Hi Folks,
Yup, its time for your favourite thing again, a forum on more seemingly pointless rule changes. I'll try and make this as painless as possible
Requirements - additional "good behaviour" requirement
At the moment, our user rights requirements cover a lot of bases. You have to show you're committed to this place, and have the skills to do the job. We don't just appoint someone because "someone up there likes them". This is great, but there is a bit of a gap in the requirements.
Whilst edit counts and tenure are essential things to check, there is curerntly no bar on those recently recieving some sort of ban from running for a position.
Now, I am a true believer in that people can and do change - it may suprise some of you to learn that over a decade I was perma-banned from a game forum. Sometimes the punnishment, or the sands of time that allow us to grow up and become better people, so I am not for excluding anyone who made a stupid "arrow to the knee" joke from running for the duration of their natural life.
However when a ban is fairly recent and nontrivial, I don't think its unreasonable to ask that a period of good behaviour is shown to us before a position of trust can be sought.
It would be my suggestion that these changes would apply to bans issued from the commencement date of this change.
So I would like to offer for your consideration some suggestions to clear this up.
- Just wanted to highlight, these suggestions are intended to be exclusive - one or the other would be adopted, not both.
Suggestion 1
Users who have any ban from chat or the wiki on their account must show a period of good behaviour of at least 6 months from their most recent incident before running for Moderator, Chat Moderator or Administrator
This would place a 6 month time bar from the most recent ban before running for a position. The position of Patroller remains at Bureaucrat discretion, they may choose to look at bans, or see the position of Patroller as a useful tool in helping the user develop/reform.
Suggestion 2
Users with more than 2 bans from Chat or the wiki are prohibited from running for Moderator, Chat Moderator or Administrator
This would block anyone with a ban running. However it does ignore the ability for people to reform and get better, and its also worth pointing out not every admin active today would be able to pass this requirement.
Temporary Chat Mod
99% of the time during our busy periods I think it is true to say that chat is oversubscribed with moderators, however at least twice in the past two months, administrators can and have temporarily applied chatomod rights to another user as we were short.
To deal with this situation, I would like to suggest the following set of guidelines (being specifically called a guideline, rather than a policy as the practicality of these may vary depending who is online).
- Temporary chat mods should, in general, be appointed only when folowing criteria apply.
- When 3 or more chatters are engaged in active conversation
- When there are no other active users with Chatmod rights
- When attempts to ping any logged in, but "away" chatmod users have failed
- When to not appoint a temporary mod would either leave chat unprotected, or where the sole remaining chatmod cannot dedicate the time to continously monitor chat
- When the last mod has a good faith reason to believe the rights may be required
- There do not appear to be any chatmods editing the wiki who can visit chat.
- The Deligating admin shall
- only appoint a single Temporary Chatmod at any time
- Report usage of this feature to a bureaucrat (or another Bureaucrat in the case of Gunny, Clyde, J, Ghost) via talk page.
- Ensure the rights are removed upon their return
- Review any corrective measures (Kicks and bans) placed by the recieveing moderator.
- The Recieving moderator shall
- Refresh their familiariarity with the rules, and clarify any best practice in enforcement. They should clairify any questions about enforcement with the admin before they leave.
- Upon the return of an Administrator to chat, inform them of the situation so the rights can be removed
- Take a Screen capture / log of any bans issued for review later by an appointed mod.
- When appointing a temporary mod
- Consider the persons record - Are they Clear from Chat bans for a reasonable period? Are they a Patroller? Do they have a long tenure with us? How active have they been recenly?
- Consider their behaviour and matrurity level. Are they likely to misuse the powers? Do they play fast and loose with the rules?
- Are they a potential permenent Chatmod? A temporary appointment is a sign that maybe a new mod is required. Is this person likely to be intersted in the job?
Comments
I'm on board with Suggestion 1 and the delegation of temp rights. About the Suggestion 1, situations are ambiguous, and users that have been banned twice may at some time be suitable. If they aren't, the community will know and vote accordingly. I feel like we've done fine with scrutiny in the past, but this clause can't hurt, only help.--TwoBearsHigh-Fiving 
18:59, December 15, 2012 (UTC)
Overall Chad, I am content with everything you brought up and support all proposed changes. One thing I would add is, 6 months is a really, long time. Sure if they stick around for after 6 months it shows dedication to the wiki, but 5 and even 4 months shows that just as well in my opinion. -- The Old World Relics (talk/blog/contributions) 19:01, December 15, 2012 (UTC)
- In light of Gunny's comments, and me somehow missing suggestion number 2 (?), I have some revised comments to say. First off, I am completely aginst suggestion two. Everybody has the ability to change. Moving on, it is a valid point that maybe we shouldn't have an over reaching policy, yet on a dependent on user case. Gunny's point of the assume good faith policy being broken is something I did not see, yet do completely agree with Gunny about that. But, if these rules were to be moved towards a passing state, I would then pull my previous comment about 6 months length, and how 5 or 4 months show the same amount of dedication as 6 months. -- The Old World Relics (talk/blog/contributions) 20:58, December 15, 2012 (UTC)
I think that the time allowed before someone runs for admin/mod should be determined by the person's behavior, not just a policy that states, you got banned, you wait. Some people get banned over honest mistakes, myself included, and some people have become contributing members of the community after being banned. It's good that you have these suggestions, but they should be refined a bit. 
"Semper Invictus" 19:09, December 15, 2012 (UTC)
- Thats the point in a discussion forum before jumping straight to a vote. How do you think they should be refined? Agent c (talk) 19:19, December 15, 2012 (UTC)
Suggestion #1 & #2 both break the "good faith" rule imposed by wikia and our policies. By placing further restrictions on a user after any punishments from bad behavior have expired, we are explicitly not exhibiting good faith. If the user's bad acts deserved a longer period of admonishment, then the ban/block should have been longer in the first place. There are no provisos for probation on this wiki, whether they apply to general usage of features or application for extra rights. Any person, having previously been banned/blocked will have to prove by their actions to the community that they are suitible for extra rights, but that choice must be made by each user, individually. People will have to weight those bad acts against their own personal standards of conduct that merit extra rights and vote accordingly. We simply can not make a blanket rule that holds previous bad acts against any user after their ban/block has expired. We really have no choice in this, as it goes against the very core of "assume good faith". We place restrictions on users after they make bad acts, not in anticipation of future bad acts. The Gunny 
20:04, December 15, 2012 (UTC)
I'm going to have to completely agree with Gunny on this, but I still feel that 6 months would've been much too long anyways, 3 months is much better, and as with the temp. mod. appointment thing, I agree with basically all that your saying there (Wildwes7g7 (talk) 20:16, December 15, 2012 (UTC))
While I don't necessarily like it, suggestion 1 would be good to have in the community. Suggestion 2 I dislike altogether. If that was the case, what would we do in people like EnergyX's case? 
"Hail to the Pigeon!" 20:50, December 15, 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps then assuming good faith is not enough for what we are looking for here. Assumptions of any kind, especially in the face of good faith, are dangerous. With that said, people do change, not everyone does, and their are cases where people will fake change in order to do dastardly things. A 3 month period between being unbanned and being able to apply for rights does to me seem like the right recourse. But I think we should do a little more than just wait 3 months, behavior is huge here, I think it will require closer relagation than just letting the alloted time expire.
With that said, I will express my dislike of suggestion #2. Are we defining what types of blocks/bans are restricting here? If we are not we should, Bans for vandalism, disruptive edit wars, etc. Should be in primary consideration as they often come as a result of immaturity. Being Banned for a personal dispute however is another matter alltogether. I have to agree with Gunny here that Blanket rules will not work here, if we are going to do anything like this it will have to be seperate and individual policies for the specific types of blocks and their lengths. ---bleep196- (talk) 21:07, December 15, 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with Gunny on this. Both of the suggestions do indeed violate the assume good faith policies. The person who broke the regulations before and was banned has been punished already. If we create this "blanket rule" it removes one of the elements of the voting process. If the person is indeed The Boogeyman, he won't get voted user rights. Simple. --Kingclyde (talk) 23:03, December 15, 2012 (UTC)
- I also fully agree with Gunny. This doesn't seem really necessary as the giving of emergency rights has yet to cause an actual problem. Sometimes things better belong in the hands and judgement of our staff here, instead of written rules. And I had never agreed with something like #2 - Clyde sums it up well - if the guy hasn't been changed or is that bad, he won't get rights anyway. A blanket rule is purely superfluous, IMO. --Skire (talk) 23:23, December 15, 2012 (UTC)
I completely agree with Suggestion #1 as for the temporary chat mod rights, there should be a set list of people who can obtain them if the time arises to avoid confusion or anything of the sorts. 
Hawk da Barber 2012 - BSHU Graduate 02:31, December 16, 2012 (UTC)