  Banned users may not edit from another account during their ban, see WP:BAN and WP:SOCK.  This is something you well know, see for example Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds. Why do you think that this principle would apply only to banned users and not to users under other forms of sanction such as revert parole or probation?  I don't recall you defending User:NuclearUmpf when he was caught as a reincarnation of User:Zer0faults evading his probation, or User:Ebonyskye who appears to be a reincarnation of User:GuardianZ that was being used to evade a topic ban.  The only reason you have given not to restart your own probation (other than "it's not written down") is because you originally edited under your real name rather than a pseudonym.  I doubt the community would endorse this sort of exemption as it would enable all sorts of evasions from truly bad actors, which you seem mostly not to be.


 * That said, I have just reviewed, for purposes of this post, the response to the discovery that Gwen Gale had also evaded her probation by dropping one account and adopting another. See especially Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive247.  I am truly astonished at the responses to that situation by Fred Bauder and especially Morven, who is the arbitrator who announced your own evasion and re-imposed your probation.  As a matter of policy I believe that probation applies to the person, not the account, and as you got caught (and especially since you got caught on the basis of similar editing behavior), you need to serve your probation.  As a matter of equity I am simply at a loss. I have rarely been moved to shout "What the fuck?" at an arbitrator, but this is one of those times. Thatcher131 12:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Non ArbCom probation
Is there any mechanism by which a tendentious editor can be placed on probation, without requiring a full ArbCom case to do it? For example, uninvolved admins agreeing with the probation? Or, if a user steers clear of 3RR and incivility, is ArbCom really the only allowable way to currently deal with tendentious editing? --Elonka 18:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)