User:Toomai/SW:UCC patching draft

This page is a draft. Feel free to contribute to this page as you would a mainspace page.

SmashWiki:Private concerns and complaints

Everything that happens on SmashWiki is public. This is generally a good thing. But in rare situations, there can be an issue that one desires to bring up only in private, and feels it must be taken care of very cautiously. This policy details how such is handled.

Before you start

This policy is the Serious Option. It is intended for sensitive situations that require some delicacy. There's nothing stopping you from messaging a staff member in private without invoking this policy - for most issues, that will probably be good enough. Only call on this if you really truly believe that going through the formal process is necessary.

Raising an issue

If you have an issue that you do not feel safe being public with, there are two methods of requesting that staff look into it.

1. Go to Special:EmailUser and email an active staff member.
2. Join our Discord server and send a private message to an active staff member. (You will need to include your wiki account name.)

In either case, your message should make it very clear that you are invoking this policy. Starting your message with "I wish to make a complaint under SW:PCC." is recommended. If it is not extremely clear, the staff member receiving the complaint should request that it be made clear.

Be sure to include as many specific details and references as possible to support your complaint. Staff are likely to ask for more details if necessary, but if your initial complaint is bare or contains only generalities, it is unlikely to be taken as seriously.

The intent of this policy is that complaints be made against specific users for the purposes of bringing staff attention to actions or behaviour that would not normally result in consequences by our hand (see examples below). But there could be many other sorts of private matters that might apply.

As implied by the name, complaints lodged under this policy should be entirely in private; that is, not mentioned anywhere on-wiki or the Discord server. This is to prevent knowledge of it from impacting proceedings. Complaints made in public will not be considered under this policy.

Complaints may not be made by or against anonymous users (IPs).

Response

Once a staff member receives a complaint, they will share it with the rest of the wiki's staff and begin discussing what to do with it. The user that raised the issue (the "raiser") or the user being complained about (the "subject") may be contacted for additional details; if both, they will be done separately. If the subject is contacted, staff will endeavour to not reveal the identity of the raiser if at all possible. However, it may be necessary to provide the subject with some details of the complaint. The raiser's name will be redacted, and their comments may be paraphrased, but it may be possible to deduce their identity regardless.

There are three possible outcomes to a complaint.

1. The complaint is deemed valid and so is acted upon. Most likely, this means punishment for the subject, such as being warned or blocked.
2. The complaint is deemed invalid but in good faith. No action is taken. The raiser is informed their complaint did not pass muster. The subject is only informed if they were already contacted about it; if not, they are not told of the complaint at all.
3. The complaint is deemed invalid and in bad faith. The raiser receives a strike. Users that accumulate multiple strikes may be blocked for disruption or have their privilege to use this system revoked.

Exceptional situations may require exceptional methods or decisions, but this is the basic framework.

Examples

The following are simplistic boilerplate examples of the types of complaints this system is intended to be used for.

• "User X is aggressively badmouthing me on this other website because this talkpage discussion didn't turn out their way."
• "User X is planning to vandalise us as shown by this series of tweets."
• "User X is stalking me across these three websites and is now on this wiki."
• "User X actively discriminates against people like me as shown by these comments elsewhere."
• "User X is posting subtly racist memes in the Discord rarely enough that no one else is seeing the pattern."

Non-examples

The following are examples of what not to use this system for. These should be taken care of by normal means established elsewhere (e.g. discussion on user talk pages).

• "User X is vandalising."
• "User X keeps reverting all my edits with lame reasons."
• "User X is being rude in most discussions."
• "User X is ignoring talk page warnings."
• "User X wants personal information removed from their Smasher page."