RationalWiki:Loya Jirga

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The Loya Jirga is RationalWiki's elected body of editors, whose sole purpose is to end continual blocking and vandal binning disputes.

Current members

There are seven members, chosen by the mob on a regular basis. The current membership is:

Cases

  • Please sort out the mess that has developed recently over what to do with "trolls" and "abuse" and all that crap I really can't be arsed to even mention. It's going on too long and the differences of opinion as to what to do are far too wide. It's clear that there are certain individuals and/or users who seem to only want to make life on this site extremely difficult - notably Neveruse's socks that BON, the cheerleader and MC or whoever - I can't keep track of the sockpuppetry here, it's too much. Do we ban them outright, do we revert them and do we outright ban Nx for doing, well, I don't know what Nx has done to get under the skin of so many people but surely we can task the LJ to find out and decide. Scarlet A.pngtheist 10:26, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
    • +1 - David Gerard (talk) 12:57, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
    • +1 - as a wikipedian sysop i see this has gone on long enough. keep in mind that not all cheerleaders are trolls and one of my friends is a sysop here who is useful and may return so don't ban her. Cheerleader Not Troll (talk) 20:45, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
    • votes++ - MARCVS ANTONIVS 20:56, 6 June 2010 (UTC) While I'd prefer it if we just did something else, we have made it abundantly clear that this is impossible.

Powers and issues

The LJ's powers are described here. The relevant powers in this case are:

  1. Take appropriate action against trolls. This includes binning, unbinning, and (if necessary) blocking.
  2. Assist in editor disputes. Their involvement should be a last resort, resorted to after attempts at discussion.

The powers page explicitly forbids the extension of the powers beyond this point. (I have argued before that some extension of these powers might be a good idea)

The LJ has been requested to: "sort out the mess that has developed recently over what to do with "trolls" and "abuse" and all that crap I really can't be arsed to even mention."

Considering the nature of the LJ's powers and the nature of the disputes in question, and rewording the request we have received in clearer language, there would seem to be two issues.

  • There are a group of editors who are considered to be trolls by some other editors, and there is a feeling held by some that some sort of action should be taken against these alleged trolls.
  • Some editors have already taken unilateral action against the alleged trolls and this has led to those editors being criticized in the administrative abuse area.

It would seem that the first issue would come under power one and the second under power two.

Before going further, could we have some agreement that these are the issues which the LJ is being asked to involve itself in. --BobSpring is sprung! 19:15, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

LJ only below this line

Should non-LJ editors wish to comment please use the talk page.

Assuming that we are being asked to act as outlined above I would suggest that we do the following:

  1. Agree a clear definition of what we regard a troll to be. I would suggest something like "shows a repeated and consistent desire to disrupt the site."
  2. Examine the edits of the editors in question (or ask for evidence from the site) to see if they fit this definition.
  3. Decide on an appropriate action if they do fir this description.

We need to do these things in this order.--BobSpring is sprung! 21:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I think we've got a couple of problems dealing with this. First of all, I suspect a lot of this arises since the rules concerning trolls is fundamentally broken (not to imply it ever worked), due to bending over backwards to make sure everyone bending over backwards to make sure they have "free speech" whether they are acting in good faith or not. This results in people resorting to kludges to find some way to deal with the problem since straightforward ways are closed to them. It's hard to fix this because of the piecemeal nature of the site sometimes, where it's practically expected for people (including long established members) to essentially ignore mob decisions and override it with their own. To make matters worse, there tends to be active resistance to imposing rules because they might be restrictive, or in hypothetical cases make us "as bad as CP", and of course the trolls are a part of this conversation with the same amount of say as people who care about the site, and either nothing gets done, or something is done with either no way to enforce it or with a vague mandate full of loopholes.
So I suppose what it comes down to is, is this too fundamental a question for just the LJ, and will anyone listen to any recommendations that come out of it? Or should we ignore the underlying problems and just deal with the specific cases of a couple of editors? --Kels (talk) 21:32, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Kels, I think the rules make it so that the community HAS TO listen to LJ recommendations, correct me if I'm wrong--but knowing this bunch, that might mean absolutely nothing. As for whether we should deal with specific editors or adopt a more general stance, I think we need first of all to acknowledge that unless we are willing to go the route of rangeblocks, something NOBODY wants, there's nothng we can do except allow for trolling comments to be undone/oversighted. P-Foster (talk) 21:40, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Probably no need for oversight for most stuff, unless it's got personal details, threats and other really serious stuff in it. But allowing trolling comments to be removed either to the archives or just plain deleted is something I can get on board with. I'd go so far as to say that a user should be able to delete comments on their own talk page if they can back up that they're trolling comments. Certainly there are enough actually rational eyes that can prevent, say, RobSmith from deleting any comment he doesn't agree with or similar abuses. Most of the users here are adult enough not to screw with it just to prove a point. --Kels (talk) 21:51, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
I think I am in broad agreement with what Kels says in her comment immediately above this one. We don't really have any effective way to positively remove a "troll" from the site, however, deleting (on one's own user talk page) useless talk page interference or moving it to its own section (on more general topic talk pages) seems acceptable to me. If there's a grey area it's whether they should be archived or not. ħumanUser talk:Human 22:28, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
I too agree with Kels. Do we need a definition of trolling, or will a common-sense idea prevail? I know Huw did not like the definition I suggested elsewhere: "Trolling shall be defined as edits made with the sole intention of attacking, disparaging or insulting individual users or the commuity at large, edits made with the intent of sowing discord among users, or edits made with the intent of undermining the stated objectives of the community.". P-Foster (talk) 22:47, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd probably add something about it being persistent in there, since isolated comments probably wouldn't be called trolling by anyone reasonable. Otherwise, I'm cool with it. --Kels (talk) 23:07, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
I have a problem with a definition that requires divining the poster's "intent". I think we are going to have to fall back on common sense, sadly, but offer the mob a decision that it's ok for them to delete extraneous garbage, especially on their own talk pages. I'd really to wait to hear from the rest of the LJ to see if there are any other good ideas, of course, before "taking a stand" myself. How long are we going to give ourselves to reach a "decision", by the way? ħumanUser talk:Human 23:39, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
A troll is persistent, hence intent is irrelevent. What I mean is, by the time it gets to banning stage then its been going on long enough that intent is clear. Acei9 00:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)