Wikipedia:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/Improved tools and workflows to report harassment

This page documents a feature the Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team may build. Development of this feature is prioritized and awaiting development.

🗣   We invite you to join the discussion!

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T166812

In 2018 the Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will begin a research project into building improved tools and workflows for users to report harassment.

Our goal is to provide a reporting system for Wikimedia communities that puts less stress on users who are submitting the reports while simultaneously generating higher-quality reports.

About

When harassment or abuse happens between Wikimedians, users can report the misconduct to wiki ‘leadership’ (other experienced users, administrators, and in extreme cases stewards or Wikimedia Foundation staff) in a variety of ways: on wiki talk pages, via email, or via IRC or another off-wiki communication channel. Most wikis have established noticeboards to report cases that require attention or suggested email lists for sensitive reports that require privacy.

The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team wants to better understand these existing systems to identify any pain points or shortcomings that we can address with improved software. Our work will include several months of research into the existing workflows and tools, followed by some proposals of how our team might address the deficiencies we identify. Our research will heavily focus on English Wikipedia as the largest wiki community and a large wealth of information for our needs.

Community input and feedback will be essential for the success of our work. This wiki page will be updated with our findings and discussion topics. We appreciate your help on our journey!

Research

• Overview of research about dispute resolution and harassment done by the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-Harassment Tools team and Support and Safety team.
  • Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents Experience Survey - Survey about user experience with Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents
  • English Wikipedia's Administrators’ Noticeboard/Incidents quantitative research - A quantitative data analysis of posts to AN/I.
  • User interviews about workflows for reporting conflicts and harassment (on hold) Interviews with volunteers who are knowledgeable about making harassment reports.
  • Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program report - Recommendations on the Development of Anti-Harassment Tools and Behavioural Dispute Resolution Systems for Wikimedia

Pain points/problem list

From research and community discussions, the Anti-Harassment Tools Team and Trust and Safety team will develop a list of the problems with the existing tools and workflows.

Current workflows for reporting harassment

The Wikimedia Foundation’s Anti-Harassment Tools team will identify workflows related to reporting user misconduct incidents and share our notes on this wiki page in the coming weeks.

1. Noticeboards, including English Wikipedia Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents, Stewards' noticeboard, Vandalismusmeldung on German Wikipedia
2. Another user’s talk page (including an admin’s talk page)
3. Talk page of article
4. OTRS
   1. General
   2. Oversight mailing list
5. Email to other user (Wiki friend, admin, Checkuser, or Oversighter)
6. ArbCom mailing list
7. Functionaries mailing list
8. IRC
9. Off-wiki
10. Wikimedia Foundation Support and Safety team
11. Ombudsmen Commission
12. Code of Conduct Committee for Tech Spaces

Project schedule

• January-June 2018 — Background research, begin on-wiki consultation
• July/August-September 2018 — Design and Prototype potential systems, discuss on-wiki
• October-December 2018 — Software development

See also

• /Background research for Meta and English Wikipedia links about improving harassment reporting systems.