Edit: I've thought about this some more and now have some additional thoughts. Specifically, in regards to how the Disciplinary "PR Team" would work, I have a few more ideas:
- First of all, given the negative/corporate connotations, I don't think it should actually explicitly be called the "PR Team" or the "Public Relations Team" — rather, I suggest the name "Disciplinary Records Review Team" (DRR Team). I'll use this name from now on.
- I'm thinking this team could mainly operate through a "ping role" in the official SCP Wiki Staff Discord. All staff members are able to and encouraged to ping the role in any Disciplinary thread to notify all members of the DRR Team, whose responsibility is to then review the thread to make sure it does not contain any false or misleading information BEFORE it is made public. I think it's good to extend this right to all staff so that anyone can "raise the alarm" if they believe something requires more review.
- To clarify, nobody on this team will actually be able to carry out or restrict disciplinary action. This team is concerned only with the contents of public disciplinary records.
- Ideally, this team will add as little red tape as possible to staff procedures. If it does not intervene in a Disc case (as I believe will be the case in most cases), the case should proceed as normal with minimal interruption.
- In accordance with Randomini's suggestion over on the O4 mirror, there should be some sort of mandatory "grace period" in which disciplinary records are drafted but aren't allowed to be made public. That way, the DRR Team always has ample time to make comments, and nobody feels obligated to rush. To be clear, this grace period only applies to records concerning the reasoning behind disciplinary action — the action itself (e.g. revokes, demotions, bans) can still be carried out and documented immediately. Again, the DRR Team has no disciplinary power.
- I've debated back on forth on how much power the DRR team should actually have officially in practice, because it's really a balancing act between making sure no cases of miscommunication slip through the cracks while also minimizing needless red tape. Given that disciplinary records aren't made all that often, I think it's reasonable for the procedure to be for Disc to ping the DRR role X number of hours/days before posting any disciplinary record, to give members of the team time to review it. If DRR does not voice any concerns, then after the grace period Disc can release the record publicly at their discretion. However, both during and after the grace period, any DRR team member can "veto" the record and request that it be revised (again, note that this only concerns the record itself, not the specific disciplinary actions it documents). Obviously, there'll need to be some system in place to prevent records from being stalled for obnoxiously long periods of time. However I anticipate that this "veto" system won't be used all that often, so I don't think it'll be an issue.
- If such a team is eventually created, I volunteer to join it. I think it should be made primarily of members outside of the Disciplinary team so that Disc records get a set of "fresh eyes" on them.
Original Message: Seconding Mann here. The biggest mistake, in my opinion, was omitting the fact that Syuzhet wanted the filter changed due to its astronomical false-positive rate, not that she genuinely wanted to tell people to kill themselves. This was a dangerous omission because I think it's reasonable for someone to see the thread without context and assume Syuz intended the latter and not the former. In fact, multiple people did misinterpret it this way, resulting in some of them harassing her.
While I might not have a complete perspective due to my short tenure both on staff and on this site, I do really think that Disc, as a whole, should have more robust procedures for ensuring that the reasons for disciplinary actions are properly communicated, specifically in cases with controversial disciplinary actions or actions against "high-profile" members of the site. This recent incident with Syuzhet is an example as I've already stated. However, I really think this represents a broader pattern of poor communication in wiki disciplinary threads. To back this up, take FLOORBOARDS's ban as another recent example.
In the case of FLOORBOARDS's ban, she was banned for "unacceptable offsite behavior" in conjunction with her prior AHT ban. However, the specific examples cited in her disciplinary thread — comparing staff to the Stasi and calling 19cord "1488cord" — give the incorrect impression that this and similarly petty insults were what led to her ban, and not her more egregious behavior. Thankfully, this was clarified in a later revision of the post, contextualizing her ban with her "history of inflammatory interpersonal behavior and retaliatory attacks on members" — however, the fact that "staff Stasi" and "1488cord" were included in the first place, in my opinion, still sets the incorrect impression that users are not allowed to criticize staff, even offsite, at risk of punishment, because their inclusion gives users the impression that they are to serve as representative examples. In fact, I have seen multiple people voice these concerns in practice. I'll admit that some of these concerns may have been made in bad faith or in jest, but, one, it's still not a good look; and two, even if they are in bad-faith, they might convince other people who are genuinely concerned.
Anyway, to be clear, my point in bringing up the case of FLOORBOARDS isn't to derail or to soapbox. It's to show that this sort of miscommunication has happened more than once, and therefore, something on a higher, more systematic level, should be done to stop it.
Here is my proposal: I think the Disciplinary team needs, for lack of a better term, a "Public Relations Team" — a group of operational staff not on the Disciplinary team whose job it is to critique Disciplinary team threads to ensure mistakes like the above two do not slip through. To be clear, this hypothetical team would not have any actual disciplinary power — their sole job will be ensuring that publicly-released disciplinary records are accurate, are not misleading, and are least likely to cause needless panic. To prevent red tape, I think this team should only really be used in cases similar to the ones above with Syuzhet and FLOORBOARDS — your average ChatGPT writer or slur-spammer won't really need them, because those are open-and-shut cases unlikely to cause strife. I will admit that this is currently just a vague idea in my head, and that a lot of details will need to be hashed out (what are the criteria for PR team approval being required? who will be on the team? what will PR team review look like? how do we prevent this from becoming a "rubber stamp"? how do we prevent this from pointlessly slowing down disc proceedings?), but I hope you all see the vision.
All in all, I realize this is a rather harsh post, so I want to clarify that I'm not intending to point fingers at anyone or to admonish the disciplinary team as a whole. You all have a difficult job that you're doing free of charge, and some mistakes are bound to slip through amidst the chaos. I just want to do what I can to make sure those mistakes are caught before they can cause harm.
