User:Markus Prokott/Discuss LAAs/Material

Old template for request for permission[edit]

Now, I must say, that none of the two answers I got here is rooted in the original reasons for the extended confirmed (EC) protection (ECP). (I focussed on the time when the idea was extended from an ad hoc tool of the arbitration committee to a standard tool utilized by admins, too.) The idea was totally about disruptive behaviour and focused almost entirely on the protection against sock puppets.

I found zero discussion about screening against unexperienced users making mistakes for not knowing EN-WP rules. There was something about «certain editors aren't considered to be experienced enough to even discuss the topic.». In this case, however, it doesn't matter from which sister project you expertise in debating stemms. But «drive away the good-faith new contributors»‍^[perm] was maybe the gravest ##very much of a## concern and vividly discussed (in 'one case related to sister projects). Understanding the specific EN-WP rules before being allowed to edit ECP pages was an inexistent topic. (Though «straphangers» were mentioned as a concern in one case. Not sure what that is.) The core issue was disruptive vs. well-mannered behaviour and nothing else. Otherwise this measure would hardly have been emanated from cases of the arbitration committee.

There was almost no discussion about permission granting for legitimate alternative accounts (LAAs) or sister projects. Assumably, the reason for this being, on the one hand, that there was silent consensus that LAAs should get the EC flag without restriction, and, on the other hand, no interest in any discussion of sister projects (or awareness of their sheer existence). The silent consent was obviously on banning illegitimate uses of alternative accounts, while not bothering over legitimate uses (as this exception was always included without discussion). What may be deemed as legitimate was simply left to the corresponding definition on the «socket puppetry» page (then & now). As much as the whole discussion, the definition there didn't mention sister projects in any way, at that time (see beneath).

Now, I would like to discuss that issue with a broader audience and propose a clarification/ammendmend/change to the present rule. This is independent from the decicsion made here. Can someone tell me where would be the best place to start that debate?

Definitions[edit]

Definition of the community process

«However, it also states that "Criteria for community use have not been established." This request for comment seeks to establish such a community process for the use of extended confirmed protection.»‍^[perm]

Definition of arbitration committee processes

«Decisions not subject to consensus of editors»‍^[link]: «The committee has a noticeboard, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, for requests that such decisions be amended, and may amend such decisions at any time.»‍^[perm]

Definition of option C

«Allow use to combat any form of disruption (such as vandalism, edit wars, etc.) on any topic, given that semi-protection has proven to be ineffective.»‍^[perm]

Arguments citing unexperienced users or sister projects[edit]

Vote #6 in support for rejected option A: «At this point we are moving from "encyclopedia anyone can edit" to "encyclopedia anyone can edit unless it's a contentious topic." I don't think it's a useful sanction at all, it's just a tool for owning the article by the regulars of Wikipedia who are not necessarily the experts of the subject and might be the bigger problem. Funny thing is, WP fought creationists, Scientologists and climate change deniers and it was a stupid Hashtag that needed such draconian protection. And I remember why. It happened because an experienced editor could not stop biting the newcomers, who, short time later, topic banned from the subject. This sanction is a massive failure to assume good faith and should not be used anywhere. But if it is, it should at least be authorized by arbcom. Darwinian Ape talk 21:26, 4 July 2016 (UTC)»‍^[perm]

Vote #12 in support for rejected option A: «What I don't like is the use of this rule on talk pages. There it disenfranchises new editors from even involving themselves in the discussion. Semi-protection serves to keep most socks at bay, but this isn;t <sic!> aimed at socks, or disruptive IPs, but 30/500 states that certain editors aren't considered to be experienced enough to even discuss the topic.»‍^[perm]

Vote #26 in support for rejected option A: «Not to be anecdotal, but I wanted to contribute to another language's wiki (that's poor in quantity and quality), but couldn't and kept hitting walls with every edit or request, because I was considered by the software to be a "newcomer", even though I had much higher edits here on enwiki (not even allowing me to post a request to lift the restriction). Needless to say I'm not gonna be contributing to it anymore. And I don't want newcomers here to have a similar experience. I feel like this goes against the spirit of Wikipedia's openness.»‍^[perm]

Vote #50 in support for rejected option A: «On the other hand there are experienced editors who spend most of their time pushing their POV that is not supported by reliable sources, these folks know all rules of Wikipedia and are looking for an angle to ban other editors.»‍^[perm]

Discussion of ECP policy's impact on newcomers: «Autoconfirmed is easily gamed and protection might be too strong. There's not been an intermediate protection level that lets newbies who have picked up some experience continue while telling complete newbies "this article has seen some issues, we'd like you to test the waters in less conflict prone articles before diving in here" […].»‍^[perm]

Discussion of ECP policy's impact on newcomers: «But lets not pretend that newcomers are like children and the experienced editors are the adults trying to keep order. As I said above in the vote section, it was actually the biting from an experienced editor, who was shortly after topic banned, that led to 500/30 protection.»‍^[perm]

Discussion of ECP policy's impact on newcomers: «However, I still have my doubts with how vigorously protection duration guidelines will be enforced. Part of the reason why long-length full protection is so rare is […] if they do apply full protection haphazardly, the multitude of experienced editors who are not admins will surely raise complaints. On the other hand, experienced non-admins won't be affected by the haphazard application of EC protection, so they have no incentive to complain […]. Meanwhile, the new users (those with less than 500 edits) are unlikely to request unprotection due to their unfamiliarity with Wikipedia, or unwillingness to jump through so many hoops.»‍^[perm]

Discussion of approved option C: «Currently admins have to assess the situation to see exactly which editors are being disruptive, they don't ban all inexperienced editors indiscriminately. Using this protection [i. e. ECP option C], in effect bans every good faith non-EC editor working on that area even if they are not disruptive, while allowing any EC editor who is disruptive but not enough to warrant a ban yet. Darwinian Ape talk 22:47, 7 July 2016 (UTC)»‍^[perm]

Arguments assuming good faith in admins[edit]

«We are experienced at this, and we understand how long and what type of protection is best. Please assume good faith in the admin corps.»‍^[perm]

«Admins who regularly patrol RFPP and are experienced in applying protection should be, by default, given the benefit of the doubt that they will assess the situation and do their own due diligence before protecting an article.»‍^[perm]

Arguments showing lack of awareness of sister projects[edit]

«As for alternate accounts, is it necessary? From my experience, not very many users use alternate accounts and this would only apply to a subset of editors who edit restricted pages and whose alternate accounts don't meet the requirements. Even then, is the editing so crucial that it can't wait until they return from their travels, get home from work, leave the library, etc. and just edit from their main account? Mike V • Talk 19:55, 16 January 2016 (UTC)»‍^[perm]

Current applications[edit]

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 4 #Remedies
1. Subsections:
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3
1. Subsections:
  1. #500/30 or #General Prohibition (Shortcut: WP:ARBPIA3#500/30)
    1. Superseded by 1
Wikipedia:AC/P
1. Long form: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures
2. Subsections:
  1. #Extended confirmed restriction
    1. Referred to by 1.1.3

Current presentations of EC[edit]

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 11 #Arbitration motions regarding extended confirmed protection‍^[post]
1. «The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:»
2. Deemed «[t]he original motion by the Committee»‍^{[post|arch|perm]} by statement elsewhere as of 01:18, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
3. Referred to by (2)
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Extended confirmed protection policy 2#Background/Introduction
1. Good summary of history and current state
2. Similar to (3)
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Extended confirmed protection policy
1. Deemed «[t]he original RfC to allow admins to apply ECP to combat disruption»‍^{[post|arch|perm]} by statement elsewhere as of 01:18, 16 May 2017 (UTC).
2. Subsections:
  1. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Extended confirmed protection policy#Background
    1. Good summary of history and current state
    2. Similar to (2)
  2. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Extended confirmed protection policy#Option C
Wikipedia:User access levels#Extendedconfirmed
Wikipedia:Protection policy#Extended confirmed protection
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Archive 89#Palestine-Israel articles 3 (3): Arbitrator views and discussion
1. Short views
Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 129#New usergroup with autopromotion to implement arbitration "30-500" bans as a page protection
1. Details about manual promotion in the intro: «1. Users who don't (yet) meet the autopromotion criteria can be manually promoted by admins when based on their history, they are expected to contribute positively to these areas and no evidence of sockpuppetry exists»
2. Technical proposal
3. Short discussion on manual promotion
Wikipedia:Requests for permissions#Handled here (see box: «Extended confirmed»)
Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Extended confirmed#Extended confirmed
Vlad5250 adds the notice on how to request early EC in revision as of 12:54, 15 November 2022 of «Wikipedia:User access levels».
(One) original wording:
«The extendedconfirmed user group can be added by administrators to accounts that do not yet meet the criteria. A process for requesting this has been set up here, intended primarily to handle the case of publicly identified legitimate alternative accounts of users whose primary accounts do meet the criteria.»
— Miniapolis, Wikipedia talk:Protection policy, Revision as of 18:38, 15 May 2016 (→‎Extended confirmed protection (two ArbCom motions; May 2016): new section)
1. Refers to: «Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry #Legitimate_uses», revision as of 15:54, 15 May 2016 by Lemongirl942

Template for proposals[edit]

I see this as under ArbCom's purview

Does the AC see other-language accounts (OLAs) as legitimate alternate accounts (LAAs) in the sense of its motion? Did the AC consider OLAs, at all? (Or just forget about these?) If not, did it want to include all future changes by the community on the LAA rules as implicit changes to its policy? Or did it want to restrict its ruling to the then-current LAAs explicitely stated in the rule? (Note: OLAs have always been implicit LAAs?)