The IRC channels that are used by Wikipedians have recently gone through a lot of controversy. There are widely differing views within the community as to what role the channels actually have on the project. This request for comment will allow the community to openly discuss what roles the channels have here, so the arbitration committee (who have recently stated that they will take control of the misconduct issues that arise on the channels) can assess the community's consensus views on the channels. If you have an opinion, please create a new outside view below, and/or endorse other users' views. Some pages to consider reading before commenting are seen below;
IRC is a way for people to talk. People will talk. I have seen much benefit to Wikipedia from irc in the past, and short of a bit of name calling it has not been a problem. Don't blame the medium, blame the people who misused it, if that is indeed what happened. (1 == 2)Until 03:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
What I wrote on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/IRC/Workshop, specifically here for the long version:
If the community decides to go this route, the community reserves the right to enforce this over the decisions of individuals with current ties to the leadership of IRC. In other words, this is in this scenario not a decision the Arbitration Committee, Jimbo, or anyone else but the community together is entitled to make. This is purely a community choice, or else the solution (whatever its final form) will never have at least near-total buy-in.
A solution like this. Tweak the wording, the timeline slightly, but something like this. Either embrace it, sanction it, sanction for problems from it, or can it. A middle ground will not work and someone will always be unhappy. Go all or nothing, go for closure. Yes, this creates a tiny bit of process if we embrace IRC and take control. "Oh no!" The trivial amount of noise another noticeboard will cause outweighs the nonstop war that IRC has caused over the apparent years. Lawrence § t/e 06:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Do bad things happen in IRC? Yes, sometimes. Is IRC un-wiki? Yes, undoubtedly it is. Can you do anything about that? No, you can't. Off-wiki communications (e-mail, mailing lists - and we've see abuse of them - IRC and chats in the pub) will happen whatever you do. Often they are good things, sanity checks, BLP discussions, bouncing ideas about can all be very useful, and necessary on occasions. But off wiki is not wiki. The important thing is that they have no status in wikipedia. Admins are responsible for their own action, and if they cannot point to an on-wiki consensus as a motivation, they bear full personal responsibility for every action. Period.
#admins has some advantages over other non-wiki communications. Firstly, it actually has a far broader access list than most IRC channels that people use for important communications. A totally open channel will not be used for important things (#wikipedia), because it is full of nonsense, trolls and other crap. Private channels are really the most worrying, as they have access lists of the like-minded and are open to plotting and people egging one another on. The advantage of #admins is that people want to use it because it is restricted to reasonably cluefull wikipedians, but it also has a cross-section of admins, so if you seek advice there, there will usually be someone of a different perspective to reign stupidity in. Consider this: if the few examples of bad use of the channel had happened in private channels, we would never have known about them. Those wishing to close the channel, or to open it to full scrutiny, should consider that they will simply drive the necessary (and unnecessary) business elsewhere, where there are even fewer checks and balances. I like the fact that people being silly in #admins get "caught" - it makes people stop and think before posting. I like the fact that admins who are critical of the mainstream can listen in and comment, that avoids groupthink. But if you open it (or the logs) to all users, you will destroy that possibility and drive business to unsupervised places.
As I have pointed out elsewhere. We have an "e-mail this user" function in the official software. E-mail is unwiki, and we can all point to lots of abuses of it for insults, leaks, plots and general nastiness. Yet, no matter how many abuses may be pointed out, e-mail is still useful for wikipedia and also inevitable. Trying to restrict it would be a) harmful b) pointless. The same is true of IRC, and #admins; bad things happening don't make it a bad thing itself, and any attempt to change it is a vain whistling in the wind.--Docg 09:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
The English Wikipedia ArbCom does not have power over projects apart from the English Wikipedia. If it plans to take "control" over the "official" IRC channels, its control will only extend to those which are related specifically to the English Wikipedia (i.e. #wikipedia-en and #wikipedia-en-admins). Attempts to exert control over other channels relating to other Wikimedia projects is overstepping the line and probably won't go down too well with people from other projects. - Mark 10:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
The wikimedia channels suffer from a historic ambiguity. They are named for communities and thus acquire by their names a seeming standing, but in fact in reality they are run for the communities by specific users who are their managers ("freenode group contacts"), usually through delegated appointees ("channel operators", or chanops), and have not been run as "official" WMF vehicles operated by WMF itself.
There is a similar ambiguity who has what measure of control over them, and this has led at times to conflicting statements over the degree of control by the community, Jimbo, the arbitration committee, or others. Arbcom has obtained clarification on this to a degree, and is considering it as part of the present case too.
This situation may or many not change in future. Either way transparency of regulation is desirable so that those who do not use the IRC medium to talk, may have a measure of confidence that broadly, their on-channel usage is reasonable and dovetails with the projects' broader objectives. (Off-channel is akin to email; regulation of conversations between two users is unlikely to be feasible whatever is done, and attempts to achieve this may - like removing wiki email - do more harm than good.)
Historically, on- and off-wiki abuses do seem to have been co-ordinated on IRC. This was for the most part back in 2006 though, or at least prior to spring 2007. (Note: other improper collaborations have equally arisen on private mailing lists and also in private subcommunities on the wiki itself; this is more about usage than medium.) There are a number of users who were hurt by these, and/or remember them with hostility. A second part of the community feel nothing should be discussed other than on-wiki, in order to avoid the risk of a self-selected clique forming that diverges (even with good intent) from the community. (Ezparanza was one such in the past.) These are two main motives for concern and both have a basis in reasonableness.
Many issues related to abuse (eg chanop capriciousness, bans, etc) on IRC were purged for the most part somewhere in first half 2007. Capricious whimsical conduct by a cabal of admins on IRC channels is a deep and wrongful memory by some, but is not the present reality, nor has it been for a long time. Sources seem to widely credit David Gerard as one of those instrumental for addressing the bigger problems and making these changes happen, for those who were unaware, hence his strong views on what IRC should and should not be about. Part of the solution applied was to open the closed channel to more admins, strongly encourage more eyeballs, and regularize greatly how the channels were managed and expectations there. Broadly speaking, as with most situations in the community, more people not fewer has been a powerful way to remove many past problems. It will never be perfect, but as it stands -- like the wiki itself -- IRC does a lot more good than harm, and further learning and improvement is possible. And, in some areas, is evidently desirable.
A request on en-admins is typically seen by over 50 users. Users who go away for a time often review past happenings in the channel on their return. Whilst some disputes have taken place there, it is notable that unlike 2006, the response of most users was to seek peacemaking, not to take sides when these arise. Heated disputes usually blow over fairly quickly. This reflects a more modern approach to an admins working and social lounge, which is what en-admins effectively operates as.
Its positive uses include a place that admins can ask input on situations and their handling from many other admins (on-the-spot "sanity checking"), and share information on problems noted on the wiki. This has benefited the wiki in those cases where an on-wiki discussion would have necessitated stirring up damage, over reaction, or other harm. The alternative for a private query (email) would be far more selective. Admins are trusted to make such judgements; inherent in that judgement is the need to broadly consult their peers on matters they have queries, and at times not to have their tentative concerns reflected in public venues until so checked. To do so would chill good adminship, not support it. Debate in that channel is often not just one viewpoint, and whilst an element of like thinking and self selection is probably unavoidable, this would be so on any venue proposed for admins. The benefits outweigh the risk, and the risks can be reduced by encouraging more admins to use it. We have a thousand. More eyeballs, with better regulation, would be no bad thing. As it stands the number of viewers means that public abuse very rarely occurs in that locale and is rapidly quenched when it does these days.
En-admins also helps the community's administrators to be more efficient in other ways. Admins tend to be comparatively busy as users. The wiki is large enough that key threads on major pages (ANI) may themselves be missed, and thus it routinely acts like Template:Cent and WP:AN itself, as another means of identifying pages and issues admins consider topical, and announcing them publicly to those admins choosing to watch that source of information. For those who do not use IRC, this is usually done by posting a link, not by soliciting responses for or against a given point of view. Finally the signal-to-noise ratio is considerably improved, a consideration for users who are often heavily involved in helping users and dealing with chores.
IRC, and en-admins especially, has been the site of some recent drama. The log of en-admins is appropriately redacted in evidence at RFAR/IRC. The original showed a number of users urging both sides to calm down and not enter into hostile dispute. The dispute was not due to the channel (save for the fact it allowed a new venue for existing animosity to be discussed as it had been on the wiki too), but despite it. In the aftermath, discussion took place regarding private logs of the channel being kept to verify happenings should it be necessary. This is not what would have happened in 2006. Likewise there is evidence of questionable use of WP:AE involving IRC posted elsewhere, but a closer look shows that the questionability lies with the user requesting, and perhaps a need by an admin responding to better handle it on-wiki. The IRC channel did its job and the IRC request to look at a matter per se was neutrally worded and open for response to all admins in the channel at the time equally.
Users who do act on-wiki, for whatever reason and motive and whether as editors or administrators, must (with very few exceptions) be fully prepared to support and justify their actions by reference to on-wiki matters only. This is strongly adopted by the community.
More broadly, all users (admins and non-admins) are expected to have personal views, and users of all kinds may well share these with others they choose off-wiki, often in a way they would not do on the wiki itself. There are emails, off-wiki friendships, real-life wikifriendships and college-mates, telephone and skype contacts, and entire wiki meetups, and at all of these, self-selected users will discuss matters between themselves. Even if it were not "other users", each editor has their own personal interests and matters they have a view on. Our mutual communal agreement is not that this is bad, or even that it is disallowed or a conflict of interest. It is that at a minimum, any views and interactions incompatible with neutral collaborative editing are left at the door, and each user must ensure appropriate steps are taken -- up to and including recusal from specific articles and debates -- not to import them into the wiki.
In summary, the positive benefits the community gains from an off-wiki system of communication such as IRC, are manifold. How they operate (including self regulation) can however always be improved, and perhaps the present cases show simply that like wiki itself, it will always be capable of improvement, and from time to time for the project's benefit, must do so. Whatever means of communication are employed now or in future, any such systems (including their users and the conversations held on them) must ensure they remain in alignment with the benefit of the project in their activities and operations, and should broadly adopt norms which encourage this.
Arbcom cannot exert authority over #wikipedia-en-admins without the permission of JamesF. JamesF has not made the community aware that he will surrender the channel. Jimbo's proclomation of authority over the admins channel was "a breach of sovereignty", since the English Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation has zero control or authority over #wikipedia-en-admins. The question as to who will control #wikipedia-en-admins remains under the discretion of the channel owner, JamesF, and not the Wikimedia foundation, the community, Jimbo, or Arbcom. The reason that #wikipedia-en-admins has remained unofficial is not an accident: it is not the function of the WMF, or the English Wikipedia community to run an IRC channel, especially one that belongs to someone else. If the community wants to create a new admin channel, ruled by arbcom (or whomever), they should do so.
Internet Relay Chat is a medium of communication, and a useful one at that—just as email, talk page interaction and Instant Messaging. It has both its unique advantages, and individual pitfalls:
IRC's advantages.
IRC's disadvantages.
Cost-benefit analysis.
Weighing up the two alternative arguments in the discussion over IRC ultimately comes down to one focal point: a cost-benefit analysis of these arguments, resulting in a conclusion as to whether the IRC system is beneficial to Wikipedia as a whole, or a hindrance to its operations.
My personal opinion in this, and this sentence marks the transition from fact-stating and personal, fact-based observations, to personal opinion, is that IRC is, despite its disadvantages, a system which brings more good than harm to the project as a wide-spanning entity. Indeed, it has its downfalls, and these must be addressed with something of an urgency; however, the vast majority of editors who contribute to the project are decent, honest people, who return day-after-day to help, rather than disrupt, the encyclopedia.
The Arbitration Committee.
The English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee has, since its existence, functioned as a last-resort medium through which resolution to a conflict can be sought. The Committee's own boundaries and scope, as defined by its own policy, span very much over the English Wikipedia, and the English Wikipedia alone. Furthermore, it can be said with reasonable confidence, that the ArbCom may, if necessary, intervene in conflicts derived from IRC, particularly where those conflicts are having some derogatory effect on Wikipedia as an on-site project.
To that end, it can be logically said that the Arbitration Committee is granted the authority to intervene on highly-developed conflicts on English Wikipedia-themed IRC channels—inclusive of #wikipedia-en-admins and #wikipedia-en, and exclusive of #wikipedia. Such an authority is necessary if the Committee is to carry out the function it was appointed to.
Conclusion.
There is room for improvement—greater regulation, a return of greater levels of common sense and a greater concentration of firmly-marked boundaries. But the ability to remedy that is in our court, and I do believe we are, and will continue to, make progress there, whilst retaining the advantages we benefit from on-Wiki on a daily basis.
AGK (contact) 20:32, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
IRC has no real affiliation with wikipedia, it's just people who use wikipedia have channels on freenode where they can talk about wikipedia. The WMF or the Wikipedia arbitration commitee should neither endorse or reject these channels, they should be treated like wikback, allowed to make their own descisions about what to do to with misbehavers etc. If it is revealed that the channels were used to coordinate some disruptive actions, they should be treated like we treat every forum where someone says "go and vandalise this admins user page, he blocked me".--Phoenix-wiki 15:41, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Discussion which affects content or users on Wikipedia should be held on wikipedia. That's why we have discussion pages. We discourage canavassing: Because it is less transparent than on-wiki notifications, the use of email or other off-wiki communication to notify editors is discouraged. Hiding T 19:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)