I'd like to personally thank everyone who gave reasonable feedback and criticism of AHT in the past few days. It's collectively opened our eyes to the major problems that the team has when it comes to perception among the community, some of which we were already aware, and things that we hadn't quite thought of. We have some internal discussions for additional things that we want to do to help make the community feel safer, but for now, we'll need some time to go back and sort through those cases that require updating.

• I'd like to second lucio's thinking that a few of these reasons feel a bit too vague. "Sexually explicit with minors" is enough of a reason for sure, but things like "emotionally manipulative/abusive behavior" don't seem 'specific but vague' as much as just vague
• As much as ideally I'd want all previous harassment bans updated in this way, I recognise that's an unreasonable amount of work to expect of a small team, many of whom weren't around when these bans were actually carried out. However, any harassment banned user who is still active in unofficial satellite communities should definitely have their reasoning updated so those who run these communities can use the new evidence to decide whether they wish for these users to remain in them.

Curious: will old AHT bans be reworded as well, or only from here on out?

Due to the nature of AHT bans, most end in perma just because of the material, but I'll clarify it to add in the ban length, appeals are typically a case dependent basis, and I'm hesistant to codify them here without further discussion within the team.

Couple of minor things:

AHT was alerted to rulebreaking behavior by [[*user]]

This kinda sounds like it means "alerted by [[*user]] of rulebreaking behavior" when it's really meaning "[[*user]] was involved in rule breaking behaviour"; perhaps "…behavior carried out by [[*user]]" would be clearer?

Also supporting M_E's suggestion to cut the date when reports were made; feels too easy for AHT banned users to figure out who reported based off that, even if the transparency of how long the investigation has been ongoing is nice.

After confirming the facts of the case we found the user in violation of anti-harassment and user site conduct, and has been subsequently banned.

IMO: slight adjustment at the end here to indicate how long the ban is and whether/when appeals are allowed e.g. "…has been subsequently banned for [duration], with an appeal available in [duration]" say.

Other than that, I approve of all of it strongly.

Edit: I should probably add that this proposal has my full support otherwise.

I think that the explanation of the behavior should be just the slightest bit less general, but other than that I'm in favor of this change.

Harassment ban reports should be presented/formatted in the following manner.

"AHT was alerted to behavior carried out by [[*user]], and began an investigation into their activities. We were approached by (general approximation of # of people) members of the community that suggested that this person was engaged in (Specific but vague harassment level behavior IE, sexually explicit with minors, persistent harassment of individual users, emotionally manipulative/abusive behavior, etc.). After confirming the facts of the case we found the user in violation of anti-harassment and user site conduct, and has been subsequently banned for (Ban Length)."

Upon reaching a consensus to ban a user, victims should be approached and asked if they wish for evidence and more detailed reasoning to be released to concerned parties, so that other branches of the community not explicitly attached to the site may mirror AHT bans. Evidence would be made available upon request. Retaliation is a frequent part of harassment behavior upon a report and action being taken. Therefore, to protect the victim, staff will not share names, personal details such as phone numbers, locations, etc. with concerned parties. Staff will only share evidence of rulebreaking behavior.

Please let us know if you have any objections to this change in policy, or would like clarity on wording.