KA Guardian system--improvements

Hi Electronic Wave Symmetry,

As I mentioned earlier, we can't discuss moderations decisions with anyone but the user involved, but if you know the user in question, please encourage them to reach out to us in Support if they have questions about why they've been banned.

Kindly,
Faile

This issue isn't about the moderation decisions for specific users. It's about the system as a whole. What's the reasoning behind hiding all of a user's programs permanently over a discussion ban? Who decided that that benefited or protected the community in any way?

(Don't mind the new account; I changed my email yesterday so I could get notifications and it accidentally broke my help center account.)

Users are banned so often, I feel as if the community has been desensitized. The system has been broken for so long, people don’t even question the fairness of hiding a user’s programs for a basic discussion ban.

We recognise that it is TOS to talk about users that have been banned, but by doing that you are censoring one of the biggest problems with the discussion. If the community cannot speak up about unfair guidelines publicly, that feels like censorship. We would like for you to be open for a public discussion regarding these things and not immediately hide and censor them. 

Please do not reply to this message just saying to contact Support. That doesn’t help nor does it add onto the conversation. 

KA is a great thing but if it continues to be like this, people will find it hard to grow and improve. 

Guys, supporting change is good. Mob mentality is bad. Be careful to suggest, not accuse. Regardless of guidelines, only one is appropriate towards the Guardians that keep Khan Academy from been a madhouse of abuse, violence, et cetera.

The thing that I really agree with in this thread is that guardian messages should be a little more specific. Not that that is the only thing that I agree with, but it's what I have had personal experience with. I've gotten a couple guardian messages for off-topic posts. The second one, I knew what I did wrong, and I knew that I deserved the message. That was fine. But the first one I got shortly after I joined. It made no mention of what posts were the offending posts, but that there were some. As a new and inexperienced user to Khan Academy, I would have really liked the guardian to point me in the right direction as to what posts specifically were against the guidelines.

The other thing that I agree with is to create the ability to reply to a guardian message. I've wished in the past that I was able to reply to the guardian. Specifically, the first time that I was warned (mentioned previously). I would have liked the ability to contact the guardian privately, to ask what posts were the offending posts.

I can't really give any input as to any changes that should be made when someone is banned, since I've never been banned myself, and haven't experienced any of the difficulties that are associated with it. And I hope to keep it that way.

Maybe users aren't allowed to access this information, but something that I would like to see is what kinds of bans there are, and the associated consequences. Such as just a temporary discussion ban would leave the user muted for a few weeks, whereas a full-out ban would hide discussion history and CS projects, and hide additional discussion posts and CS projects that were created.

Hello again everyone!

First, if you'll allow me to be mushy for a moment: I'm feeling a lot of gratitude for everyone in this thread and our larger community. Thank you for sharing your frustrations and feedback, and for being responsive to following the Community Guidelines. I know everyone here is coming from a place of caring and passion for Khan Academy and making it the best place it can be, and that is showcased brilliantly in your respectful and productive discussions.

Alright, mushy stuff out of the way. I don't want to interrupt or stop your conversation, so please feel free to continue to add your thoughts, but I do want to reassure you that you're not speaking into a void. I'm the Community Liaison, but I partner with our larger Community Support team on issues affecting the Khan Academy Community, and a few of them are away on much needed vacations at the moment. I'll be bringing the concerns you've raised here (and privately, if you've emailed) to the team when they return next week.

Thanks for being a part of Khan Academy!

Apologies to say as I have read so far; I was never aware, but I do agree to what the rest of the others said,. And as for the rules quite more as strict; as well as reporting about a user was once asking me about the opportunity to help once again in the help centre because of once being banned. Is there a fair response to this situation. As the user reported that if one is banned can they have an opportunity once again to help here in help centre for other users request. Would like the communities Guardians to check as well for users in need of helping other users post or asking reasonable related questions again in the help centre for future reasons. 

I would like to respond to the user's appeal as a feedback towards depending on Khan Academy community responds. 

Kind Regards.

Hello Everyone

I completely agree to this post!

My friend was banned without a SINGLE WARNING, She was new to Khan academy,She never knew how to get UNBANNED. She was stuck, Could there be a way which a GUARDIAN can hide a program individualing than making it harder for new users to find out about all this (BAN APPEAL FORM) stuff.

Question: Can GUARDIANS see your PRIVATE information! (e.g, Date of birth, IP Address, e.t.c)

Guardians are really helpful to khan academy, but that does not mean that USERS which are banned, can not privately & individualy talk to the GUARDIAN?

To all USERS facing this issue ( IT IS NOT RIGHT!)

Users which are Banned Can NOT:⬇⬇

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Speak to a guardian Invidually

*Get a Notification On The reason why they have been banned

*Talk on the Community FAIRLY to get help on being UNBANNED

Remember , the SOLUTION to any problem is letting USERS express thier OPINION , 

I'd say it is better talking here than to Report a SUPPORT ticket.

Thankyou Guardians For the Help Of The Community Of Discussing Issues Like this

~DreamyBird

Hello, I agree with the sentiment present in most of these comments.

I have been a member of Khan Academy for at least 6 years.

I personally have only been warned once, because I protested the "KA chat ban" a year or two ago, I changed my bio, and that was the end of that.

However, I have seen multiple people be banned for seemingly small infractions, where a warning and simply deleting the offending post would have sufficed. Those community members were in general very helpful to the community, and one small infraction has forced them off.

As @𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 | #Khantober2020 mentioned in his post, multiple KA newspapers were also banned or went inactive. Unknown to most people, I had actually joined a rather popular KA newspaper at the request of the owner, only days after I joined, the account was permabanned. I was not aware of the drama that was happening at the time, but it took months for us to get any headway as to why the account was actually banned. It turns out that the account was banned as a result of parents reporting it for reasons I will not disclose, however, the report was based on misinformation, and after discussing with the guardians, may have been lifted; it was not. We also didn't find out why the account was banned from a guardian, it was from the person who's parents had reported the account.

Please don't get me wrong, I know the guardians were doing their job, and I appreciate that they do. As a community moderator on multiple medium sized discord servers, I have a idea of the kind of things guardians have to handle.

One point that was brought up quite a few times is consistency and transparency, which I do believe the current system lacks. I think that bans or other disciplinary action should be consistent, allowing the user to

A - know why they were disciplined

B - Allow them to have a voice, to discuss with the guardian why (possibly by making the ban appeal form more accessible)

Once again, I am glad that KA has guardians, but I think the status quo needs some slight adjustment.

If nothing else, I think it would be great if the discussion guidelines were more easily accessible, like they used to be, maybe next to the new message box.

Sincerely and respectfully,

Asher (aka Disco)

Hello, I'm Zushah (@zushah77).

I've been a user of Khan Academy for three years so far, and I'm quite experienced with the site, having used it for helping with school (math, science, etc.) and my personal learning endeavors (programming and stuff).

I agree with most of all that has been said in this thread, especially about the improvements that could be made to Guardian consistency and transparency.

Consistency, in my opinion, could really get better. There are some people who don't get banned despite receiving several warnings, and then there are those who get banned without any warnings. I mean, I understand when it comes to things like inappropriate (things with violent or sexual themes) messages or programs and whatnot, you need an insta-ban. But there are some people who get insta-banned for minor violations of the Guidelines, which could've been easily stopped with a warning.

Also, transparency.

Like many other people have said in this thread, a simple automated message being sent to the user that's been banned telling them that they've been banned would be very helpful. Something like...

"Oh Noes! You've been banned from Khan Academy for [ban length] for [ban reason]. If you'd like to receive more information, please go here."

Okay, personal opinions time...

First off, how come users aren't allowed to talk about other users getting banned? I've heard that this is considered as "the violation of other users' privacy", but... Getting banned isn't exactly "private", considering that anyone that goes to your profile can fairly easily see if you've been banned, and most people tell other people the reason(s) they've been banned, anyways. Also, I know two users who've been banned for this reason, neither of them getting a warning, but then I go around KA seeing many, many other users do the same thing but not get banned at all. Maybe they got a warning, but then again, the two people who I know got banned for the same reason didn't get a warning, so... Consistency.

Second, if most bans are discussion bans, how come ban users' programs get hidden? Like, I understand hiding program(s) if the reason for the ban is related to the program(s), but, in my opinion, discussion bans shouldn't have users getting all their programs hidden. Like other people have said in this thread, for some people, getting all their programs hidden means years of work lost and thousands of lines of code gone to the public, and in some cases that can be pretty crushing. Also, even if the reason for getting banned is related to a program being inappropriate or off-topic or even plagiarized, I think only that one (or any and all programs that fall under the ban reason) should be hidden, not all the user's programs.

Oh, and lastly, if the change that I talked about in the paragraph above does happen to get implemented (I have my hopes, heh), then users should still be able to get their program(s) unhidden (after they've been unbanned, of course) by filling out the Hidden CS Project Appeal Form.

Oh, right. I almost forgot to mention that I've been banned twice (I literally just got unbanned today). The first reason was justified, I guess. I mean, I probably could've fixed my violation of the Guidelines  ("off-topic posts") if I got a warning or something, but I was making some stupid decisions so I kind of really deserved it. My second ban (the one I just got unbanned from) was for "advertising off-topic services or sites", which was really just me putting my Discord username on my subpage. I understand that that was a bad thing to do, but... Was it really necessary to ban me? Like I said in above about consistency, I could've easily just removed the single line of code in the program if I got a warning, or even if my subpage was hidden, but I feel like a ban was too much...

Anyways, enough of my ranting, hehe.

I just hope the KA Guardians and staff consider and hopefully implement the ideas and suggestions that have been posted in this thread. I think it would really help out the community for the better.

Thank you and sincerely,

Zushah

I was on luckier side. So not that long ago my programs started getting hidden randomly and then one day I was working on a game and tried to make a help request but it wouldn't go through and show up on the help requests list. So I thought something must be broken so I sent in a ticket at the support center and somehow it went through and a got an email response from one of the support people telling me that I can't make the help request because I was banned. They gave me the link to a ban appeal form which I had no clue existed so I am lucky that they sent it to me or else I would still be banned having no clue. So I filled out the form immediately, and it said I should receive a response in a few days. So I wait a week and nothing happens. And then I wait another week and no response. So I am getting really frustrated with khan academy because I found out I was banned and they didn't even notify me to tell me why I was banned or even tell me that I was banned. So I email back the support center person and they tell me to be patient and that there is nothing I can do and that they can't help me because they are strictly a community support person and not a guardian. So eventually an entire month later or so Evan Lewis unbans me and tells me that I was banned for having a program with religious content and for posting links to computer science programs. What was annoying was that my "religious content" program had no religious content. It didn't include any religious words or any other religious content or depictions. It was about a theory made by some philosopher or something along time ago about how the body has 4 main fluids and if a person is sick it is because the fluids are out of balance. This has nothing to do with religion and we know for a fact by modern science that this theory is not true. (I am still slightly annoyed that I lost all the code to that program and can't retrieve it because I spent hours working on it). And for the posting links to other CS programs: I wasn't vote-soliciting programs. I was answering peoples questions by posting relevant links related to their question. For example one person asks how to do something and I reply with a link to a tutorial on how to do what they asked.

So that was my story of the ban experience. I don't think that people should be banned for trying to help others. And about the religion matter, Religion is history and whats wrong with history? And khan academy is an American organization and in America all people are given the liberty to have freedom of religion. I do understand that khan academy doesn't want people promoting their religions on khan academy. But aside from that I agree that the following are features that should be added to khan academy as soon as it is possible to add them.

- When people are banned, they get notified that they were banned, and the reason they were banned

- People should be able to respond to guardian messages to get more info, but I understand that guardians don't want to be spammed so I do think their should be a limit on how often the banned user can post a response.

- Khan academy should add filters that automatically go through programs and comments and remove unwanted materials and this should make less word for the guardians

- Khan academy should change their ban appeal form from saying a few days and replace it with a few weeks because that it more accurate and the user isn't stuck wondering if their form even got received (like I was)

- Guardians should focus more on hiding plagiarized projects and inappropriate material instead of focusing on banning people who are answering peoples questions and trying to help others

- I suggest that the guidelines be updated to be more specific about what not to do

- Guardian messages should be more specific so that the user knows whats is the problem

I don't want to come off as negative and I don't want to offend anybody, but I have stated my personal suggestions because I want khan academy to be better. In conclusion I love khan academy and want to see it improve to help everyone be educated.

Hello everyone! Thanks for your help and patience over the last few weeks.

The team and I talked about your feedback this week, so I’m back to give you an update on those discussions and how we’re following up on your feedback.

First, some of the things we’re doing:

• Updating our internal policies and training around how warnings and bans are used and communicated to users. We heard that you’d like more information about how you can avoid a ban (through more consistent warnings when warranted), and that you’d like more information when a ban has been given, so we’re clarifying our policies and adding more training on this internally to better support our Guardians.

• We’ve added a link to the Ban Appeal form to our Community Guidelines. We also heard that some users (especially newer users) didn’t know about or have had a hard time finding the Ban Appeal form after they’ve been banned, so we’ve added the link to the form to the Community Guidelines.

• And lastly...

We’re recruiting for the Guardian program! 

The Guardians do incredibly important work, but they’re a very small team moderating a very large community. Expanding the team will help give them space and time to guide users through being good members of the community, so we’re looking for volunteers who are active in our community and passionate about keeping it a safe place for everyone to learn and grow in. We encourage you to check out the article on how to become a Guardian, but here are the basic requirements for becoming a Guardian:

• At least 16 years of age. 
• Demonstrated contributions to the Khan Academy community in the form of answering questions, contributing to discussions, and high-quality comments. 
• A record free of any bans or repeated bad behavior, such as plagiarism, vote soliciting or spamming for at least 12 months. Ideologically neutral username and bio that is absent of any overt political, religious, or otherwise controversial affiliation. 
• Demonstrated ability to handle potential conflicts between community members in a diplomatic, nurturing, and firm manner.

If this sounds like you, please complete the Guardian application by October 23, 2020.

Because we value your effort and your honesty, we also want to be honest and transparent about the things we won’t be doing (and why).

• Social chatting (such as off-topic comments on content or conversations under CS projects) are and will remain against our guidelines. Although we understand that some users want to be social and for our moderation actions to take into account the popularity of users/programs, that’s not in line with our mission or the purpose of the discussion space. There are lots of other places designed for social conversations, but Khan Academy isn’t one of them and won’t be in the future.

• Our Community and Programming Guidelines are designed to protect the Community as whole, and aren’t going to satisfy the needs of everyone. I know we’ve said this a lot, but: Khan Academy is an educational site with a very large, very diverse community of learners, parents, and teachers. The nature of managing a large community of people is that there’s always going to be rules some members think are unnecessary or unfair. We don't say this to dismiss your concerns (on the contrary, we want to hear them!), but to be as clear as we can that the safety and wellbeing of our entire community will always be our primary goal when creating our guidelines.

This was a long post, so thanks for hanging in there with me, and I hope we’ll see some familiar members applying for the Guardian program soon. Onwards!

Hi Faile,

I'd like to say thank you for a very encouraging response from the team. I'm excited to see these updates to be incorporated into the community. I think my first two points were addressed quite well and the Guardian hiring announcement is great news as well.

However, I was wondering if the team happens to have any response about my third point, which is assigning more appropriate disciplinary actions to bans. As far as I can see in your response, nothing could be applied to that topic. 

For longtime users to have projects with hundreds and thousands of votes to be hidden as a result from a minor ban seems to be, at the very least, unreasonable. Does the team have any updates they can give regarding policies about the disciplinary actions given to banned users?

Again, thank you so much for diligently keeping an eye on this and alerting us to the exciting announcement.

-Legolas

I think that it is important to remember that the people who are more well-known in the community will be more likely to be banned for smaller offenses because 1, they have more influence in the community, and 2, they are more noticeable than other users. I think of it like someone driving a red sports car. They have a greater chance of being pulled over by the police than someone who is in a minivan, because they stand out more. Also, giving reasons for banning would be helpful.

Hi Faile,

Thanks for the update - really appreciate the work the guardians do to keep the platform safe, especially for the younger users, and that you've taken the time to go through everything presented here with respect to guidelines, bans, etc.

Just wanted to follow up on one aspect of a ban that you didn't mention in your response - the permanent hiding of the users programs that have more than a certain vote count. Did your team discuss this and decide on any outcome? I find it extremely saddening that a persons hard work over years of their life and hundreds of hours labor can be gone in an instant - I'd personally be devastated if this ever happened to me.

In addition to this, I've spent many hours looking at some of the more advanced programs (games, animations, etc.) from users in the community, and feel that hiding some of these programs is taking away from the communities learning/understanding. Also, some of these programs form part of the history/legacy of the Khan Academy Computer Programming community - and we should never destroy our history.

Kind regards,

Gray Wolf

I've been really happy with this conversation and I'd first like to thank Faile Lundberg for responding and making changes for the better. 

One slight thing that I think is a bit...well, it doesn't really have a point. I've heard that sometimes, programs over a vote limit are the only ones that get hidden. Why is this? 

I make a whole bunch of programs. Then if I get banned and have a good program. My best programs get hidden and, WOOHOO, I get to keep the junk. I'd like to hear why this is a good rule. How does it help the community. 

Alright, thanks everyone. 

-Beplo Studios!?, semi-well known programmer, and khan academy member for 2 years

Those are some great changes! Thank you so much for the extra work you’ve put in for the community.

I’d personally love to become a Guardian but can’t as of now for a couple reasons. I had a warning early this year because of responding to some off topic posts instead of just flagging. Also, I really don’t think I have enough time because of my accelerated course of learning. Not to mention that my reputation, although surprisingly widespread, is also alarmingly varied (some people seem to think I’m a self righteous monopolizer who only cares about number one and fame :/). I think that Guardians should have more respect from users than I currently do.

I’d love to know what some of the other Guardians think about the discussions on this post and what they have to say. Do you know if any of them can spare the time?

I totally agree that removing all of one's projects after a ban is completely outrageous. I was banned for a week for advertising off-site. Just talking about jobs on Fiverr. BOOM! I wake up to find all my years of hard work hidden. I submit a ban appeal request and get unbanned. Literally, 2 days later, I get banned again for the same reason. I don't understand! I mean, I was double banned for the same reason. I hope the new rules that will be implemented will work out. Also would like to point out to Faile Lundeberg for his way of dealing with me and my API program. He explained to me the reason why it was hidden and gave me his email to contact when I was done removing the issue. I see improvements coming and certainly excited to see some action going on.

Thank you

NinjaSauce

Ok, Number 1:

Transparency is a must need.  Its sad take it when you are  silently banned. At least give an automated message saying that your banned. I am sure that for every unfair ban, two people permanently leave because they can't believe it. I cannot express how angering it is when you are banned for a minor offence.

You are supporting the community

Answering Math questions

Helping out

Helping to maintain the KA guidelines, and believe, me alot of people that Guardians ban are striving to uphold KA guidelines.

Then, you are silently banned, and you don't know it.

When you find out(which KA has a habit of not informing of bans) you feel like punching a hole in the computer screen and leave permanently.

Do you really think that helps the community? For a small offence? I feel like that puts a bad name on the discipline here.

I am sorry if I sound harsh, I really am. But I am very disturbed about this. I agree fully with Legolas Greenleaf, Red Arrow, Ender, and KING.

CornerStone

I agree with all the points you have made, Legolas.

I too think that there should be a way to contact the Guardians about the status of a ban, and that they would actually respond to you.

I got banned several months ago, and the Guardians did not tell me why I was banned or what I did to get banned, even though I tried to ask them multiple times.

I eventually decided to create alts to chat with people (I did not know that this was ban evasion and against the guidelines at this point) and these were silently banned as well. I had no idea what was happening to me, since no Guardian informed me about what was going on.

I got frustrated that I was getting banned over and over again, and I finally decided to leave Khan for a while. When I came back, I had finally been un-banned, and I also decided to change my name from nibbl3s to Panth3r so I would remember the mistakes I had made and to not make them again.

Note: I am not angry at the Guardians, and I have no grievances against them or Khan Academy :)

Also, I'd love to become a Guardian myself, but I am too young (14), and my ban was less than 12 months ago :P

Yes, I agree with Panth3r. There should be a way to contact Guardians. It is very frustrating that the messages are one way. I am not complaining, I just want some change. Change isn't bad. One of the reasons I would like the Guardians to personally look through this thread is so they can see things from the students point of view. Some of the ways the Guardians enforce the guidelines is a very complicated, confusing, frustrating, and it makes people leave this site permanently.

I was/am the president of a 'newspaper group that was hidden. To this day we have no clue why we were banned. Therefore, we don't know what 'not' to do. We don't know what the Guardians didn't like thus we can't avoid our 'unknown' mistake. So I suspect we well be unfairly banned over and over and we don't even know what we did wrong? Does the KA staff know what that feels like? I doubt it, it changes peoples like for the worse, causes depression, and people completely giving up of KA, giving KA a bad name. This transparency problem is doing more bad than good.

If you want people not to make the same mistake, you should tell them what the mistake was? Don't you think its unfair not to? Please think about it.

I don't mean to rant, I don't mean for this to be a rant. But I feel that there needs to be more work done on the disciplinary system. I know people who have seen both sides, the KA staff perspective, and the student perspective, and they are wanting change on the KA staff perspective.

Thank you for reading all of the way through. Again, I am sorry if I am offending or ranting. I have nothing against KA. I like using it, and it is a very good experience for me. KA provides a great service, that many are thankful for. Thank you despite the Guardian complaints.

Regards,

CornerStone

Leading Advisor No 1. of GMK; President of Hummingbird News

Panth3r — as I believe someone (I think King?) has already pointed out, there are potential problems with allowing users to contact the Guardians. The only one I can think of is spam. Or maybe angry messages from who take their banning as a personal insult. Ms. Lundberg has already mentioned that the Guardians are a small team currently incapable of handling so many messages, and in my opinion, it's too early to tell how many people will apply for the Guardian program.

Pinnacle Technology — the chat threads in those can get really long. I've seen so many that stop at 150 comments.
And there might be 6-8 or more of these by the time a group is banned. The Guardians might not have time to actually read through these insanely long threads. Also, groups banned for off-topic chatting don't really have a perspective for the Guardian to see, do they?

I've poked holes in your ideas, but I don't think these are bad ideas. :) I simply see some reasons why KA haven't implemented them and probably won't unless solutions are found.

@Ruby Phoenix 

I think you scored there, I'll have to say that your argument makes sense. Your right. But my point is, that not all of those threads is off-topic. I think humor should be allowed in threads as well. Studies have shown people seen to work better in what they call a 'fun' environment. 

A big reason threads can get so long is that it takes alot to organize actions in larger groups. It takes alot of talking, talking that is not necessarily off-topic. 

From the student perspective those threads may not be off topic. The Guardians may consider vital 'talk' as off topic

And if they cannot manage 3m + users on KA, they might have to try to recruit more Guardians. As KA population expands, the support must expand to manage KA. Makes sense once you think about it.

NOTE: I am not saying that they are not trying.

@Cornerstone

Yes, I agree that they aren't all off-topic. But those are usually not actually warned/banned, so they aren't really what we're discussing here.

I believe that the guardians are relatively lenient about humor. I have a tendency to go off topic and yet I have been warned only once. I've noticed that the guardians don't care nearly as much as long as the discussion is not dedicated solely to a non-programming related topic. Also, I think I understand why off-topic group chats are more often warned: which seems worse, a whole group of people laughing about something in 100+ comment thread or two people having a short, slightly off-topic chat about something?

If "vital" talk is off-topic, that means the group is most likely not focused of learning — such groups are actively discouraged.

But they are recruiting more Guardians? They've reopened applications.

Well, I think that yes 1. the Guardians are lenient about humor. 2. I am have seen two person convo's and I don't necessarily see a difference between a two person convo and a group convo. In my opinion, they both get treated the same alot. Most of the time 100+ threads are not spamming or off topic.

What I mean by vital is chat that needs to be said in order for things to run smoothly. My point there is that sometimes the Guardians consider things off topic that the students view as important, thus bringing back the idea of the two perspectives. 

Yes, I understand that they are recruiting. Good for them. :)

Hi everyone! Just another quick update to keep you in the loop about what we’re working on, and to answer some of your questions.

First, thanks again for your patience while we work! Like I mentioned before, in response to your feedback we’ve updated our internal Guardian policies and procedures, and as part of that I’ve been in the process of creating new Guardian training. This should be complete very soon, but since we want to make sure that’s ready for any new folks we welcome to the Guardian program, we haven’t started reaching out to new applicants yet. If you’ve applied and haven’t heard back yet, please don’t worry, that’s why.

This also means that we’re extending the period that we’re accepting applications. If you’re interested volunteering as a Guardian, you can complete the application until Friday, November 20, 2020 for consideration in this round of recruiting.

I also want to reassure you that we consider each applicant as a whole, so if you’re interested and meet the requirements, go ahead and apply so that we can consider your application.

Now for your questions!

Several folks here asked about how we could address the severity of the consequences surrounding bans. For context, when a community member is banned, their programs are hidden and remain hidden even after the ban is lifted. As you’ve noted, this can be a pretty severe consequence, especially if the offense wasn’t a severe violation of our guidelines.

This is an important point and something we’ve discussed quite a bit, although it’s also somewhat of a nuanced issue as well. On the whole we have a great community that works hard to keep itself learning and growing, and we don’t want to unduly impact community members when they make mistakes. Having said that, participating in discussions is a privilege, and we need to protect the community when a member abuses that privilege. Having one’s projects hidden during a ban is, and should continue to be, a consequence of seriously or repeatedly violating the Community or Project Guidelines. 

We’ve decided that improving our Guardian policies is the best way to address this concern. We’ve updated our handbook and instituted new training to ensure a more consistent approach to warnings and bans, so that if a community member receives a notification of a ban, it won’t be a surprise (in other words, for most guideline violations, they’ll have received other guidance to correct the offending behavior first). 

Additionally, for a first two-week discussion ban only, we’ve decided that it’s appropriate for Guardians to unhide a community member’s projects after the ban has been lifted. Please note that this is for the first two-week discussion ban only -- any other bans that a member receives will be because they’ve continued to violate the guidelines, and their projects will stay hidden.

A few users also asked about our criteria for hiding programs and/or banning users. Any actions we take on projects (and with users) are guided by our Community and Project Guidelines; we don’t consider other factors like the number of votes a program has or the popularity of either programs or community members.

As always, thanks for reading and being part of the community! I look forward to reading your Guardian applications. ;)

That's great news! Thanks for filling us in! Does this mean users that have previously been banned once, be able to submit a hidden project appeal form for their still-hidden projects?

It seems as though these recommendations have not been quite received by all Guardians.

"Hi, this is P Rossell. We're happy to have you using and contributing to Khan Academy.

I am messaging you to let you know that I hid a survey on your program, and I hid your response. If you would delete it, we would appreciate it. You can find it at https://www.khanacademy.org/profile/kaid_96558739702575557799545/discussion

When encountering Questions that are off-topic, inappropriate, spam, or should be in Tips & Thanks, please click the 'Flag' button and choose the appropriate category instead of responding. This helps speed up the time it takes Guardians to respond.

Any questions about Guardians, bans, the ban appeal process and similar should be directed to the help center, not to other users. Additionally, Guardians do not discuss users bans with anyone except the user in question. This is a privacy issue that would violate the community's trust in us.

Thank you for your time.

P Rossell"

The survey Rossell is talking about was from a user (I won't mention his name) who had gone around, asking people what their opinions of the Guardians was. As far as I'm aware, he was doing it purely to compare opinions. I understand why the Guardians wouldn't like this, but it's not at all "off-topic, inappropriate, spam." As it was described. It was perfectly related to KA. You could argue he should have asked in the Support Community, but most users don't come here so he would've gotten skewed results. The only offense was that it wasn't in the Tips & Thanks section (which happens to nearly every single program on the Hotlist). It appears the user is now banned, based on his empty discussion history and small number of projects (as well as his state of inactivity). 

I understand that's all up to the Guardians to decide though. They saw it differently from us users so they acted differently than we (or at least I) would have. That being said, the Guardian message I received was beyond vague. It took me about an hour to figure out what Rossell was talking about and even then I wasn't sure since everything was hidden. A far better way of explaining would have been to quote the "survey on your program" or at least say what it was or the program it was on. The worst part was "If you would delete it, we would appreciate it." It's hidden. I can't see it so I can't delete it. A little thought could have fixed this. 

In the end, these moderation actions were not 

• Transparent - the message was vague and took way too long to make sense of.
• Consistent - there's plenty of talk about Guardians, more than a few surveys/interviews, and hundreds of Tips & Thanks misplaced in the Questions, but the Guardians chose to deal with this one instead of the others
• Or (probably) an appropriate disciplinary action - perhaps it was, but without being able to talk to the interviewer (since he's either inactive or banned), we have no idea of whether or not he's been warned in the past for this sort of behavior (I'm guessing he hasn't conducted large surveys before so he probably hasn't been warned before being banned for them)

Which are the very qualities this discuss intended to encourage the Guardians to adopt.

Quinn Hardbrook

I got the same message. It didn't seem to bother me, except for the part that asked me to delete my comment on the question. Like you said, that was impossible, considering as the comment was already hidden.

Also, my reply was not against the guidelines at all. In fact, I asked the user to post his survey in the Support Community, instead of on people's programs. However, even just replying to the user's post seemed to get me in trouble.

In the end, I submitted a help request, and was answered by a guardian who told me that I was fine, and to try and be more careful in the future. 

All in all, I agree mostly with what you (Quinn Hardbrook) said, although the user who got banned was clearly breaking the guidelines, and I'm not mad at the guardians' decision there. However, I think it was VERY unnecessary to notify everyone else and ask them to delete their already hidden comments.

Thanks for the insight, William :D I hadn't heard Rossell as a Guardian name before so that makes sense. I feel kinda stupid now although I think some more thorough training may be in place for new Guardians to make sure there are no more vague messages.