Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcement

On the Wikipedia:Admin accountability poll, it was suggested that WP:RFC is not taken seriously enough, and that this primarily stems from the inability of RFC to actually enforce anything. In other words, the subject of an RFC can simply choose to ignore any and all of the comments without further consequences.

Also, the Requests for Arbitration process is overloaded at times. It has been said that the ArbCom serves well as a "supreme court" for extensive investigation of major problems. However, it would be appropriate to set up a "traffic court" for quick investigation of simple problems. This may also prevent disputes from escalating to the level where arbitration is necessary. Of course, any decision of RFC enforcement is subject to appeal to the ArbCom.

Please edit this proposal.

Enforcement

If a Request for Comment about one or more users is active and certified (see RFC procedure), a motion may be made on this page to ask any involved user to stop certain behavior that is perceived as disruptive. Involved parties include both the subject of the RFC, and any users who have certified (not just endorsed) it.

A motion is always against a single user. It will be decided upon by uninvolved editors, who can express an opinion for or against, or suggest alternatives. The point of this is to create consensus about an appropriate remedy. After five days, the motion shall pass if it has at least two-thirds support, and at least ten editors in support. If not, it is discarded. If the motion passes, and the user persists in that behavior anyway, the user may be blocked by any admin for up to 24 hours.

The point of this page is not to reiterate or continue whatever discussions are taking place on RFC. Lengthy comments on the circumstances on this page shall be moved to the RFC in question for further discussion.

Scope

This process is a form of dispute resolution, not punishment. Motions must be local in scope, affecting one user's actions on a small number of pages, and serve as a restriction from disruptive behavior. As such, motions may never be to block or ban a user outright, nor to bar a user from participating in any community process, such as WP:RFA or WP:AFD. Motions shall remain in force for a maximum of one month, and can be appealed to the ArbCom.

Obviously, this process cannot be used to create policy or guidelines, since those are never based on individual cases. Wide-scope remedies, as well as bans, are the domain of the ArbCom. If an issue proves to be widely controversial, any enforcement shall be deferred to the ArbCom instead.

Sample motions

• User:Foo will stop editing Article or creating forks of it, and is requested to discuss changes on the talk page
• User:Foo shall cease making personal attacks against User:Bar
• User:Foo should refrain asking for votes on other user talk pages
• User:Foo must not add articles to Category without citing a source for this categorization
• User:Foo will avoid nominating Religion-related articles for deletion, but may of course discuss any articles nominated by other people

Examples of invalid motions

• User:Foo is banned.
• User:Foo may no longer vote on Requests for Adminship.
• User:Foo must rewrite Article from scratch and do it properly this time.

Details

• Additionally, discussing and enforcing motions is restricted to uninvolved parties - not to anyone subject to, or certifier of, the related RFC, nor to anyone who otherwise has a conflict of interest regarding the subject of the motion.
• Admins are never obliged to block anyone, regardless of circumstances. For that reason, a motion that is not supported by any admins is largely ineffective.
• When creating a motion, notification must be given on the RFC page, as well as the talk page of the affected user. If the motion passes, similar notification must be given.