User talk:D. Matt Innis/Constabulary Blocking Procedures

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Constabulary Policy page

The Citizendium Constabulary is established to ensure that the community remains a collegial place to do work. To this end, it must enforce certain rules, up to and including blocking an account.

We are committed to leniency. We are committed by our Statement of Fundamental Policies to exercise leniency. Therefore, even if someone has strictly speaking done something that appears to warrant an immediate ban, an immediate ban is not always recommended or required. For instance, if the person in question has otherwise been a very productive member of the community, might have some honest confusion about the rules, or has some other mitigating circumstances, leniency is in order.

But the rules can be applied exactly as stated. Our commitment to leniency must not be taken to mean that we cannot apply the rules exactly as stated. For instance, if someone arrives on the scene and immediately reacts to criticism by making a physical threat, we may remove the offender without a warning. Common sense, good judgment, and reference to our growing "case law" are called for.

There are two classes of offense that can result in a blocked account, or "ban": those to which any constable can be expected to make a fair, rapid response, and those that are relatively difficult to adjudicate, and which require a lengthier process. We have separated the relevant policies into two sections, below.

Strictly speaking, it is not accounts that are banned but persons, who are then forbidden from creating new accounts. Bans can be reversed only upon appeal or through application for reinstatement.

Constables, and persons contacting constables, should bear in mind that in general it is the function of the Constabulary to regulate behavior, not editorial matters. This is very important!

These rules are still, as of March 2007, under development. We are apt to find grounds for banning that are not yet covered above. In such cases, we must discuss the situation fair-mindedly, and with a view to the future. In some cases, we should issue a warning and formulate a new rule. In other cases, no doubt we should ban the person outright even in the absence of a specific rule. In time, our rules will be formulated well enough, though, that such ad hoc actions on our part are unnecessary.

Rapid Response Rules and Procedures

The Constabulary holds that there are certain offenses the quality of which is immediately evident simply by reading text that the offender has written, or by observing behavior. In such cases, constables are charged with responding as quickly as possible. Some of these offenses will result in a warning first, then a ban; others will result in an immediate ban, as we have a "zero tolerance policy" toward these offenses.

In either case, here is the procedure for enforcing the following rules. First, a constable spots the offense, or receives a report about it and examines it. Second, if necessary, the constable consults the rule and confirms that, in his or her own judgment, the rule clearly covers the offense. Third, the constable applies the ban (duration is permanent unless otherwise noted) or issues the warning prescribed.

If in doubt, a constable must consult with the constable mailing list.

Offenses which will result in an immediate ban

Any language or behavior that most reasonable persons would interpret in the following ways may, and probably will, result in an immediate, permanent ban.

• Threats, either of physical harm or of other egregious aggression, whether against an individual or a group of individuals.
• Extremely offensive insults or personal attacks; direct and harsh attacks on the moral character, or personal or professional credibility, of a project member in good standing; or any application of particularly crude and vulgar epithets ("four letter words") to project members in good standing. It does not matter whether these attacks are made using Citizendium resources or other resources.
• Defamation; making what a reasonable person should know are false or unproven (and therefore legally actionable) claims about a person that affect the reputation and/or earning potential of that person.
• Use of an unapproved pseudonym, or falsifying credentials.
• Creation of a second account (a "sockpuppet") without first having the first account disactivated. In this case, both accounts will be blocked. Obviously people can make innocent mistakes here; the penalty is applicable only when a person attempts to create two separate identities.
• Vandalism, i.e., the gratuitous changing of text, or moving pages, evidently aimed at offending readers and/or inconveniencing constables.
• Writing or uploading clearly obscene, horrifically violent, or (in general) patently offensive text, images, or sounds.
• Public posting of private, personal e-mails of Citizens.
• Use of the wiki to sell goods and "spam," including, but not limited to, writing or editing articles about one's own company or organization, as well as adding links to websites with which one is associated. Persons tempted to do this are instructed to e-mail the Topic Informant Group at czinternal-topic@citizendium.org, or for minor additions, to use the article's talk page.
• Deliberate and malicious misuse of the {{speedydelete}} template.

Offenses which will result in a warning first, then a ban

The following are offenses that are both clear and serious, but which in the judgment of the Constabulary warrant first a (single) warning, followed by a permanent ban after the second offense. Warnings can be considered to have "expired" after six months.

• Blatant and obvious violations of the Citizendium neutrality policy, or other fundamental policies.
• Insults or personal attacks, on talk pages or other open forums, that are relatively mild, but which are still definitely objectionable on grounds that they aggressively impugn the moral character, or personal or professional credibility, of a project member. It does not matter whether these attacks are made using Citizendium resources or other resources.
• Disrespectful characterization of others' work on talk pages or other open forums. Note, mere criticism of a position or a forceful reply does not necessarily qualify as disrespectful; objectionable language has an implication of personal criticism, or can be reasonably taken to have such an implication. For help, see Professionalism.
• An author (or an editor writing as an author, e.g., outside of his or her area of expertise) straightforwardly ignoring or disobeying content decisions made by an editor about an article that is within the editor's area of expertise, even if the decision is under appeal. For details, see Author Conflict Resolution.
• Deleting significant amounts of content (50 words or more) without explanation; or deleting Citizendium-sourced content in order to start a new article, without first fully discussing the matter and getting broad agreement, or a positive decision from appropriate editorial staff.
• Reverting someone else's work (that is, simply undoing all the edits that someone else has made) without warning or explanation. Any simple reversion must be accompanied by an explanation at the very least.
• Uploading of copyrighted material that is not properly licensed for reuse.
• Casually (not maliciously) placing the {{speedydelete}} template on articles not deletable by constables acting on their own recognizance: see Article Deletion Policy.

Professional interaction and templates the Constabulary uses

By far, you should find that the majority of the discussions on Citizendium talk pages are warm and inciteful. Occasionally, passionate differences in opinion, whether among authors or our expert editors, can result in heated discussions. In an effort to help assure a comfortable working environment, constables enforce rules that are designed to keep our controversial discussions informative and content related to keep them from degenerating into personal attacks. Note that it is not in the constable's purview to make decisions that will affect the content. The Fundamental Policy requires that constables do everything possible to make sure they do not interfere with the process of collaboration when reaching Neutral articles as this is decidedly within the realm of the editor and the editorial process, i.e. the Editorial Workgroups, Council or Editor in Chief. It is the responsibility of each citizen to uphold the principles set out in the Citizendium's Professionalism policy while discussing their perspective. Failure to do so may well result in being blocked. Otherwise, the constable may first decide to use any of these templates as a way to warn or advise the user to modify their behavior. Please be familiar with these concepts.

{{civil}} template

The victims of rudeness or personal attacks do not have to tolerate this behavior. This is not behavior we would tolerate from our fellows in a face-to-face situation; we will not tolerate it on the Citizendium, either. We wish to nip incivility in the bud, before it escalates. Therefore, it is essential that, rather than worsening the situation, you report a difficult user, or problematic action, to the constabulary (a mail to constables@citizendium.org will do the trick). Generally, constables may replace uncivil remarks with the {{civil}} template, which reads:

Text here was removed by the Constabulary on grounds of civility. (The author may replace this template with an edited version of the original remarks.)

{{nocomplaints}} template

If you must respond to poor behavior, please do so professionally. Please do not "take the law into your own hands" by criticizing others for their poor behavior. Complaints, even perfectly justifiable complaints, may be replaced by constables with the {{nocomplaints}} template, which reads:

A comment here was deleted by The Constabulary on grounds of making complaints about fellow Citizens. If you have a complaint about the behavior of another Citizen, e-mail constables@citizendium.org. It is contrary to Citizendium policy to air your complaints on the wiki. See also CZ:Professionalism.

{{inflammatory}} template

Additionally, poor behavior can be avoided in the first place if we avoid saying things that are needlessly inflammatory. Such "flame bait," as it has been called elsewhere on the Internet, may be replaced by constables with the {{inflammatory}} template, which reads:

Text here was removed by the Constabulary on grounds that it is needlessly inflammatory. (The author may replace this template with an edited version of the original remarks.)

{{freshstart}} template

Finally, conversations that are broadly violative of the professionalism policy may be replaced with {{freshstart}}, which reads:

The Constabulary has removed a conversation here that either in whole or in part did not meet Citizendium's Professionalism policy. Feel free to remove this template and take up the conversation with a fresh start.

Other Rules of Behavior Enforced by Constables

No initialisms. The Policy pages of the Citizendium may not contain any three-letter “initialisms.” For example, “IAR,” “NOR,” and “AFD” are three letter initialisms. These expressions are a considerable problem for new users who are unfamiliar with them. The first time a user introduces such an expression in a policy page, he/she will be advised of the policy by the expression being replaced by the {{acronym}} template. The second time a user repeats this offense, he may be warned. Continued offenses may be considered a behavioral issues and the constable may then block the user, the account and the IP address as well as the users forum account.

Rules regarding user pages. The content of user pages and their associated "talk pages" must conform to certain rules (see above). Constables will enforce these rules about the content of user and talk pages.

Actions a Constable may take

The purpose for any constable intervention should be to restore civility to a talk page and provide an environment where a neutral article can progress toward Approved status. He/she may choose one or more of these tools to perform this function:

• Permanently blocking one or more users
• Temporarily blocking one of more users
• Locking a talk page
• Locking an article page
• Deleting text from talk pages using templates
• Delete articles that appear as Self Promotional
• Delete articles that obviously violate the Neutrality policy

• (what else?)

The Citizendium Adjudication Process

While constables are empowered to take many actions singly and with only appeal oversight--in relatively clear cases--disruptions of the community in many less clear cases cannot be decided so summarily. The following describes the process we have adopted for adjudicating the hard cases.

Here is a summary. Somebody reports a violation to constables@citizendium.org. If it seems serious, but not something that anyone can act on immediately, someone forwards it to czinternal-constable. Then two people volunteer to look into the matter and compile a list of problems and what rules they violate. At the same time they ask the respondent if he/she wants them to publish the results on the wiki. They collect statements from anyone involved who wants to offer them, and then settle on a decision. This decision is quickly put before the larger group of constables before acted on--then it is acted on.

In detail:

1. The adjudication process formally begins when someone makes a complaint about a Citizendium contributor by sending an e-mail to constables@citizendium.org. It may be a constable who lodges this complaint.

2. If a complaint is frivolous, resolvable summarily, or otherwise does not require a formal process, it will be resolved by whichever constable first responds, and then placed in an appropriate folder. Otherwise, a constable will forward the mail to the constable mailing list.

3. Two constables declare on the constable list that they volunteer to take up the case. Note that, due to conflict of interest concerns, no constable who has been a party to a dispute with a respondent may volunteer, nor may constables adjudicate disputes about their peers in a given workgroup of which they are members, or in which they often do much work regardless of whether they are members.

Note that merely having previously been an assigned constable for a case involving the respondent does not constitute having been "party to a dispute" with the respondent. It is the Citizendium Constabulary, not any particular constable, that has the dispute with the respondent.

4. If in the opinion of either of the assigned constables (including the first volunteer) it is the case that both (a) there is excellent evidence of a bannable offense, and (b) there is no evidence that the offending behavior has stopped or is likely to stop, then that constable may block the account of the respondent, with the following notice in the log and in an e-mail to the respondent: "Your user account has been placed on probation, possibly only temporary, by the Citizendium Constabulary, pending the final resolution of your case."

5. The assigned constables then ask the respondent whether he/she wishes the proceedings to be made public on the wiki or else to be kept private. The proceedings are kept private until the respondent clearly instructs the Constabulary to make the proceedings public, e.g., with the words, "Please make the proceedings of this case public."

6. The assigned constables then compile a list of offenses, that is, they list the respondent's offending edits or otherwise document the respondent's offending behaviors. If there are very many of them, then the constables list only those that are perceived to be the most egregious, and summarize the rest.

7. Next, the assigned constables present these documents to the respondent and to any other persons most directly impacted by the respondent's actions, and ask for statements from all parties. One week, measured from the time the request is first made, is allowed for statements, although the statement period can be shortened by various parties saying that they will not be making a statement. The respondent, in particular, is asked whether he/she wishes to contest either the findings of fact or the applicability of various rules to these findings of fact.

8. If the statements require any significant revision to the list of offenses, then 6-7 are repeated, although with the period for further statements being limited to three days.

9. The constables make a decision regarding the case, given their findings of fact, their judgment regarding what rules have been broken (and how egregiously), and any other relevant information contained in the statements proffered by the respondent and others affected.

10. If the constables cannot agree on a decision, or if in the view of either of the constables, the case presents any special difficulties, e.g., the covering rules are not clear or do not exist yet, then the case is forwarded to the entire constable group for discussion. All efforts shall be made by constables to arrive at consensus. If no consensus appears forthcoming, then the Chief Constable calls for a vote, which he or she then tallies. The decision in the case is then executed by one of the original volunteers.

11. If, however, both constables agree on a decision and that the case presents no special difficulties, then all documents are submitted to the constable mailing list, and (at about the same time) one of the assigned constables executes the decision.

The Appeals Process

Both bans and warnings may be appealed by sending an e-mail to constables@citizendium.org.

Appeals are to be assigned by the Chief Constable to a group of three constables which does not include any of the original constables who made the decision.

Appeals may either be granted, rejected, or dismissed. Decisions made about appeals are final.

While appeals may be rejected with no ill consequences, appeals with no merit whatsoever may be dismissed. The accumulation of dismissed appeals will be regarded by the Constabulary as evidence of participation in bad faith, and may contribute to an author's ejection from the project.

We have not yet had any appeals and future policy may be settled more definitely after we do.

Application for Reinstatement

Generally speaking, reinstatement of contributor rights is achievable after a period of some months, so long as the respondent demonstrates remorse about and understanding of the offense, and also convincingly proves his or her identity. Requests for reinstatement may be made by sending a mail to constables@citizendium.org.

The Constabulary will decide (via discussion on its mailing list) what an appropriate period is required before reinstatement may be granted, or whether reinstatement is indeed possible.

Reinstatement a second time will be much more difficult, and probably impossible.