Talk:WMF Global Ban Policy/Archives/2015

"Supplements"?

A WMF global ban is an extraordinary action that only supplements, without replacing, the community global ban process.

Don't you mean "bypasses"? Even if it's only "supplements" community processes, it certainly doesn't complement community processes. The page could do without such sentences, especially when they feel like lies to readers. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 17:45, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that a different wording would make sense. Maybe reword it to "... that is separate from the community global ban process." Ajraddatz (talk) 17:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

It says wikt:supplements (meaning added to to complete a thing) and that is what it does. There are two routes (community and WMF) to the same global ban, different process.  — billinghurst sDrewth 09:18, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, that makes sense. Sounds out of place, but I guess it is correct. Ajraddatz (talk) 14:36, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Except what is ordinary and what is "extraordinary"? The community ban process has never actually been used. There was one decided community ban that did not follow the established process, it preceded its creation. It has been enforced by the WMF, but the actions of today included notices to that user, Poetlister, that he was banned. So, arguably, one community banned user. Then six banned by the WMF. In five of those cases there are charges -- listed elsewhere -- of what, on en.wiki, is about child protection policy, which includes either being an admitted pedophile, having been convicted of some offense such as possession of child pornography, or alleged advocacy of "inappropriate relationships with children," a euphemism for adult-child sex (which could shade into, say, advocating the reduction of the age of consent. In some places that age is 21. Would advocating reducing it to 18 violate the policy? In many places it's 16. In some places younger.) Can of worms. We understand why such actions must be private, though the lack of any appeal process is troubling.

However, today, one user, an active Commons administrator in good standing, with 791,000 edits, not banned on any wiki (by the definitions in the global ban policy; he is "defacto banned" in en.wiki, which really just means blocked with nobody unblocking), is now WMF banned, with no apparent warning. The reason given in the mail to him was "We are taking this action based upon because of [sic] a history of sockpuppetry and legal concerns as well as other violations of our Terms of Use." I have not investigated this case, as I sometimes have with other cases. However, on the face of it, sock puppetry was on a single wiki, for the most part, if not entirely. This person was not eligible for a global ban by the ordinary global ban policy, which requires cross-wiki disruption and multiple *discussed* bans.

It is completely correct that what is being done is to bypass the regular global ban policy, making exceptions that are not justified by a need for user privacy, as in the child protection bans. In this case, what is being protected, it seems, is the WMF from scrutiny. The community is being kept in the dark, and it looks like this is being done without necessity.

Obviously, the user may have done some horrible thing, but, then, what we have is a user whose real name is known, who is effectively being accused of something so horrible that it cannot be described. One of these days, a user this happens to is going to decide to bite back. With an action like this, the WMF cannot rely upon the protections of "community decision." I hope they know what they are doing! At this point, it's not impossible Commons will raise a huge fuss, it happened before when Jimbo intervened there. Or they won't. I have no crystal ball. --Abd (talk) 03:19, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Benefits

It's quite clear from the recent actions that our Mission doesn't gain anything from the WMF having received this power. --Nemo 10:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Voting

Are we going to vote on it, or it is kind of supreme law? I can read from the policy:

• A WMF global ban is an extraordinary action that only supplements, without replacing, the community global ban process. If it is extraordinary, why it was used 4 times in a row, just 3 days after it was placed on Meta? It is also strange, why some of the blocked, were previously globally blocke, werent they?

--Juandev (talk) 14:00, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

No one is safe

If they can ban Russavia, then they can ban anyone. The threshold for who can be globally banned is too low. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:15, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

@Michaeldsuarez: So we should still trust someone even he said something like "I want to kill you with AK-47"? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:50, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

"This action is permanent and non-appealable."

A friend of mine sent me a copy of the Email that the WMF sent to him:

This communication is to notify you that the Wikimedia Foundation has globally banned you from Wikimedia Foundation websites and platforms (including but not limited to any site listed at www.wikimedia.org, mailing lists hosted by WMF, WMF Labs, and the Wikimedia blog). You accordingly may not participate in, edit, contribute, or otherwise modify any content on those sites, platforms, or lists without permission. This ban is placed against you, not against a particular username. It applies to any alternate accounts that you may control and any accounts you may create in the future. Furthermore, you may not participate as an anonymous user (“as an IP user”).

We are taking this action based upon because of a history of legal concerns as well as other violations of our Terms of Use.

This action is permanent and non-appealable.

Sincerely,

Philippe Beaudette

Director, Community Advocacy

(Emphasis mine). This is wrong. The WMF is banning people without the possibility to appeal those bans. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:06, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Transparency reports

WMF is trying to catch up with industry standards in terms of transparency (cf. chillingeffects.org), publishing transparency reports etc. Some questions on the matter can be collected in this section.

IRC

Does WMF staff commit to a level of transparency on par with IRC/Group Contacts/Log for actions they take (personally?) on IRC? --Nemo 15:24, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Sources of bans

Cf. [1] --Nemo 11:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I have a more specific concern. One of the users -- his ban email has been posted here -- was banned for "a history of legal concerns as well as other violations of our Terms of Use." I'm very familiar with the user. I was long expecting that he might be banned, but only for one reason: his activity on non-WMF wikis where he presents an appearance of "advocating inappropriate adult-child relationships," which is a violation of Wikipedia policy, but which has never been established as a basis for global ban. He's a libertarian, and his real position is a free-speech position. He then says whatever outrageous thing comes into his head, and justifies it as "just an opinion." He does this with nearly everyone, he's blown my fuses more than once. He is not a danger to children, nor to wiki users, except in one way: he can make people really, really angry, to the point that they threaten violence. So he is disruptive. I have acted to stop this on WMF wikis, and he grumbled, but he cooperated.

He has one other issue that could be a basis for the ban, but it was not mentioned. He's addicted to editing Wikipedia. One of the globally locked accounts was his, and that account shows what he does.

From my notes: 09:36, 19 January 2015 WMFOffice changed status for global account "User:Ferberson@global": Set locked; Unset (none) (Account operated by WMF Banned user) CA Clearly [redacted] interests. All edits appear constructive. See edits to Child pornography

He has developed expertise on certain issues. So he edits articles relating to those issues. The edits appear constructive. Nevertheless, this is ban evasion. Is ban evasion on a single wiki a cause for global lock? If so, this is entirely new and is not stated clearly in the TOS. This, then, applies to another banned account, whose ban email specifically gave sock puppetry as a reason.

Another editor, commenting on the Talk page of that article, provided real-name information on Ferberson. If I thought "Ferberson" actually cared about this, I'd not be mentioning this here, but someone should inform "enforcers" like this of the limits. Notice that, even with some fairly intense scrutiny, Ferberson's edits stand, so far. (I am not legitimating ban evasion, that's a very complex issue.)

In recent discussion on Wikipediocracy, that he edits a certain wiki has been cited as if it were proof of pedophilia. It isn't. He's not a pedophile, period, end of topic. That wiki, by the way, is legal, and so is what Ferberson does, usually. (There was an exception, and in typical style, the offense was entirely in writing, only in an email sent to those who would enforce the law. He is not dangerous, there is no record of actual violence. He says things.)

What I'm left with, reviewing this, is a sense that the editor is banned, not for TOS violations -- I've reviewed the TOS with him in mind -- but for apparent off-wiki advocacy of something considered offensive. The WMF could confirm or deny that it bans on that basis.

None of this is an argument that he should not be banned. However, banning for off-wiki expressions of opinion is a slippery slope. --Abd (talk) 15:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Statistics

Do you plan to release information on

• how many requests/suggestions/motu proprio you had for bans,
• how many of those you actually investigated,
• how many of those are under investigation,
• how many reached a conclusion?

(The latter point may coincide with the list currently published in the page.) --Nemo 11:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion

Well, only on commons. –Be..anyone (talk) 15:41, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Resolved. This ended nowhere and will be archived after 30 days of inactivity. –Be..anyone (talk) 19:49, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Global ban suggested:

Could you please ban globally JarlaxleArtemis and Runtshit? They are 2 of the worst vandals on en.wp (I have my talk-page permanently semi-protected due to JarlaxleArtemis´s rape and murder-threaths.) Runtshit is the most prolific sock I know of. Sure; it woun´t stop them, but is sends a strong signal. At the moment it looks as if those who troll Jimbo gets a global ban (I have no problem with that), but those who make death threats towards "ordinary" editors are not "worthy" of a global ban. (en.wp admins can look at my log to see what messages JarlaxleArtemis has left me. He has done similar things towards many, many editors/admins on en.wp. Since his identity is well-known (he lives in California), what about suing him?) Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:22, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Globally banning vandals isn't going to hinder them from vandalizing pages or making threats. It's also preferable to keep the list of WMF globally banned users as short as possibly. If we include common vandals on that list, then that list will expand and expand until it becomes out of control, like a snowball rolling down a hill. In fact, it's too large already. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 01:48, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

That would be a job for stewards ; you shoudl direct such requests to Steward requests instead. DarkoNeko (talk) 02:17, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok thank you for your answers/suggestion. And, Michaeldsuarez; I would hardly call JarlaxleArtemis JarlaxleArtemis or Runtshit "common vandals". Of course it would not stop them from vandalizing pages or making threats, (no more than it stops, say A. Morrow), but it would send a strong signal. Huldra (talk) 02:25, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

For JarlaxleArtemis and Runtshit, the novelty of "strong signals" likely wore off a long time again. It's foolish to believe that such a "signal" would cause them to feel anything. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If it's not in the open, it's not valid

Anything dealt in some shady back-room shenanigans has no validity at all. This bans were done in shady back-rooms woth no oversight by the sovereign, i.e. the community, at all. The WMF is behaving like a dictator, and that is the complete opposite to what a community based enterprise should be. Everything in the Wikiverse has to be community vetted or it's not valid. Actions like this destroy any trust in the ivory tower in-group in SF, and they have to regain trust after their massive anti-community actions last year. --♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 12:13, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I just got a hint to something very similar in the english history: the Star Chamber. This looks like exactly such a sham institution as described there. ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 17:07, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

So what you are saying is that the WMF is following the example of one of the most effective English monarchs? Will you now congratulate them on bringing stability to a war torn country while operating a sound fiscal policy? How about their ability to nullify opposition without resorting to the more extreme methods of their predecessors? Furthermore their ability to apply some level of rule of law over those who could previously ignore it is to be congratulated no?Geni (talk) 07:32, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The argument is essentially fascist, if Geni is serious. There is still a need in democratic or generalllyh open societies for secret process, but this is then surrounded, as much as possible, by safeguards and protections. In the absence of developed process, which has generally been considered too complicated and unnecessary, the WMF actions may indeed be legitimate, but we cannot know. This could be remedied, it actually would not be difficult. --Abd (talk) 13:56, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed intransparency seems to be the biggest problem here. There should at least a short findings report explaining the reason for a global ban and there needs to be a limited form of appeal to guard potential abuse. I can see why the WMF wants to keep the right for global bans to itself rather than having it community administered. This allows to handle extreme cases efficiently, but it cannot do so in an intransparent manner and without any appeal option at all to correct potential errors.

A workable scenario might be the the WMF to required to provide short finding and reasoning report (beyond simply giving a template answer) and some community process (maybe arbcom, maybe a special poll among admins or general users with a large majority say somewhere around 2/3 or 3/4) that can correct false decisions. If we do not have that, this is likely to become another milestone in the alienation between community and WMF, which can be in nobody's interest.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:43, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

There is a basic structural misunderstanding that is best immediately corrected. Just as the WMF cannot compel any user to do anything, neither can users (not even the whole community!) "require" the WMF to do anything. As well, there are serious problems with the proposed process, wikis are not good at handling decisions by vote. Attempting to fix rigid rules is nearly guaranteed to fail. However, a community consensus, if it exists, becomes obvious.

The primary focus of what I'm writing now is not about "false decisions." We really cannot know if a decision is supportable or not, without evidence. If a user prefers to keep his or her privacy, that's it, it's over. If not, then it is possible to consider appeal.

For background, most may not realize that something on the order of 20,000 global locks are issued per year, by stewards. The vast majority of these are never explained, other than in vague terms, such as "LTA," or "Spam-only account." For most of them, the evidence is hidden; often there are no visible edits, often no edits at all. True spammers and most LTAs will never bother with an appeal, waste of time for them. Of the current users recently banned, it's not clear how many would want to appeal. In order for the community to assess this, there are two possibilities:

1. The matter is appealed to checkusers and stewards, who already have access to private information. I would only allow the user, or someone clearly authorized by the user, to register an appeal, even to a privacy-respecting group like that.
2. The user waives privacy and allows the WMF to publicly present evidence and reasoning for the ban, which the community may review. An RfC may then be created, if appropriate, by the community, to advise the WMF.

Generally, for due process, a user should have some ability to review evidence before deciding whether to appeal or not. Present summary judgment by the WMF provides users with no warning and no information. One banned user is writing to me, and clearly does not know the reason for the ban; it was claimed that he violated the TOS, and, as far as I've seen, he didn't. That does not mean that the ban was "wrong," but that the stated basis was not correct, and, in fact, my guess is that the user was banned for reasons not allowed by the TOS, as it is. I do not know if he will want to appeal or not, if given the opportunity. --Abd (talk) 19:35, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

There are dozens of non-public procedures and that does not make them invalid only for that reason.—Teles «Talk to me ˱_{C L @ S}˲» 04:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

But not about such extreme and severe actions against community members. Especially in the light of the MV-disaster and the hostile implementation of superputsch the WMF has not much trust left with quite a considerably number of community members, i.e. the backbone and main body of this all. The WMF is not the Wikiverse, they are just servants of the Wikiverse and live from the donations of the community members. ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 17:26, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Appeal process

The WMF refuses to discuss and provide reasons or evidence for global bans, for a sound reason: to protect the privacy of banned users.

However, if a banned user decides to appeal the ban, and is willing to waive privacy rights, that reason evaporates. It is still possible that the Office would want to keep some evidence private, but it is inconsistent with being an open and responsible corporation, to use that as a generic excuse to avoid providing due process and opportunity for appeal.

The users in question were emailed a ban notice, which gave reasons (I have seen three of these notices). Those reasons were summary and nonspecific, unintelligibly vague, and arguably false. TOS violations were not involved, at least not clearly. If they were, there are thousands of users who could be banned, including many administrators and even one or more stewards. I don't think so.

Community global bans may be appealed through RfC on meta. The right of appeal to the community should not be stifled in the name of protecting the privacy of users who do not want it protected, and who are willing to waive privacy. "Appeal to the community" is not a final decision process, the WMF still retains the legal responsibility and right of decision, but this is essential: as advised by the community.

Procedure should be established and banned users notified of the procedure. --Abd (talk) 14:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think (reasonable) privacy concerns justify giving no reason or justification at all beside a standard template. The current unsupervised intransparency is recipe for diaster and further alienation of the community.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:12, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Having dealt with privacy issues, I strongly disagree, and many other WMF users will, as well. There can be legitimate reasons for avoiding comment. Discussion and comment can, in some cases, cause actual harm to real persons. In order to move beyond the present "current unsupervised [lack of] transparency," it is necessary to recognize and handle the legitimacy of it, or else progress will be impossible. Instead of wringing our hands over what we think are Bad Actions by the WMF, we may instead create what is needed, working with the WMF. Otherwise nothing will change, we may shake our fists and stomp our little feet, threaten tantrums and boycotts, and nothing will change. Time to grow up, folks, and take responsibility. If there is support, I or someone else can start an RfC, to advise the WMF. I recommend having some clarity *first*. --Abd (talk) 18:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Questions

1. Do "engaging in criminal activities" can be considered as a reason for block? e.g. child protection was mentioned in earlier version. if it's so under law of which country? US or country of the editor? if it's US, things like promoting "internet piracy" is a valid reason? if it's country of editor, I'm interested in cases like Iran (my country) which editing in Wikipedia half of the time is engaging in criminal activity. Editing about criticism of Islam is punishable up to death (note this for my next question).
2. "the Wikimedia Foundation refers potential criminal violations to the relevant authorities when appropriate" Does this mean you disclose private information of users to officials if needed? what officials and which countries? Does this mean you can disclose information of users blocked for another reason (like threating life of people) to Iranian officials for another reason (let's say editing about "criticism of Islam").

Best Amir (talk) 20:22, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Care to answer? Amir (talk) 19:40, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Bullet 2

Someone please reword bullet 2 to remove the "off of" construction. -mattbuck (Talk) 00:12, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The wording to me seems intentional to indicate something away from, so we may need to ask @Jalexander-WMF: to put it to the next review meeting of the WMF team, as it may not be suitably clear for non-English speakers.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Aye, that is indeed what it's meant for, I'll bring it up with folks Jalexander--WMF 17:38, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Leucosticte and Gerrit

Leucosticte, which was banned by WMF, is active at Gerrit. Should his Gerrit account be blocked? How to deal with his unmerged patchs?--GZWDer (talk) 12:11, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Gerrit is explicitly subject to a different TOS than the WMF wikis. I was surprised to see that the Foundation believed that Leucosticte had violated the WMF TOS, but I do know that he socked on Wikipedia. We do know that such socking was considered as part of the reason given for locking Russavia. However, I'd be astonished if he violated the wmflabs TOS. It's absolutely not his style.

I suggest leaving this alone. Naturally, the WMF has access to information we may not have (I probably know much more about this user than anyone at the WMF, I know his real life, unfortunate as it is, in detail, it is different from what many think), but what I can guess of the WMF reasons for locking him would not apply to wmflabs at all. --Abd (talk) 00:38, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• [2]. 01:07, 21 January 2015 Coren (Talk | contribs) blocked Leucosticte (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of indefinite (account creation disabled, email disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (WMF Global ban) This is interesting because it is an "ordinary user" (wikitech admin, albeit an enwiki heavyweight) enforcing the WMF ban, instead of the WMF. However, this is different from Gerrit. And the Gerrit account is not named "Leucosticte." Can of worms. --Abd (talk) 16:41, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
  • commons:User_talk:Gnangarra#Doing_the_WMF.27s_dirty_work – Commons sysops are engaging in the same sort of activity regarding Russavia. Communities really shouldn't be embracing these bans. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 16:48, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The WMF has created an entirely new class of editor, "WMF banned." Gnangarra is applying policy or tradition regarding community-based (or local admin-based) blocks and bans. Gnangarra certainly can take on the task, volunteering services to the WMF to enforce their bans. Commons will or will not support this, or there may be no-consensus. However, there has been, in the past, and perhaps continuing, a major industry involved with detection and interdicting block/ban evasion. It's huge, and it can be highly disruptive (as uninvolved editors get whacked because of some resemblance). I'm looking at the more recent WMF global locks. As an evader gets more sophisticated -- they learn with time -- the labor required escalates. This labor may do nothing to improve the project; whether it is actually necessary for project welfare or not may depend on the case. It's long been claimed that it is impossible to enforce bans, and the very effort can encourage ban evasion. Filing sock reports, bragging about "catching" the evader, all this encourages the activity, once a banned editor no longer has anything to lose. (The game of w:Whac-A-Mole is much more fun for the mole, if the ban-hammer causes no actual pain.) The WMF may be gearing up to take legal action to enforce the TOS. To do so, however, it may have to give up the secrecy. (I am not an attorney.)

This appears to have been the subject of the comment: [3]. The block reason was (Russavia -- Global ban WMF) It was undone with (nonsense block reason) and immediately replaced with (Open proxy) So Russavia has now become an Open Proxy Detection Service. --Abd (talk) 17:43, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Abd: The global ban on these users is absolute for the WMF property. Absolute. I hope that addresses your ill-informed statement above.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Billinghurst, I thank you for your opinion, but the WMF has not announced what you have stated. It may. If I'm "ill-informed," given all I've read and studied on this topic, so are many others, so my comments are an opportunity to correct errors. I'm not convinced you understood what I wrote. What was incorrect? I think you draw conclusions from what I write, and then react to them. Thanks for all your service. --Abd (talk) 14:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Billinghurst is correct, this ban applies to all services, sites and properties that the WMF runs. That includes Gerrit. Shutting down a user on gerrit is a new thing, and was not completely thought about when the system was set up so it's taking us a bit longer to do it completely, however all of the banned users, including Leucosticte, are well aware that the ban applies to ALL locations. Jalexander--WMF 17:41, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

On a side note (for transparency) Coren, in the block above on wikitech, was doing that block in his capacity as a WMF staff member at my request. Wiki accounts on wikitech are not seperated like they are on the main cluster into work and personal accounts (by preference of engineering, because the policy we control only applies to SUL accounts which Wikitech is not connected too and because changing names on that system can be very difficult), Jalexander--WMF 17:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Just to make things clear, the log entry refered to above by Abd was done in my capacity as an employee of the Foundation, at the explicit request of LCA. (Wikitech does not have separate accounts for staff, as the SUL'ed projects do). MPelletier (WMF) (talk) 18:53, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

This was the correct action. If anyone wonders why the particular person is globally blocked, all that needs to be done is look at the user's history, and aside from links, no further comment is necessary. It should be obvious, then they want to ask why, when they know why. I think it is an attempt for some to just to create a platform of problems. I urge anyone to look at the person's contributions, which are available in the histories, when they feel like asking. -- Sidelight12 21:54, 28 June 2015 (UTC) [4], [5] (this page was moved to userspace), [6].

[7] then, three days later [8] . If these links aren't obvious to you, I can't help you. -- Sidelight12 22:24, 28 June 2015 (UTC) @Jalexander-WMF:, I'm disguised at the wiki-world for tolerating that as long as it did, until action was finally taken. It's none of our business whether someone has those tendencies, but those examples of that relentless unethical behavior by the person in the links I posted are unacceptable. It was obvious to me, and because of that, I thought it didn't need much explanation, but still many wiki-contributors oddly protected it or pretended it was a non-issue. You can be apathetic or upset that I said that, if you want. -- Sidelight12 00:30, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

This is worth discussing because it explores what might be the basis for a global ban. I am no longer directly communicating with the user, but I do not believe that user would object to this examination.

Sidelight12 became obsessed by this case, as can be seen by his beating of a dead horse here. See his current user page here, [9], a link to his Wikiversity sysop actions, requiring emergency desysop.

If the listed edits he provides are grounds for a global ban, it's chilling. There are what may be called "forbidden topics." If a user shows "suspicious" interest in some of those topics, they may be investigated and banned. By enwiki policy, this cannot be done on-wiki, and users who have insisted on "outing" users, have been blocked for it.

The user in question is a libertarian activist, who takes an interest in forbidden topics, per se. He will argue positions that are highly unpopular. I could give many examples. He has often been blocked or banned for this. Yet he has generally been cooperative, amazingly so. The one exception on the WMF wikis is that he has not cooperated with blocks on en.wiki. He socked, and since being globally banned, he has continued to sock. He sees his ban as an exclusion of a point of view, and thus as a fundamental violation of the founding principles of Wikipedia, and he was one of the early Wikipedians. (He used to change accounts frequently, and I have only traced him back to something like 2005. He wasn't banned from the old activity, as far as I know.)

Sidelight12's evidence is simply showing an interest in certain topics, as if that were proof about him and his real-life activities. "Obvious to you" is an appeal to mob mentality. It can sometimes work. People will react knee-jerk, and from evidence like this, I've seen this user be threatened with being tracked down in real life to be raped with a tire-iron. Remarkably, on that wiki, the threat was tolerated, this user was not. He was banned, yet ... he remained a sysop on that wiki and could have unblocked himself at any time. He didn't.

The specific evidences asserted:

• [10] makes a classic libertarian argument, with reference to an academic paper. That paper ignited a firestorm when published, the state legislature, outraged, voted to pull $50,000 from the university's budget. The university stood behind the professor, Harris Merkin, and he died some years later, head of his department. Popular opinion on these topics is very different from academic opinion and knowledge. Merkin was simply describing social and political process, and did so with high cogency. He was taken, however, as being an advocate for legalization of "pedophilia." He was not. He was pointing to political realities. We have begun to examine this on Wikiversity, see wikiversity:en:Sexual_politics. The user did attempt to edit the proposed policy page here, pointing to Viewpoint censorship, which at the time, covered pedophilia. Explicitly, "pro-pedophilia" activism of any kind, anywhere, is grounds for block on en.wikipedia, and has apparently been grounds for ban in other cases. However, the position the user took is not uncommon among Wikimedians, discussions have run as high as about one-third favoring free speech. Actual predatory behavior is uniformly rejected by the community. What is more arguably tolerable is argument favoring revision of age-of-consent laws, which vary widely from country to country, and which have been changing for a very long time. "Pedophilia" is a psychiatric diagnosis, but the popular usage is fuzzy. The user voluntarily abandoned argument on this topic, having been warned (and temporarily blocked on meta, and similarly on en.wikiversity).

• [11]] is a Wikiversity discussion of ethical guidelines for "pages concerning illegal or physically dangerous activities." The user had created a page on a suicide method, and was planning to create a set of resources, as he had saved content from a closed wiki specializing in suicide. He had been told to consult when creating anything controversial. Having created one page, he asked me about it. I promptly tagged it for speedy deletion, which was done. Meanwhile he was blocked by Sidelight12, creating a huge mess, with wheel-warring, an RfC here, and the emergency desysop mentioned. So the user created an ethical guidelines page as had been suggested was needed before such topics could be explored. It was far too weak. You can see the discussion. Meanwhile, he had gone to Wikibooks, where a wikibook on suicide was explicitly allowed (and there is Wikipedia content on this as well.) The discussion there explains much about Wikiversity that Sidelight12 did not understand. The banned user did not continue any disruption on Wikiversity, nor on any wiki but Wikipedia, where, apparently, he continued socking. He occasionally touched on controversial topics, but was not generally disruptive (except for ban evasion). I am not reviewing that.

• [12] shows the user arguing for inclusion of information on suicide methods on Wikiversity, and shows the community saying "not yet, not without ethical guidelines." So the page above was created in response. This user develops opinions, which he often argues tenaciously. We allow that kind of argument on Wikiversity, as long as civility policy is followed and consensus is respected. One can see the user's disgust at the bottom of that page, where he falls into the classic troll argument, "If you ignore me, I win." He had been invited to Wikiversity because he had high knowledge of many topics (including these), and could develop resources on those topics freely. in most cases. He did do some general content development, but this user's long-time patterns tend to draw him into controversy. Because of the responses he triggers, I can readily understand a global ban, but it would not be for TOS violation, he upsets people without violating the TOS at all. However, he was not disruptive on Gerrit, and it took specific action there to block him. Response to that is really up to the Gerrit community; it could support the WMF action, or tolerate it, or reject it, by negotiating with the WMF or by forking. As always, up to them. They have all those choices.

• [13] shows his unblock agreement, in October, 2014. He followed that agreement in substance, even where he disagreed. While he created one controversial page, on a suicide method, he immediately consulted and did not revert war, recreate the page, or act disruptively in any way (other than, obviously, by offending Sidelight12).

• [14] is the user's Wikibooks contributions. This shows two interests. the first was suicide. I know the user's personal life, and his interest in suicide was genuine, even though it is also part of his libertarian philosophy to believe that people should have the right to exit this life. His editing on this topic was accepted on Wikibooks. Sidelight12 attempted to stop it and, predictably, failed. The other topic was wikibooks:en:Lolita. It would appear that Sidelight12 believes that a person's "tendencies" can be inferred from what topics they edit, and he probably is correct that some would immediately be suspicious, seeing those edits. w:en:Lolita is a highly sophisticated work by a highly sophisticated author. Sidelight12 would be incorrect about the user. The user is not a pedophile. He has come under intense legal scrutiny at times, and was evaluated professionally. I'll repeat, not a pedophile. So what are the "tendencies" Sidelight12 infers from this evidence? I know that the user created, on other wikis, even stronger appearances. For example, confronted with an ignorant wiki community (outside the WMF), he created a page with legal images of children. That was, of course, considered "child porn" by the ignorant, who completely missed the point. What is popularly considered "child porn" often is not. So, then, that incident showed the same as this: people jump to conclusions based on ignorance. My long-term suspicion about this user is that he sets this up, he enjoys being rejected for telling the truth or making rational arguments.

That tendency to upset people could be the basis for ban. However, it's not TOS violation, unless one interprets harassment by the response of another user. I.e., if I am offended by your opinion, does that mean you have harassed me by expressing it in a public space? If you continue to insist after I have objected, and say it is on my user talk page, yes. But this user did not do that.

However, this tendency is also not uncommon among Wikimedians! --Abd (talk) 17:20, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

That is a lot of misdirection involved in that. A lot of that is a storyline, that isn't even consistent with what is in the links. The other link's problem wasn't about "Lolita". Claiming that it was, was a diversion, scroll down [15], after making the promise to stop. It's no excuse if it stops on one project, then moves on to another. A lot of warning promises have been blatantly broken on Wikiversity by quite a few or by a technicality of moving to another project.

It is amazing why anyone tolerates Abd, and believes his misdirection. I didn't call the other user anything; just look at the contributions in the links. Don't associate situations with your convenient false or erroneous assumptions either as has commonly been done by you in your false logic. -- Sidelight12 19:48, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

I trust Abd, and I've been in communication with Tisane as recently as last month, when he shared some unfortunate news with me. Like Abd, I don't believe that Tisane is a pedophile. Tisane like sharing, and he likes sharing research and essays on controversial topics especially.

Sidelight12, I don't believe that it was appropriate to "necropost", especially when you necroposted, not to propose a change, but to parade about and stomp on Tisane's defenders. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:46, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your il-informed opinion. Nice way to work in a condescending or inappropriate comment. -- Sidelight12 21:34, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

• Sidelight12 has apparently taken the marbles home. The above edit is the last, to date, globally. Leucosticte made agreements about Wikiversity, not Wikibooks, this is not a mere technicality. Wikibooks actually discussed his suicide work and accepted it. He never promised not to work on the suicide topic somewhere else, and, as I've pointed out -- and he pointed out, of course --, Wikipedia has similar information. I objected to the work on Wikiversity because we do develop deep resources there, and it would be possible for very dangerous advice to be developed, so I wanted ethical guidelines to be in place before detailed suicide methods resources were created on Wikiversity. Leucosticte (Tisane) was not banned from working on the topic, only from barging ahead without preparation on Wikiversity. He decided that it was too much trouble, apparently, because Wikibooks was friendlier and easier.
• Sidelight12 raised the issue of the suicide pages on Wikibooks, and this was the answer. So, last month, Sidelight12 was still beating that dead horse. The impression I get of Sidelight12 is that the user doesn't understand what's happening, but is sure that something is terribly wrong. Above, Michaeldsuarez is called "ill-informed." Michael is not as highly informed about Leucosticte as me, probably, but does know a great deal more than Sidelight12, who is basically clueless, as to realities in the involved topics. I have actually worked with real sex offenders, counseling them, I had decades of experience. Tisane is not a sex offender. He has known and interviewed sex offenders. He is a radical libertarian, is how I'd describe it, and considers it his duty to defend freedom of speech and action against unnecessary restrictions. This takes him to a dangerous edge. I encouraged him to take responsibility for the reactions he creates. Occasionally, I think he understood that, then he'd regress. That is actually normal behavior, as we mature. It can be two steps forward, one step back, sometimes three steps back! Old habits die hard.
• We do not know the basis for his global ban by the WMF. The WMF refuses to say, with all the new global bans. The claim is only "Terms of Use" violation, with no details, but I'm not aware of TOU violations by Leudosticte, that's all. Maybe there were. Maybe it's a question of interpretation. Is socking on en.wiki a TOS violation? Not as I read the TOU. Violating a global ban, per the meta global ban policy, explicitly mentioned in the TOU, is a TOU violation. The meta global ban is a community ban, not a WMF ban. The community global ban policy has never actually been used (that is, it requires process that has never been followed -- one global ban was declared, but the closing steward opined that local communities could opt out.) But the WMF has the power to do whatever it chooses, unless someone is prepared to challenge them. Most won't. To my knowledge, the legal issues have never been tested. I'm certainly not going to initiate that! Nor would I advise Leucosticte, for example, to do it. He has bigger problems. Michaeldsuarez knows. "Unfortunate news" is an understatement. On the other hand, the less time he wastes socking on en.wiki, the better his life will get. He's got some great possibilities. --Abd (talk) 03:57, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

And how about his Extensions?!

I should say these MediaWiki extensions are also made by him, what about em? Please determine.

• mw:Extension:AllowInternetArchiver
• mw:Extension:BlockBatch
• mw:Extension:Blurb - Now maintained by User:Duesentrieb
• mw:Extension:BypassSearch - Now maintained by User:Slakr
• mw:Extension:CategoryGallery
• mw:Extension:CategoryIndexingControl
• mw:Extension:EmailAllChanges
• mw:Extension:EmailDeletedPages
• mw:Extension:EnhancedAutopromote
• mw:Extension:ExtensionCheck
• mw:Extension:GoToShell
• mw:Extension:InterwikiExistence
• mw:Extension:InterwikiMap
• mw:Extension:InterwikiRegex
• mw:Extension:InterwikiUsage
• mw:Extension:InvadePrivacy
• mw:Extension:MirrorTools
• mw:Extension:MisesQuote
• mw:Extension:MoveRevisions
• mw:Extension:NamespaceReadRestrict
• mw:Extension:OneColumnAllPages
• mw:Extension:OneColumnAllUsers
• mw:Extension:PerPageLicense
• mw:Extension:QuestyPage
• mw:Extension:RecentPages
• mw:Extension:ROT13
• mw:Extension:SacredText - Now maintained by User:JonathanWilliford
• mw:Extension:UndeleteBatch
• mw:Extension:ViewFiles
• mw:Extension:ViewTable
• mw:Extension:ViewWikitext

--Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 15:15, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

@Legoktm: Needs your comment. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 08:19, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Why does this need my comment? Legoktm (talk) 08:50, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, maybe I trolled you, but if not ask you, then ask who? Keep or archive them? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 09:11, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

We can leave them be, and let the normal mediawiki.org review process take care of them when the time comes. Legoktm (talk) 23:53, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Global bans and e-mail access

Per this discussion at Commons, it appears that the "Email this user" is only, or can only, be removed on a project-by-project basis. Are there plans to "hard-wire" this into the global lock settings? Is that technically possible? Tarc (talk) 14:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Global lock simply means it is not possible to log in with the locked account. So this doesn't make sense. --Glaisher (talk) 15:57, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe that an email block prevents a user from receiving email either, just prevents them from sending it via the EmailUser interface. Even if it did, I'm not sure what utility there would be in changing the global lock system to somehow accommodate this; the main concern is preventing the locked user from taking action. Ajraddatz (talk) 16:23, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

IMO the point is to deny the target utterly from the ability to partake in any part of the Wikimedia umbrella. Why should the WMF facilitate a globally locked user's ability to receive e-mail via the project? Tarc (talk) 19:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Leaving a feature activated which is difficult or impossible to disable via a lock is not facilitation (which implies active intent towards a goal). When global blocking of accounts becomes available, this will be something to consider. Alternatively, there are scripts available (such as the stewbot) which can individually block a user on every project - this might be a good option to use for a global ban. Ajraddatz (talk) 20:19, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

• It is one thing to restrict the freedom of a user to edit the project, another to restrict their ability to edit their talk page, another to restrict their ability to email other users, but restricting the ability of other users to email them is not restricting their freedom, it is restricting the freedom of the rest of us. This was part of the comment by Abd (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC), broken up by interspersed response, below.

  Freedom does not come into it. They were deemed to be in breach of the ToU and lost access to all components of the site. This does not affect their life outside of WMF, and it does not affect your ability to contact them outside of WMF (email address widely used and public). The purpose is to make them go away, so clearly email through WMF is not separating them from WMF.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

  It's a shame, is very unfortunate. These measures of intimidation to lead users in the projects are implemented. The main objective is to keep out the community while you fill with money throwing crumbs populist manner. Some stewards users and those working in bureaucratic processes with no results have benefited from these populist crumbs. The community may awaken when it is too late, meanwhile, take advantage of the community with these charitable souls and these other souls who have sold their soul to the devil (some stewards) for some measure of power, and indirect money. It was beautiful while it lasted, however, express a great contempt for these measurements behind the community because one thing to make money using the name of the community and another to act against the community, undermining the foundations, the that it was founded. --The Photographer (talk) 13:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, locked users should be able to shut down email. Currently they cannot change any settings, including watchlist notifications, etc. What I saw and noted on Commons was reason to suspect that someone is shutting down the ability to email some locked users. It's wiki by wiki, it is not global. I do not have any definitive confirmation of this, just some cases where I know that email was enabled at some time before the locks and wasn't afterwards. So far, I have no confirmation from a locked user that their email was involuntarily shut down. This was part of the comment by Abd (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC), broken up by interspersed response, below.

  Stopping mail makes a large amount of sense. Created phabricator:T87559 for the central-auth extension to have mail stopped in locked accounts.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Currently, there is no official tool that allows changing those settings for users. It would take developer access. While it might be technically difficult, I think it likely that a sophisticated developer could alter that setting. This was part of the comment by Abd (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC), broken up by interspersed response, below.

  See above, follow the bug.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• For background, it should be realized that a reasonable estimate of the number of locked accounts is about 20,000 per year. By far most are spam-only accounts, many of them with no edits (locked because a steward, with checkuser or otherwise, saw a pattern in account creation). Fixing global locks (to create global blocks) has not had priority, because this really only matters to users with investment in an account, spammers rarely appeal, and most non-spammer locked users have little support, few care about them. This was part of the comment by Abd (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC), broken up by interspersed response, below.

  Locks are not used on users in good standing, so it is a rare event for a long-established editor to need to have email stopped, now we see the need. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• In the past, there was substantial support (not a majority, necessarily) for allowing local communities to opt out of a community-based ban. The WMF bans seem to have eliminated community bans. There only ever was one such, officially, Poetlister, and they just relocked him. It is untested if community autonomy will allow a kind of opt-out, now, but in the past, communities did reverse steward decisions in various ways. No community has recently considered that with any depth, and private WMF bans don't allow any consideration of the ban reasons. Ajraddatz's script would allow that. (Local admins could unblock.) This was actually done with the supposed global ban of Thekohser. --Abd (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

  Community ban is community ban, there should be no exceptions. There is no elimination of community bans by the WMF, they have just upgraded the one community ban to a WMF ban which has a higher level of enforcement. The locking of Thekohser by a steward was reversed due to their having been the discussion that the process for managing such processes was by a global ban process, which didn't occur, so bringing it up here is somewhat irrelevant.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

  No, this is the de facto elimination of the community global ban process. People will realize that pressuring the WMF to ban someone is far easier than arguing with the community. Instead of approaching the community, they'll approach the WMF. You know as well as I do that a community global ban discussion regarding Russavia would've been a bitter struggle with individuals on both sides fighting tooth and nail with each other and that such a discussion would've never arrived at a consensus to ban Russavia. People are going to approach the WMF directly because they want to avoid such bitter fighting and to have a greater chance at success. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The ban of Thekohser was derived from a comment by Jimbo (roughly equivalent, then, to a WMF ban, though Jimbo said the board had not been consulted -- which is the same as with the present locks). A steward locked. Then another steward went global and blocked all the accounts, and undid the lock. Some communities elected to unblock. Then another steward relocked, based on "discussions," which were private, never disclosed. Wikiversity and Wikibooks, after intense discussion came to consensus to detach the account from the global account so they could unblock. The "global ban process," established much later, was not involved, and there was no move for it at the time. There was no further action against Thekohser, and eventually, Thekohser was unlocked.[16]

Then there was the Poetlister global ban. This was also pre-community ban policy, but this was an RfC. I became highly informed about the history at that time, documenting it on the RfC talk page. When Fr33kman closed the RfC with a ban, I asked if local communities could still allow the user to edit. He agreed that they could by local consensus. However, Wikiversity never established a consensus (discussion was inconclusive.)

So the community never has decided, for an individual case, that community global bans are absolute. They establish a default.

The WMF bans are a new process, untested. There have been WMF bans of individuals in the past, and until recently, all that I have seen have been relatively quiet, no-fuss affairs. I saw one user appeal here, and then drop the appeal. There is no community consensus on this issue, and the community has not had time to develop one. Meanwhile, until there is an RfC, this is my last comment on this issue, here, because I'm seeing menacing comment from a steward.[17] --Abd (talk) 15:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The idea of stopping a globally banned user from receiving e-mails sent through the Special:Emailuser function presents some signifcant problems, Russavia has been responsible for 800,000 edits to Commons, the majority to upload images donated/released by third party photographers. It may be necessary or desirable for editors or administrators on Commons to speak to Russavia and confirm authorship, locale, subject matter or any one of a hundred other housekeeping tasks concerning work he has uploaded or was responsible for the upload of. That could be done through OTRS in the case of the majority of Russavia's uploads, but that may not always be the case (WMF could ban a prolific photographer uploading their own work where there's no OTRS involvement) and it's far from a sensible option, given the backlogs and workload OTRS agents endure. This is, I'm afraid, in grave danger of becoming another example of a hastily thought out and poorly planned implementation of a new policy (the Global Ban policy) by our beloved Foundation. I trust this silly proposal will be more thoroughly investigated and some method of communication allowed between banned users and at least some members of the community (admins only, if strictly necessary). Nick (talk) 13:23, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

"First ban them, then spam them"  makes no sense, but it's no issue. Of course banned users unable to toggle their mail preferences can report undesired mail as spam, but that won't get the mail server into any serious spam block list. A manual bounce or report to abuse@wikimedia.org might actually work as it SHOULD. –Be..anyone (talk) 19:44, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

It is one thing to say "you may not use our facilities to contact others" it is quite another to say "no one can use our facilities to contact you". Much as I am sure some would like to make Russavia a non-person, this is not the goal of a global ban (we hope) would be a vindictive move, out of character with the norms espoused (at least nominally) by the Community and the WMF. Rich Farmbrough 16:08 5 February 2015 (GMT).

I think a transparent (by "transparent" I mean "clearly announced to the sender") bounce via OTRS is the best solution. I'm not dealing with any particular case but such a ban could also deal with "dangerous" people we shouldn't let them use "our facilities" to be reached. --Vituzzu (talk) 11:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

If we believe someone to be dangerous, perhaps we should make that perfectly clear. Indeed not to do so is a dereliction of duty.

On the other hand if we have no reason for such a belief, preventing anyone from contacting them is implicitly saying that they are dangerous. Lumping sockmasters and iconoclasts with stalkers might be perceived to be a way to avoid libelling the stalkers, I see it as libelling the iconoclasts.

Rich Farmbrough 15:57 23 February 2015 (GMT).

On the face of it, global bans are not issued because someone is "dangerous." They are issued for TOS violations. We do not know the actual reason for each ban, the WMF considers that private information. From what I have seen, the banned individuals also do not know. In one case, a more specific reason was given, socking on en.wiki, and that was the case for another banned user. Socking on a wiki does not violate the TOS unless the user has been globally banned and that process has been long abandoned.

There has been no benefit to the community from the change to locks that email to a banned user is shut down. The community was not consulted about that change, nor informed. Global locks were a quick and dirty tool, implemented simply by disallowing log-in to an account. That, then, disallowed the user from logging in to change their preferences, hence the claim above about "spamming" the user. Instead of fixing the tool, WMF developers "improved it" to protect ... to protect what? There was activity with Russavia that might have been embarrassing, perhaps it was thought that this would stop that. Perhaps a globally banned user was receiving unwanted mail and complained. It would have been easy to fix that with a temporary unlock or by other means.

As well, global locks were, until very recently, bypassable by local bureaucrat action. That action could still be reversed by stewards, but I know of no case where they did, because local autonomy was respected. This was lost with SUL globalization, giving stewards direct access to all accounts for locking, not only SUL accounts, the bureaucrat function enabling an "opt out" was lost, as the rename right was removed.

None of this actually protects or benefits the community. Globally banned users, if they are so inclined, routinely create new accounts. If they want to harass someone, they can, and depending on their degree of sophistication, they can get away with it. If I were globally banned, and wanted to send an email to a user who has email enabled, I could easily do so. It cannot be stopped.

It is arguable that bans are still necessary, because they may provide *some* protection of the projects and the community. However, something crucial has been missed. When people are treated with disrespect, they resent it. They are motivated to retaliate, to bypass restrictions, it fires them up. Some may make a hobby of it, hence we have seen sock farms with over a thousand accounts. Consider the effort put into that, when a little care in the original blocking or banning might have avoided it. (I have looked at many bans, and have occasionally found abusive administration behind a ban. It is not the norm, but one of the largest sock farms ever was so created.

The old wiki community largely understood this, which is why blocks were not to be punitive, but only protective, and hopefully temporary. Once a user is banned, they no longer have any motivation to cooperate and collaborate. Management has become pure stick, no carrot.

It is argued that the WMF should not provide a means for the banned user to allow others to contact him. Given that the banned user cannot take any actions on the wikis, cannot enable email if it was not enabled, there is no banned user action being provided, only the continuation of something that might, under some circumstances, be legally necessary. Licensing issues come to mind. Who is being restricted is not the user, but the community. This action by the WMF, then, can be seen as one in a series of actions where the WMF believes it knows better what is good for the community, than the community itself knows. Maybe it does.

And maybe it doesn't. What I can see is that the original vision is being lost, replaced with something more ... traditional, central control. This is not surprising, it is actually routine in nonprofits that start with a community, if steps are not taken to maintain community power, independent of the central organization. It is not that the central organization is necessarily "wrong." The w:Iron Law of Oligarchy should be understood. There are ways around that law, but they will take innovation, because the human tendency is very strong to stick to traditional organizational forms, and a board-controlled nonprofit is one of them. The way of the future is hybrid.

For the moment, the practical way forward is for the WMF to create institutions that explore and create genuine community consensus, not the faux "rough consensus" that has been the operating principle. Rough consensus is useful for making immediate decisions, but will gradually create division in the community, factions. It is known how to facilitate genuine consensus. It takes time and patience and motivation. By and large, the community does not know how to do it. So hire the skill.

The WMF legally must be autonomous. The ownership will be board-controlled. However, if the community itself is set up with genuine consensus process, it will be able to powerfully and wisely advise the WMF. There is highly successful precedent for this.

As it is, ask the community a controversial question, with strong opinions on more than one side, an unmanageable train wreck is created. That doesn't work. --Abd (talk) 14:28, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

What are u doing, Keegan?

User talk:Dcoetzee#Your account will be renamed, therefore he'll be back to Wikimedia community? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 11:50, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

If you read the very message you linked to, you will see that it's an automated message to all non-global account that will be renamed as part of SUL finalisation. The message concerns the account User:Deco and it was delivered to User talk:Dcoetzee because that's where User talk:Deco redirects to. SUL finalisation applies to all unattached accounts irregardless to whether they are user in good standing/blocked/banned. -- KTC (talk) 11:58, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Legal#Policies vs. wmf:policies

The Legal page claims that wmf:Policies is a complete list of WMF policies. The wmf:Policies page confirms this theory. However, Office actions listed on Legal#Policies is not listed on wmf:Policies, and the WMF Global Ban Policy is so far unsourced on both wmf:Policies and Legal#Policies. –Be..anyone (talk) 16:04, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Be..anyone. Apologies for the delay in answering here; I've only just now seen your note. :) Legal actually says "a more complete list" not that it is a complete list. Unfortunately, wmf:Policies seems to be prone to falling out of date just like any other wiki page. :/ Anyway, I'll call attention to the omission from the page to see where it should be added. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:06, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I vaguely recall a (later) statement that the "global ban" thingy is allegedly not a "WMF policy", but a "staff policy", whatever that means, and it wasn't somebody with a staff account who put it that way. ;-) –Be..anyone (talk) 13:25, 26 May 2015 (UTC)