User blog:Bourgeoisie/Thoughts on user rights and the like

Recently there's been a lot of talk and debate about user rights and user groups, especially revolving around chat moderators and administrators. In many of these situations I've presented my opinions and feedback, and I felt now is a good time to address all of these issues and my ideas around them in one blog post. If you aren't going to take the time to read through any complete thought written in this blog, please just skip straight to the conclusion.

What is the purpose of user rights and policy?
I felt like this is a good topic to address before I speak about anything else. I've seen a lot of misconception about what user rights are for, and what the wiki policy is for. First of all, it's important to know how the original concept of a wiki: a collaborative, community-built site around a topic. The thing I see here is that people forget the "community-built" and "collaboration" part. Even with this misconception, this site is still built by it's community, which includes regular users, moderators, administrators, and everyone else. All user rights are is an extra set of tools to allow some users to further build the community and the wiki. It doesn't make users who hold user rights any extra privileges; the wiki is still being built by the entire community regardless of who has what rights. This becomes a problem when I hear people talking about policy. The policy, as a part of the wiki, is something that is supposed to be built by the community, not just by administrators. Why? Because the community members at the lowest part of the "food chain" of user rights know best what's necessary for the to contribute to the site. If the administrators wrote every bit of the policy, it would not be written from the common user's point of view, and thus would not reliably help the common user.

Another thing I see misconception on is how policies are enforced, and the general purpose of the policy. This is an issue especially present in chat. I often see moderators making actions because something was in violation of the policy, or the policy told them to make such action. All I can think of when I see this is "No no no". As a chat moderator, administrator, or anyone, you're not enforcing policies. That's not what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be enforcing the purpose of the policy. What do I mean by this? If the policy says something, but it doesn't present any problem besides it being against the policy, then what's the point of kicking or banning? The purpose of policy is to provide a guideline of how to keep chat safe and healthy. If something is in some way against policy, but doesn't detract from the community's healthiness or safeness, then making some action such as kicking or banning does nothing effective. An issue I see on this ground very frequently is when someone says something, and a moderator kicks for it as it was against some policy, but the original issue was no big deal for anyone in chat. This often leads to a disruption where people debate on whether the kick was justified or not. Basically all this kind of debate means is that the kick was not necessary. If kicking causes more disruption than the original issue caused, then by kicking the user, the moderator failed to enforce the purpose of the policy, which is to keep chat healthy and nice. In situations where kicking or banning would cause more disruption than the original policy violation, there are better options for a moderator to take than to kick or ban. Even ignoring the situation at the time can be a better option, if something doesn't effect anyone else in chat. Moderators need to remember the purpose of the policy is what they're enforcing, not the policy itself.

General problems involving user rights
A big big BIG problem I see on this wiki is how users view user rights. User rights are not power or authority. Looking at them as such causes so many problems. The biggest problem it causes is it makes the moderators forget the purpose of their rights. Their rights are not meant to tell other people how to obey policy. Once again, moderators are meant to be enforcing the purpose of the policy, not the exact policy itself. Another problem is that I hear regular users complain about moderator and administrator actions, such as moderators violating policy, or administrators not being active enough. But the problem is that since they look at these users as authoritative figures, hardly anyone feels comfortable calling them out on these problems. I even see moderators saying how they want to stay on the admins' "good side", so they do or don't do certain things as chat moderators. There should not be any hesitation in any of these actions just because of other users with rights. No action made will just make admins up and demote someone. That kind of decision is a community decision, not an admin decision. There should not be any fear of being on anyone's "bad side".

A similar issue is that with the levels of authority that people see in user rights is that it leads to user inequality. I see moderators afraid to do something if it would put them on the administrators' bad side, but they have no hesitation if it would put them on any other user's bad side. I also see user inequality when users provide feedback or criticism on an action made by another user. If I constructively criticize a moderator, I sometimes get a remark such as "I'll do what the admins tell me to do". If user rights were not looked at as authority, then everyone should be looked at as equal. There should be nothing that separates from one community member's opinions from another community member's who also happens to be an administrator. Both users are just as important to the community, and have equally important opinions. I'll address more problems with this specific example in the next section.

Another thing I'd like to point out in the section is the restrictions behind requesting access to the patroller user group. Today I was attempting to contribute in a way that other users had agreed would be useful, but was unable to without patroller rights. On most wikis, patroller is not something you need to go through a request/voting process for. It's such a minor right that can hardly do any harm. It only needs a minimum level of trust, and thus isn't something that users should have to vote on. Patroller is simply a couple more tools for users who do some editing in less common forms. Users who need those tools to be able to contribute in those ways should be able to get those rights if they need.

Issues with chat moderators and the chat moderator group
I've already mentioned some issues with chat moderators and the user group in general, but in this section I'll address some specific common issues I see in it. Since this wiki is most active in its chat, chat moderators are looked at as a very important user group. They do have an important purpose, but I often see chat moderators not understanding how to serve it's purpose correctly. Chat moderators' responsibility is to enforce the purpose of chat policy and prevent abuse in chat. I asked in chat what users thought a chat moderator's responsibility or purpose was. These are some of the responses I got:

"To enforce the policy,... And thus use their "powers" to do so"

"mods shouldn't be the ones that the people "fear" so to say, the people that dislike what the person said should make sure that person gets punished."

The ideas behind each of these opinions are more or less correct, but there are some problems I'll highlight as far as how user rights are incorrectly looked upon in this community. First of all, moderator rights aren't "powers". They're a set of tools to help better-enforce the purpose of chat policy. I'll provide more details on moderator abilities later. Secondly, there is no punishment involved anywhere on the wiki. Nowhere on the site is there anything that is to be used to punish users.

Moderators have two basic abilities over the standard user, as everyone knows: kicking and banning. As suggested in the above quotes, there are problems with how these tools are looked at. The purpose of these tools is the same as the responsibility of being a chat moderator: to follow the purpose of chat policy and to prevent abuse in chat. These tools are not to be used to punish users. Preventing abuse and punishing are two very different things. What does preventing abuse do? It follows the purpose of chat policy to keep chat healthy and safe. What does punishing a user accomplish? Nothing but negatively impact one user. To quote Obi the LEGO Fan:

''The purpose of a ban is not to "punish" someone, but to prevent disruptive and abusive behavior. ... It's not a question of "does this person deserve a ban?" Rather, it's a question of "is banning this person the most efficient way to solve this conflict and prevent disruption?"''

Warnings, Kicks, and Bans
To start this section, I'd like to quote myself from a conversation with LegoI3rickI3uilder, a former chat moderator and administrator here. He had asked for solutions to situations that would require moderator action. Here's the response:

Just think out your actions before you make them. Ask yourself "what will banning this person accomplish or cause?" If a kick or a ban results in a debate as to why the person was banned, then it already wasn't the right solution to the situation. Times I see this happen often None of those should be necessary in the process of preventing abuse in chat. If the original "disruption" a user may have caused takes up less time than any of the above situations, then the proper way to have addressed the situation would have been with warning(s). And something I see often is moderators following a step by step process when moderating, that in their mind goes like: That's also not a good way to go about it. There's never a set amount of warnings a user should get. If they're making a repeated mistake that they don't realize, 1 or 2 warnings or kicks won't always get that across to them, but that doesn't mean they're trying to disrupt chat. Do keep in mind that LMBW tends to be much more restrictive than other communities people are used to, even seasoned members of LMBW. You can keep warning them without having to escalate the situation. The only time upping the situation to a kick or a ban would be necessary is if the user is clearly intentionally being defiant or inappropriate, not just if it violated policy.
 * result in a long discussion in chat about why the person was kicked or banned, and ends up in a two-sided argument;
 * result in a forum or talk page thread discussing a kick or a ban that results in a two-sided argument; or
 * result in an administrator or group of administrators being consulted to address the situation.
 * 1) 1 or 2 warnings
 * 2) 1 or 2 kicks
 * 3) ban

Basically, policies are just guidelines on how things should be on the wiki. It's not what's written in the policies that matters most (not saying it doesn't matter at all), but it's the purpose of those policies that moderators are to enforce. If someone breaks a policy, they broke a policy. You can let them know that, but when you choose to kick or ban and it ends up causing more disruption than the user breaking a policy, you'd have enforced the policy, but have failed to have enforced the purpose of the policy, which is to keep chat safe and healthy. A moderator's actions should never cause more disruption than someone who was accused of disrupting.

What I stated there is generally the ideal way to go about moderating chat from any wiki I've ever been a part of. On this wiki, I see a lot of controversy revolving kicks and bans after the fact, and if moderators and administrators took to mind what I said above, I imagine the frequency of those kinds of problems in the community would drastically decrease. However, as LegoI3rickI3uilder pointed out in response to that statement, not everyone will be receptive to warnings or other actions. This wiki also does have quite a few nonconstructive users who persistently try to cause problems. I'll quote myself again to explain the ideal way for moderators to handle users who refuse to take warnings to mind:

If they're clearly being defiant, then sure, it's fine to take further action as long as it isn't disputable afterwards. Generally whenever there's other users in chat, if they show indication that what someone is doing is wrong, it's safe to assume your actions won't be questioned. But if there are other people who are showing that they don't think what's being done is a problem, then you'll want to evaluate the situation further. Don't hesitate to ask other people in chat, fellow moderators or not, what they think an appropriate action would be. Sometimes just ignoring what happened and moving past it solves the problem better than making a judgement yourself.

Taking further actions is only really necessary when the problem continues to negatively effect other people. So if a person keeps personally attacking someone, certainly don't just rely on warnings because clearly they're negatively effecting another user, but if a person lets words like "damn" slip in their messages, which I know is a word some users and mods have mixed feelings about, if nobody else actually feels like they were cursed to be damned by God, then it's not really something you need to start kicking for. When they say it, it'd be fine to warn them and if they do it again, another warning is fine. But kicking them is something that I can only imagine would frustrate them and escalate the situation more than it would have needed to be escalated.

Also in a warning for using certain words like that, it comes across much better when you say "Try not to use words like that as some people here may not be comfortable with it" rather than saying something like "Don't use swears"/"Don't say words like that", as that just opens up room for them to start questioning how you perceive it as inappropriate for chat. The former phrasing is clear: Some users may or may not be comfortable with it. It's much more understandable and agreeable from a user's point of view.

I really do want to emphasize the importance of the last paragraph in that quote about warnings. Generally it's easy to take care of a user who's showing blatant defiance towards any attempt to correct them, but I do see warnings being delivered incorrectly in many situations, even on the first warning. Warnings shouldn't be questionable. They should tell what the problem is and why it's a problem. With vague warnings, you're only opening up the chatroom for more disruption and unrest.

Another big problem I see in moderator "warnings" is when they say for a conversation to be dropped or stopped. This is just terrible, especially when the conversation or argument is based around an action such a ban or a kick, or about policy. If community members are expressing a problem, there is evidently a problem present. Basically, if someone or a group of people show that they have an issue with something in the community, that is IMPORTANT. You can't just dismiss that, because if they recognize that there's a problem and everyone else dismisses it, that problem will come up again and again. It's never a good idea to stop an argument unless it's nonconstructive (e.g. just insult v insult) or unrelated to the wiki/community (e.g. some intense argument about why the original 151 Pokémon were better). If a moderator thinks that dismissing an argument about a ban or kick, policy, or anything else in the community, clearly they aren't thinking about their actions, as they're just going to end up with the same problem again.

In my experience as a moderator and administrator on various large communities, kicking and banning is hardly ever necessary when warnings are delivered correctly. As a moderator, you should not have intentions to ever need to kick or ban someone. It's always better for the community to get someone on the right path than to remove them from the community completely for any amount of time.

Issues with administrators and bureaucrats
Right now, a lot of users complain about the administrators and bureaucrats not being present enough in chat or on the wiki. To an extent I can agree, but at the same time I do look at the administrators in general to be more reasonable, logical, and open-minded than the chat moderators in general. I do feel like not enough users become administrators. Right now there is a small amount of administrators on this wiki per active user, and not many admins are regularly active in prominent areas of the wiki, namely chat. Administrators should not be less present in chat than chat moderators or less present in mainspace editing than normal members. Overall, the biggest concern I have with administrators is the lack of transparency and accountability, which I'll address in a later section.

Issues with CheckUsers
This is less of a problem with the user right or group itself, but more about the policy. I do have a problem with the current CheckUser policy. Namely, these three points are an issue to me:


 * If a user has told another user that he has duplicate accounts, then a CheckUser is acceptable to confirm it.
 * If a user has a strong reputation for creating dupes, and there is evidence that he or she has created another.
 * If there is high suspicion or sufficient evidence that a user is a dupe of another user.

CheckUser should never be used when no abuse has taken place. Going off an assumption or a mere statement of being a dupe is not a good reason to CheckUser someone. I'm aware that I've been checked on this wiki as well, though no abuse had taken place. Checking users in situations such as this is not appropriate and is a violation of an individual's privacy, as no abuse had taken place to warrant a check.

Transparency and accountability
An issue I've seen recently is that many moderators and administrators have an issue with transparency and accountability. First of all, some people might not know what this means and why it's important, so I'll explain. When anyone makes any action on a wiki, they need to be accountable for those actions they take. This is even more important when a user has the ability to make actions such as banning, blocking, kicking, or even warning. The definition of "accountable" is "required or expected to justify actions or decisions; responsible". This is important because if a user makes an action, especially one such as a ban or kick, they need to be able to justify and explain that action. If they can't justify or explain it when asked, then anyone is able to assume that the action wasn't justified. I hear the "it's none of your business" claim periodically when asking a moderator for the reason behind another user's kick or ban. Since this is a wiki, and I'm also a member of the community, it is my business to know what happens to other users, and to know whether or not a moderator, a position that the community voted for a user to become, is using their rights correctly.

As for transparency, "Transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed." It's not too common to see issues with this on the wiki, but there are some times when transparency issues do occur which I would like to bring up. First of all, I commonly see "it was agreed on by the mods" or "it was agreed on by the admins" as a reason for things happening here. That's not a reason. All that tells the community is that they weren't involved in the decision making there. The community should be involved in decision making processes that effect the community and its members, but even if something needs to be agreed upon solely by a specific user group, that decision making process should be publicly readable. Why? Well for example, if the admins agree on something that involves the community and/or its members, if something was wrong in the decision making process, other members the community should be able to identify that flaw behind the decision making process. Wikis are not an oligarchy, so things that effect the community should not be decided upon privately by a small group of users.

Another concern with transparency that I have is the admin site this wiki has. It's not unusual for wikis to have places where admins or other specific user groups can "privately" discuss things related to the wiki, but there still needs to be transparency behind this. Even sites such as [//checkuser.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikimedia's CheckUser Wiki] are moderately transparent. I'm aware that other users are discussed privately on the admin site, and while this is okay, there should be some transparency. Transparency doesn't mean the admin wiki and its content need to be public. What it means is there should be some guidelines as to what can and cannot be discussed privately on the admin site. The community and its admins should collaborate on establishing these guidelines. For example, I know that topics such as demotions or promotions are discussed on the admin wiki. This is an example of something that should be public on this wiki. It effects the entire community, so the entire community should be aware of it happening and have a say in it, rather than just the administrators discussing it privately.

Conclusion
I do hope that people took the time to read this, as it is an important and serious topic. To those who didn't take the time to read and think about the opinions and ideas expressed in this blog, I would like to ask that you don't comment. These are just my general opinions on how things could be improved and how things aren't right currently on this wiki and in the community. There are opinions that I've left out, and some of you will have contrasting opinions. You're free to criticize or continue to discuss these ideas and opinions in the comments, but please keep it respectful.

Best regards,

Bourgeoisie (talk) 03:05, February 27, 2015 (UTC)