Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram/Archive 2

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Press

Has anyone contacted the press about this? I'm sure Wired or CNN online, etc. would love to hear how WMF is overriding/ignoring/bypassing long-established Wikipedia procedures, unilaterally blocking/banning/desysopping long-term admins in good standing, and refusing to openly discuss the matter. Softlavender (talk) 01:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

The best you are going to do is Brietbart or the Register. Gamaliel (talk) 01:28, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure they meant actual press, not those two. Black Kite (talk) 01:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I sincerely hope that anyone speaking to press about this does so with care and neutrality; the question seems to imply a lack thereof. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:28, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@Softlavender: this is such a bad idea. It's also a good idea, but it's also a real bad idea. (edit conflict × 4) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 01:29, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Nope nope nope. Please don't do that. Won't help anything, will harm many things. --Yair rand (talk) 01:32, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Let's face it, unless WMF reverses course immediately, this is going to hit the press sooner or later. Plenty of journos watch and report on Wikipedia, and a scandal this big is very hard to keep under wraps. Softlavender (talk) 01:36, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

What people want to do is ultimately their choice but a reminder that it can be quite difficult to predict how the press will see things, even if you get them interested. They may see things the way you outlined, or maybe they will see things differently when someone (to be clear this will never be me) highlights whatever the public stuff they think the press will be interested in. In other words, if anyone does wish to do that, remember that even if you succeed, it may not be the way you envision and it could be something that will be uncomfortable for people besides the WMF whether Fram or anyone else. (But I think the chance anyone except certain minor outlets interested is small anyway.) Nil Einne (talk) 01:37, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Please don't! That isn't good for the project or any of us. StudiesWorld (talk) 01:38, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• This could end horribly. ―Susmuffin ^Talk 01:42, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Whether or not it's a good idea (as to my feelings on that, let's say it certainly won't be me calling up the newspapers), I think this is a bit too "inside baseball" at this point for them to care about. If it turns into a bigger blowup, with multiple desysops or bans, that might be significant enough, but I'm not sure they'd understand "Well, they banned someone, and they're allowed to, but only because they gave themselves the authority, and they shouldn't be doing it...". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:45, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

A website by the name of reclaimthenet.org covered the ban in this article, so I guess that's something. X-Editor (talk) 02:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

"wikipedian banned for criticizing the WMF" is the kind of inaccurate summary that frankly no-one should be propagating... The Land (talk) 06:48, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• Most news websites have a contact us/submit a tip link somewhere on their front page. I've already submitted a couple of tips to my favorite technology news websites, I encourage you all to do the same -FASTILY 02:30, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I mean, no-one outside (a small slice of) the Wikipedia community is going to see this as a problem. No-one else cares enough about the sanctity of Wikipedia processes - to everyone else it just looks like the WMF banned someone for persistent antisocial behaviour, to which they'll probably go ... "...good?" The Land (talk) 06:48, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• You're blind if you think the media wouldn't pick up a story about this shocking and unprecedented rebellion by Wikipedia's editors against the WMF, in response to [what will probably be portrayed as] clear corruption coming from a supposed humanitarian nonprofit. This is probably the biggest scandal Wikipedia's ever seen since Essjay, and I will remind you all that Wikipedia is one of the biggest websites in the world. This is a huge story and it would likely spread like wildfire. I don't want that. In the minds of the public, it will likely translate to Wikipedia's leadership being corrupt, so even if the WMF deserves to be publicly humiliated, it may well mar our project's reputation by extension, and I don't know how easy to recover from such a blow. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 07:36, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  Or, and as I personally think this will how it play out: "Wikipedia bans an harasser. The community rebels." or something like that will be the headline, and then the article will talk about the problems of Wikipedia with women editors (especially easy to tie into considering many incidents Fram has been involved are regards to quality control of WP:WIR effors by women editors and such similar things) and paint a picture of a WMF that is attempting to "fix" issues in the community but is being stymied. The Land puts it extremely well as to how an ordinary person/journalist, who haven't been exposed to the community's constant downplaying of abuse, would see it.

  I think getting anyone outside of Wikipedia interested in this is sort of a hard sell. "OMG the WMF banned someone!" "Why did they do that?" "It's not exactly clear but something to do with harassing someone and telling people to go fuck themselves" "Ok why are you protesting?" "Because the WMF banned them without consulting the Wikipedia community and without involving Arbcom! This is an outrage!" "So, that stuff about harassing someone and telling people to go fuck themselves, you're fine with that, are you?" "Well, idk, but we haven't seen adequate evidence of it and most importantly the WMF didn't follow the existing procedure..."

  Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:47, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  Unfortunately, this is exactly what will happen. – Teratix ₵ 10:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

There was no attempt to make a narrative that Fram was a sexist harasser until the Chair got called out for having a COI that motivated the ban. Raystorm's narrative is not credible. You can't bury this as "Gamergate". The fact that the Chair would employ the "sexism" defense after a female admin overruled the WMF's action here alone is shameful. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 10:32, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Swarm, Sorry, I totally missed where the "Chair got called out for having a COI". I thought part of the motivation for the office taking action rather than ArbCom was the conflict of interest with our common. Is this something else I missed? S Philbrick(Talk)|TB| 18:48, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Swarm I now see that this is a reference to a huge section that was removed from the page. Not sure that was a good call, but that was done by someone else.S Philbrick(Talk) 20:16, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• To the naysayers: The press is interested in conflicts of interest and scandals at WMF (which is no stranger to them), and to lack of transparency at WMF, and to scandals/conflicts this massive within Wikipedia. Another point to consider is that, generally speaking and historically, WMF does not particularly care about editors or administrators or what they need and want (this entire saga is a case in point), and does not really care about the quality of Wikipedia articles or whether the mainpage is updated. What WMF does care about, individually and collectively, is its reputation(s), and its/their money. Both of those are affected by public exposure. Softlavender (talk) 23:04, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Press, you say?

You want press? Here's what you do. Gain a consensus for adding a small banner to the top of the main page for, say, 3 days. Give it a compelling title like "The Wikipedia editing community is under attack. Click here to learn more." Link that to an information page that concisely lays out what has transpired so far, and asks readers to help by signing a petition to the WMF, or contacting the WMF to express their views, or some other appropriate action. One of the many, many journalists who use Wikipedia will see it and click.

We know we do not have the power to override the WMF's bad decisions with unblocks or resysops, at least not in the long term; they run the servers and can block and ban and desysop whomever they wish. The only power we as a community have is our words. We can say what's troubling us about what's going on, and if we say it in a prominent enough place, people will listen. They might not agree with us, of course, but at least the case will be made.

The question is, will the WMF forcibly prevent us from doing this, by, say, threatening to ban anyone who makes that front page edit? (Or by bringing "SuperProtect" back from the dead?) I don't know the answer to that. Is it worth trying, assuming that after the June 14 board meeting the situation has not improved, or has deteriorated further? I don't know the answer to that either. But if you want press coverage, that's how you get it. 28bytes (talk) 02:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

If they try, that would exacerbate the situation. As it is, they're risking open rebellion. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 02:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that they would. But should things devolve further, I think that this is the best course of action: it remains civil and is more effective than wheel-warring the site into oblivion. --Rschen7754 02:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

We don't want to harm the WMF or its reputation. The WMF shares our goals of having a successful community-governed free encyclopedia project. They're on our side. This is not a war, it's an internal disagreement about delegation of certain responsibilities. The WMF leadership is quite clear on the fact that they do not run Wikipedia. --Yair rand (talk) 02:27, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

To be blunt, we're not the ones doing the reputational damage. The WMF is by botching the handling of this as badly as they have. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 02:34, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

If the WMF would be embarrassed to have people know about what they're doing, they should stop doing it. The community didn't start the problem here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

With respect, Yair rand, speak for yourself. You must be talking about a different WMF, not about the Wikimedia Foundation. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:07, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support 50.106.16.170 (talk) 02:20, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. This has been one of the possibilities I've been considering if they don't back down in the next few days. This will surely grab attention, and is strong but less openly hostile than repeatedly wheel-warring with OFFICE, which I feel is likely to be the least effective option. Another option (discussed above) is more passive but it gets more effective the longer it persists: simply refuse to handle any admin tasks, and post a banner on all major admin areas (XfD, ANI, etc.) so that anyone who wishes to join the strike may do so. Other than posting the banners (necessary to prevent those who have not heard about this incident from becoming inadvertent strikebreakers), simply do nothing, don't proactively cause disruption. In the end we'll see what happens: If everything is still running smoothly, then looks like the WMF has won, the community has implicitly endorsed their actions. But if everything grinds to a halt, WMF will be forced into action. The advantage of this method is that it actually uses the only true leverage we have against the WMF if they want to go all out: they can't force volunteers to do anything. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:45, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

King of Hearts, don't forget that there are several hundred users in the admin tribe but only a couple of dozen are real warriors or community leaders. If we simply refuse our admin tasks, there are hundreds of others who will continue to gnome away at AIV, CSD, XfD, and RFPP, etc., indeed, they may not even be aware of this issue, and if they were, just choose to ignore it. Wheelwarring would have the most impact because the WMF would have to desysop a lot of prominent and productive admins, but it would be guerilla tactics, and I'm not sure that the current Arbcom would support the community it is supposed to represent. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support If we all unite against the WMF's decision and protest via a banner and petition on the main page, then they will be pressured into unbanning Fram, because at the end of the day, WMF relies on us all to keep Wikipedia alive. X-Editor (talk) 04:06, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• No, let's not abuse the main page of an encyclopedia for biased propaganda. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 04:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as counterproductive. Most people who're on the Main Page generally aren't the sort of people who would have any interest in the backstage shit. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 04:18, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Weak Support - Right now, this is premature. That said, if this is not resolved within 12 hours of the board meeting on the 14th, this is the best possible response. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:56, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Comment Can this actually be carried out - is such a banner within community control? I remember when the community wanted to place a banner/logo across the main page in celebration of achieving 5 million articles on en:wp, and the WMF came along and told us we could only have it up there for 24 hours (I think that was the timescale). I thought it outrageous interference at the time, but everyone else just toed the WMF line as if they had no choice. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:13, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  The Wikipedia community has the ability to run arbitrary javascript. Thus, this is clearly (from a technical perspective) within its purview. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:55, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose Press will only make a bad situation way worse. Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 08:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - At this question, while there are questions about process, it is unclear teh reason for the block and therefore we are not in a position to directly go against it. Also, press just won't help anyone here. StudiesWorld (talk) 10:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. As others have stated here, this issue is not accessible enough to the average reader for a main page banner to have any effect other than to sow confusion. cf Seraphimblade's first comment in this section. ST47 (talk) 10:28, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Comment I have, on various occassions, spoken with the press about government programs where I worked, and about a private organization I belonged to. (The instances when I spoke to the press about my places of employment were with the approval of my supervisors.) Be warned, you cannot control how what you say, or the information you point to, is used by the press. I particularly cringe at the memory of how one of my quotes was used in an editorial. - Donald Albury 11:50, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support what is it going to take for some of you to realize that we should be fighting back by any means available? Lepricavark (talk) 12:08, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose pending the outcome of the meeting on the 14th. If that goes sideways, I'd likely support something like this (wording may need some help). Hobit (talk) 13:37, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Wikipedia editors are so egotistical to think the rest of the world actually cares about, of all things, us? Hell, the way we speak of each other shows we don't care about us. Talk about delusions of grandeur. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:22, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

A Proposal

My Proposal

The English Wikipedia Community, ACCEPTING the WMF is permitted to take office actions, in order to protect the safety of users of Wikipedia and enforce the Terms of Use and other legal obligations, or in order to enforce local and global policies, when local processes have failed or the disclosure of details to local processes could pose a real and imminent danger; and BELIEVING the WMF should refer to local processes any complaint it receives that they could effectively handle, share with Stewards and any relevant local privileged users, such as the Arbitration Committee and Check Users, as much information as legally and safely possible regarding any office actions, and publicly disclose, except when prohibited by law or precluded by safety concerns, which policy was being enforced by an office action; CALLS UPON the WMF to brief the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee and the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation regarding the office actions taken against Fram; ENTREATS that the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee pass a motion expressing their support for the office actions taken against Fram; PETITIONS FOR an independent panel, including one (1) member of the Trust and Safety Team (T&S), one (1) member of the Community Relations team, one (1) member of the Legal team, one (1) member of the Board, three (3) members elected globally by the community, and one (1) member of the Arbitration Committee from each project on which the targets are active (or a locally-active Check User or Steward if no arbitration committee exists), be called to review and approve each office action and prepare a statement to be released to the Community regarding the action; and ENDORSES the position that the WMF should forthwith conduct an investigation into their communication practices and take appropriate measures to assist in improving communication regarding office actions. We humbly give our supplications as fore to with stated.

I think this captures the ideas discussed on the talk page, but I'm also open to modification. I intend this as a middle line between going bonkers and blindly trusting the WMF in perpetuity. StudiesWorld (talk) 16:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

From my years of military service, I've learned, never give the agency you're requesting something a chance to deny your request; if the prescribed form has "APPROVE/DISAPPROVE", and you want it approved, always pre-circle APPROVED before you ask them to sign it. That being said, I think you should remove "or lack thereof" when asking for ArbCom's motion. I'd also change ASKS to something stronger, but stopping short of DEMANDS (appeal, entreat, petition, etc) Trumblej1986 (talk) 16:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Trumblej1986 - This phrasing maintains a friendly tone to ArbCom, while reframing the WMF aspect as something that it will benefit from. I don't love "RECOMMENDS", so if you have a better word, feel free to just change it. StudiesWorld (talk) 16:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

And we need not be 'er so ever 'umble, either; remind the WMF of their position. Servus servorum dei, and all. Otherwise OK. ——SerialNumber54129 16:47, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, we need not be obsequious in our entreaty. I tend to initially be over-tactful when I surmise the possibility of retaliation from the other side and softened language can be more diplomatic in the long run; but by no means am I stating we need to grovel, either. Trumblej1986 (talk) 16:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Thoughts on my changes? Overall, I do like what you wrote, and I think it encompasses the solid via media necessary here. Trumblej1986 (talk) 16:48, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Trumblej1986, I like your changes, I think that they improve how it reads. SerialNumber54129 - We may agree on that, but we want the WMF to be agreeable. StudiesWorld (talk) 16:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Many minds tweaked the petitions and supplications of old after a brilliant laid a more than suitable foundation. Good work yourself. Trumblej1986 (talk) 16:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

a) The Terms of Service are not a legal obligation (of course they are enforceable, I just mean that the law does not require them to be what they are, since otherwise we wouldn't need them). b) The part about handling stuff locally when possible is fine, but they already opted against that; c) If you want to ask arbcom to do something, open a request for arbitration or whatever. This current thing is about WMF. d) The "independent committee" is silly and the petition overall is much too pompous. Let's see what Doc James and Jimbo say though. e) WMF staff is already accountable to the Board but the Board for the most part is not particularly accountable to us. All we can really do is tell them that if they want to run Wikipedia directly, they can do it without us. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 17:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Why the de-sysop?

While many here feel that the decision to ban and block was mishandled, I'd like to specifically discuss the decision to de-sysop. I don't see that the triggering incident had anything to do with the use of tools. I can't think of anything that a blocked and banned editor could do if the admin bit were not removed. Once the ban is either lifted or expired, Fram should automatically be an admin and the community can take action if it so chooses, but absent evidence that the event triggering the ban had anything to do with misuse of admin tools, I can't think of any justification for the de-sysop?S Philbrick(Talk) 15:47, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I’m grappling with this as well, above at #Hypothetical question. It seems the userright should have remained in place –xeno^talk 15:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

No, indeed, no abuse of the tools at all. The de-sysop was just yet another indication of the fact that the Office action was poorly thought out and doubly poorly executed. There's already been a lot of pre-emptive talk about another RFA, but as far as I can see, there's no cloud here, just a bunch of obfuscation from WMF which doesn't relate in any sense to Fram's ability to admin. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

See, if memory serves, a blocked admin still has access to deleted revisions and similar read-only stuff. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: yes on that, and also some "writeable" things I'm not going in to here. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I wonder if WMF had forgotten (or indeed, weren't aware) that admins can no longer unblock themselves? Black Kite (talk) 15:53, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

WMF is protecting themselves from legal liability

Here's my take on this turn of events:

• Fram is an inflammatory administrator who I believe has benefited from the Community going easy on them when it comes to CIVILITY. If Fram is known to be publicly on the fringe of what's acceptably CIVIL, how are they off-wiki and out of the public eye?
• The complaints WMF received indicated to the WMF Legal Team that Fram's activity exposed them to legal liability. WMF can't allow Fram to expose them to liability, hence the ban.
• The community should probably be concerned about the implications that the WMF had to step in to enforce the TOS- I agree with whoever said this shows the WMF doesn't have confidence in the community to enforce compliance with the TOS.
• The fact that the WMF statement doesn't really go into detail isn't surprising at all- WMF isn't going into specifics if it's going to give ammo to a potential plaintiff. Not to mention the privacy considerations of having a T&S team that doesn't out people who bring grievances.
• Stop trying to Right Great Wrongs. Fram dug this grave for himself, and there's no way in hell the WMF Is going to bend on this.Rivselis (talk) 16:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC) CU-blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

A sensible comment. It's no secret that Fram has had a long-term civility problem. The community (and ArbCom) should be considering how to better enforce that policy in the future so the WMF doesn't need to. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

If the enwp community is going to upload civility enforcement to T&S, then they’re going to need a bigger staff. –xeno^talk 16:13, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Ah yes, the long-standing justification for not addressing long-term incivility issues on enwiki: there are other bad/worse people. They only need to do enough to start a cultural change, not do it all themselves. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:15, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

On the contrary, the real problem with "not addressing long-term incivility issues" is that you won't find two enwiki editors who will consistently agree on most of the issues that get labelled "incivility". There is no "fringe of what's acceptably CIVIL", because everybody has a different view on where that fringe lies. The solution to "long-term incivility issues" is not to place resolution in the hands of an unaccountable group, but to strengthen our own, accountable, procedures. The damage caused to the community by one ban that is widely seen as unfair is more than a hundred "Fuck ArbCom"s. --RexxS (talk) 16:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, the enwiki community has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to deal with long-term incivility issues. Just because the community can't agree on the extent of the problem doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist. The WMF is setting the standard. And the WMF's process is accountable: accountable to WMF management, who signs off on all OFFICE actions, and accountable to elected members of the global community who have the opportunity to review every action. I think that the latter should also be extended to local ArbComs for project-specific actions, to be fair, but the accountability structure is there. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Setting a standard usually requires that the bar is divulged. - Sitush (talk) 16:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

No, by imposing an unexplained and unappealable ban, they are not setting any standards at all. For a standard to be a standard, it has to be explained. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:48, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Correcting that for you:- ... accountable to elected members of the global community, who are out of touch with the community, (how else, will we push our pet civility-police efforts?!) and one of whom even asserted to Tony about how Fram's block was superb ..... ∯WBG^converse 16:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the comms should have been better. I hope that conversations are being had within the WMF on how to better communicate these types of actions to the community, and I will certainly follow up with them on that. I'll note that my opinions here are as a member of this community, and are made with the knowledge that I am in a small minority of those who agree with this action. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Good luck with that. WMF and better communications is rather oxymoronic. In any event, the communication needs to start before the action, and the LauraHale links supplied by Fram appeared to have nothing to do with civility. If civility is indeed at the heart of this, Fram's statement doesn't provide any evidence of prior relevant warning nor of any generally announced standard. - Sitush (talk) 17:04, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

You're a long way out of touch with the enwiki community, Ajraddatz. The community endorsed ArbCom's creation of arbcom enforcement sanctions, which effectively ended the issue of "unblockables" quite some time ago. The WMF is setting no standards at all. The action was taken by T&S, who decided to act themselves on a complaint rather than refer the matter to the local ArbCom, quite likely in contradiction of their own aims (see m:Trust and Safety #Trust and Safety), or at the very least in contravention of the spirit of them. There is nothing accountable in what you describe. A great man once said ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” We know the answers for ArbCom, but not for T&S. --RexxS (talk) 00:41, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't lack any information about this case or how the "community" feels about it, I just happen to disagree with the majority sentiment. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 00:47, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Rivselis, that may be the case. But we as a wiki have NDA'd users who could be informed of greater specifics and give a statement to the community. I don't know whether or not the ban was the correct result, but I do have problems with the process. StudiesWorld (talk) 16:13, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Where did "The complaints WMF received indicated to the WMF Legal Team that Fram's activity exposed them to legal liability" come from? (Genuine question, I don't remember seeing it anywhere). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Gut instinct. I believe the WMF wouldn't have banned Fram in the absence of legal considerations. Rivselis (talk) 16:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC) CU-blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  We really don't give a fuck about your gut instinct. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC) (@Rivselis: Apologies, I've struck that. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC))

  Thank you for your well-reasoned and civil rebuttal to my read of the situation. Rivselis (talk) 16:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC) CU-blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  OK, I'll try and be nicer - your gut instinct is of no value. It might be right, it might be wrong, but deductions based on it are pointless. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Since we're all speculating: if there were legal considerations, why was Fram banned from only one project? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  The ban being only on one project is the part that leaves me the most baffled. Hazarding a guess, Fram might not be active on other projects (I haven't checked), the one who raised a grievance might only operate on WP:EN, or there might be jurisdiction considerations. (This last point feels the weakest to me.)Rivselis (talk) 18:04, 11 June 2019 (UTC) CU-blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  84 net edits, Rivselis, what's your main account? ∯WBG^converse 16:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  I've been lurking on WP over ten years. A recent stint of unemployment meant I've had more time on my hands to get involved. Rivselis (talk) 16:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC) CU-blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  At 84 edits, you're not "involved". Jumping right into an ArbCom statement from years away with under twenty edits means you're bullshitting hard if you're claiming Rivselis is your primary account. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 17:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  You are not the arbitrator of whether I am involved in the project or not, and your aspersions that this is not my main account are unwelcome. Rivselis (talk) 17:33, 11 June 2019 (UTC) CU-blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  Unwelcome, because true. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  Rivselis is not bullshitting, so you guys can stop with your witch hunt.--Jorm (talk) 18:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Rivselis was blocked for sockpuppetry. He was bullshitting, believe it or not. Oshawott 12 ==()== Talk to me! 02:22, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  Indeed. Should the sock comments be struck? Enigma^msg 03:35, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  I'm striking them now. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Ajraddatz: - You can't say this is intended to cause a cultural change if they won't actually say what happened. The WMF spends a lot on lawsuits to demonstrate points without us asking for them. For them to refuse to say anything because it aids their legal position, whatever the morals, is reprehensible, hypocritical and nothing more than moral cowardice. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:38, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Agreed that the WMF should have handled the comms better on this. There should be a middle ground between avoiding liability and letting the community know what's up. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:47, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)Frankly I've long been of the opinion that WP:CIVIL, in its current form, causes more harm than good. It's far too common for civil POV pushers to engage in tendentious editing and then run to AN/I complaining about incivility the second somebody does a swear at them. If the worst thing Fram ever did was be incivil to ArbComm, they don't deserve one whit of punishment for it. Simonm223 (talk) 16:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• I concur that "WMF can't allow Fram to expose them to liability." We don't know what happened, and until we do, what we all know is that Fram has frequently crossed the lines of the widest possible gray area into some truly vicious behavior. I do think WMF needed to present a less weaselly explanation, but I also do not believe Fram's self-serving examples were the real reason. Frankly, Fram's utter and complete refusal to acknowledge any responsibility at all is not the behavior of an innocent person, it's the behavior of someone who is doubling down on whatever they did. I do think that we as a community have repeatedly failed to properly address severe, long-term patterns of incivility. I concur with Simonm223 that there is too much WP:BAITing going on in general, but it's not use of the word "fuck" that got Fram banned and in our gut, we all know it. Montanabw^(talk) 17:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Agreed Rivselis (talk) 17:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC) CU-blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  Montanabw, to summarize, you are saying that Fram is hiding some stuff and/or lying, (when he says that his dealings with T&S have been limited to those three episodes), thus preventing us from gauging the true extents of the alleged misdeeds, which led to his ban. Am I correct enough? ∯WBG^converse 17:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Winged Blades of Godric, You are half correct, but be very careful not to manipulate my words. I do think that we cannot, at this time, "gauge the true extents of the alleged misdeeds, which led to his ban." But I specifically did not say he was "lying," though that is certainly one possibility. He may have been typing fast and given an incomplete answer. Or such behavior could also occur because Fram is utterly clueless as to the harm s/he has caused, or is in denial. Fram may also be operating under a sincere belief that the three incidents linked were the sole cause, but I suspect that Fram is far more intelligent than that. Let's just say that people don't get banned from WP solely on account of tagging articles and saying the f-word. There's more and we all know there's more. We just don't know what and Fram's choice of words sounds like someone trying to deflect blame, not someone trying to defend themselves against a false accusation. Montanabw^(talk) 18:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Looking back into the past, via links given above, it seems Fram's explanation, even if all of it was true, was far from being complete. Thincat (talk) 17:53, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Thincat, clarification, please. ∯WBG^converse 17:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Re: "Fram's utter and complete refusal to acknowledge any responsibility at all is not the behavior of an innocent person", you do realise that sounds perilously close to "Ah yes, pleading innocent is exactly what a guilty person would do", don't you? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Boing! said Zebedee, there's a style of outraged denial that indicates innocence and there's a style of denial that is a type of deflection and manufactured outrage that usually indicates wrongdoing. Someone who is remorseful about their wrongdoing or someone who is falsely accused responds with a different style from someone who is merely unhappy that they finally got called out on their shit. Whatever the actual incident, Fram finally crossed a line and got called on it. Montanabw^(talk) 18:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  And your expertise in criminal psychology is...? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• What we know in our guts are actually assumptions, however accurate we think they are; also, who's "we"? ——SerialNumber54129 17:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC). ——SerialNumber54129 17:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Montanabw we don't know whether there was anything other than being incivil to ArbComm behind this action; that's the problem. If WMF provided some clarity beyond this vague "there were complaints a month ago," response, we might be able to adjudicate this. Absent that though, all we can say is this is a poor example of transparency in policy implementation. Simonm223 (talk) 17:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• • • • The lack of clarity has poured fuel on the fire, I can agree with that. But there may be safety concerns and legal issues we don't know about. There's enough smoke, we know something blew up. Montanabw^(talk) 18:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  The only thing that is clear is that WMF have acted incredibly poorly. If the smoke you describe isn’t even actually smoke, it’s worse: WMF have acted negligently and people should consider their positions. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Not a legal issue per "or as required by law. In this case we acted on complaints from the community.". Wouldn't be a liability issue if they produced a list of edits as the reason for the block. So no that defence doesn't work.©Geni (talk) 20:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• If Fram's summary of what happened is accurate, then I don't see the legal risk to WMF. R2 (bleep) 20:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• One possible source of legal liability is if the WMF says "you can email us confidentially", and then they violate that confidentiality, that could result in getting sued. Hence, they won't tell us who made the complaint, and they won't post diffs because the diffs would reveal who made the complaint. – Levivich 21:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• If Fram "exposed them to legal liability", regardless of what he has told us, can you point to some edit he made that has recently been revdeleted as an Office Action? I mean, if the comment invites liability, they would have done that, right? Wnt (talk) 21:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• The claim that Fram exposed them to legal liability is absurd on its face. If that were the case, he'd've been globally banned for good, as opposed to banned on en.wp for a year. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 04:56, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

WMF conduct warnings

Fram's statement alluded to the fact that he had received two "conduct warnings" from the WMF. I think that's gotten drowned out by the more serious sanctions imposed, but I think that should also be part of the discussion. Is it appropriate for the WMF, rather than the English Wikipedia community, to be issuing "warnings" for on-wiki conduct on the English Wikipedia? Has anyone other than Fram received them? (I can confirm that I have not, though we'll see after today.) English Wikipedia editors and administrators issue conduct warnings all the time, so that is clearly not an issue which the community here is incapable of handling. If we do not issue such a warning, it means that we have chosen not to, not that we can't. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, they are mentioned in Wikipedia:Office actions#Secondary office actions. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

WMF hosts the servers, pays the bills, and has a multitude of legal concerns that come along with hosting Wikipedia. Of course they have the remit to police what they own. Like it or not, the TOS overrides the community consensus on on-wiki conduct. Rivselis (talk) 16:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC) CU-blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I have not received them, but I believe that there may be cases in which they are appropriate, such as if the WMF has received a cease and desist about a particular user's behaviour. StudiesWorld (talk) 16:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Enforcement of the TOU is something that the WMF and only the WMF should be doing. Accordingly breaches and near breaches should met with warnings and bans (as appropriate to the individual situation) from the WMF. Thryduulf (talk) 16:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand the assertion that that "enforcement of the TOU" is something that "the WMF and only the WMF" should be doing. For example, the TOU prohibits Infringing copyrights, trademarks, patents, or other proprietary rights under applicable law. Does that mean we ought to quit deleting copyright violations and blocking editors who repeatedly upload them, and leave that to the WMF? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Copyright violations are also against en.wp policy. When we block editors who repeatedly violate copyright we are enforcing en.wp policy not the ToU. That some actions violate both en.wp policy and the ToU does not alter this. Thryduulf (talk) 16:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks, I think I better understand what you mean now. (And copyright may not be a great example, since it's also a legal issue, and the WMF has always been able to act on those.) However, in the case of civility and interaction with other users, that's also covered by local policy, so in that case I would assert that the WMF should respect local decisions in regards to them, including a decision to take no action at all. (Unless there were also a legal issue there, such as an actual court order.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Just because en.wp and the ToU both include "civility" does not mean that the standards are the same or that it is impossible to violate one without violating the other. To use the copyright example, Commons policy is a lot more strict than the WMF ToU provision - it is perfectly possible to upload an image to Commons that breaches that project's policy but which is perfectly acceptable according to the ToU (e.g. every fair use image on en.wp). Thryduulf (talk) 17:02, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Like I said, copyright violations are a poor example, because they also implicate legal considerations. So, take promotion/advertising, which both English Wikipedia policy and the TOU prohibit, but isn't against the law. We could legally allow people to post all the promotional material they want, and indeed some sites very legally do allow that. So, let's say an English Wikipedia AfD discussion concludes that an article has some promotional tone but is salvageable, and should be retained. Should the WMF then come along, say "Nope, this violates the TOU", and delete the article as an OFFICE action, or respect the decision made by the community? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:09, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

If the standards are the same and the evidence available is the same then there will never be a reason to disagree with the community decision. If the standard is different and/or the foundation has relevant evidence the community does not and the foundation judge that it breaches the terms of use then yes they should delete the article as an office action (if they believe this is the best action they have the ability to take) - but they should be clear they are doing so because it violates the terms of use rather than making any judgement about whether it does or does not breach en.wp policy. The only definite fault with the block of Fram is the communication of it. Thryduulf (talk) 17:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Alright, then I think we just fundamentally disagree in that case. I do not think the Foundation should be using "TOU" to overrule local community decisions, as community policies and practices are that community's interpretation of how the TOU applies there, as with your example of Commons' "Absolutely no nonfree content" and our "Nonfree content may be accepted in some limited circumstances" both being acceptable interpretations of the "Do not violate copyrights" portion of the TOU. Similarly, the English Wikipedia implements certain policies related to civil conduct to implement the user conduct portions of the TOU, and takes action (or declines to) when a breach of those is alleged. If the community declines to take action, the TOU has not been breached. The only time the Foundation should overrule the community is when legally required to (no way around that), or if the Foundation possesses knowledge which is too sensitive to be shared even with ArbCom, generally in areas such as child protection or threats. If private evidence could be submitted to ArbCom for a decision (and it usually can, ArbCom members must all sign the privacy and confidentiality agreement), they should do that rather than acting unilaterally. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to look at this from another angle, if I may, Seraphimblade: those conduct warnings were issued upon the action of a Wikipedian-in-Residence, or following some sort of monitoring system for WiR. I can tell you, for sure, that the Foundation would not do so if you or me or some other poor sod had to deal with this mess. Now, I'm no firebreather, but, suffice it to say, I have questions regarding the propriety of the WiR system, insofar as improper Foundation influence is concerned; and, quite frankly, about the propriety of paid editing overall, including WiR. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 16:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Javert2113, that particular WiR had been subject to enough controversies and IIRC, 2 ArbCom cases ....... ∯WBG^converse 16:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

So, said WiR was on the radar. That resolves one question. Thanks, Winged Blades of Godric; I appreciate the explanation. I mean it. The other question, however, remains up in the air, but probably isn't a topic to be fully explicated here. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 16:58, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedians in residence prove just how unfit for purpose all of en.wp's focus on (undisclosed) paid editors rather than non-neutral editing is. But as you say that's very much a topic for a different place. Thryduulf (talk) 17:05, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Can someone explain a little more what WiR has to do with this? Thanks. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 18:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Fram's statement on Commons indicated that the WMF had placed him under an interaction ban with a WiR because he placed maintenance templates on two articles which she started. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

True as far as it goes, but appears to have been more of a ‘last straw’ than a cause in itself. As Ymblanter indicated, there was quite a long history of conflict (the perennial trope of following-to-clean-up-after vs WP:HOUNDING) before then.—Odysseus1479 19:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Ah ok, but they didn't notify WP or Arbcom about the iban? Did they notify Fram about it, prior to the block? Are any non-blocked editors under any WMF sanctions that the community and arbcom don't know about? If yes, I'd encourage them to, at minimum, communicate the matters privately to arbcom. I can understand if Fram didn't do that though, given Fram's apparent dim view of Arbcom. I note that Fram made good contributions to several arbitration cases in the past though. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 21:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The WMF certainly has the right to issue conduct warnings and punishments, even when there is an existing community with their own policies and guidelines. If that existing community is not enforcing certain points of the TOU themselves, the WMF will, as with this case and civility. Vermont (talk) 18:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC) (struck as reasoning is not yet confirmed/certain Vermont (talk) 19:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC))

Who does represent the editing community here?

As has been mentioned numerous times, neither ARBCOM nor the WMF are intended to represent the interests of the editing community (such as the community's interest in due process for disciplinary measures). Perhaps it is time some organization existed to do so? power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Support. the creation of some organization that represents the community. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Wouldn't any organization that effectively "represents the community" be the community?~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:25, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I think it is meant the authorized representatives of the community that are made to speak on our collective behalf. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Right, but such an authorized representative allowed to speak for the community would first have to determine what the community has to say. I think that would end up looking very similar to an RFC, with the authorized representative required to read the discussion, determine the consensus, and then act on that consensus. In short - we already have that, with the "authorized representative" being whatever admin or experienced closer closes the relevant discussion, and the "speaking on the community's collective behalf" being the closing statement.~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I believe the idea is that the community selects this person (more likely a group of people) based off what they and not without guidance. Based off the statements from power~enwiki this has more the feeling of a collective bargaining representative. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Hopefully somebody can be appointed to act as a fiduciary, rather than just creating another sea of RFC discussions. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean by the community? The people who shout the loudest? Because that's who makes most of the decisions around here, but that certainly isn't representative of the entire editing body. -- Ajraddatz (talk)

"The community" is a group of people, with size somewhere between me and everyone with a Wikipedia account. If there weren't such obvious issues, I'd suggest a trade union; the lack of any remuneration to define members, as well as the multi-national jurisdiction make anything that formal deeply problematic. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• That'll be "the editing community" then. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Ajraddatz: those who are loudest often think they "represent the community." The only way to find out the "will" of the community as a whole is to poll ALL of us anonymously. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:22, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Belay this discussion until Jimbo and Doc James can find out just what the hell is going on. We have active editors on the Board, and Doc James (will bring it up next board meeting) and Jimbo (investigating) are working on trying to get to the bottom of this. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 20:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

What would prevent this becoming just like the WMF? StudiesWorld (talk) 20:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The WMF has at least two other responsibilities: developing MediaWiki software, and establishing communities of editors in other languages. Furthermore, due to the whole "paid editing" thing, most WMF members aren't active editors, here at enwiki or on any other wiki. Doc James is on the board, which is great, but it would be nice if there was some organization backing him up. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Arbcom does this to an extent, and there are WMF Liasons editing, plus some active editors are board members, plus there is Jimbo. Jimbo and Doc James are pursuing discussions right now and I hope some good comes out of it. But we have to think about the BATNA and to some extent that means figuring out what the WMF is really about. I think we are naive some of the time. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 22:05, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

FYI: Similar incident in de.wp some months ago

It may have been unnoticed in the Wikimedia-world, because it happened outside the focus of the en.wp, but some months ago User:WMFOffice has infinite banned a long time very productive editor in the German wikipedia, User:Janneman, former sysop, former ArbCom member, author of uncounted great aricles, including several featured articles about American history and literature. The WMF was invading in a case, that was solved by the local community (the account was blocked indefinitely after a rant, but there would have been open steps to search for an appeal or the involvement of the arbcom, to hopefully re-integrate a long-time productive member again in the community), and they gave an explanation comparable to here, which means: long text saying nothing. You can read details (of course in German) here: de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:Kurier/Archiv/2019/02#Office Aktion der Wikimedia Foundation. I resigned as a sysop in the follow-up to this (from my point) totally unnecessary invasion in a community process on behalf of an undisclosed complaint from an insider, that used the WMF to make project-politics from the hidden. My explanation was: "Since the WMF recently started, to rule the local projects in their own non-transparent and unrevisable way, I see no need for local administratorship any more. So I don't want to waste my time any longer in just an alibi function." ([1]). --Magiers (talk) 21:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for recounting this. It was mentioned earlier but it's good to get more specifics. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 23:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The most baffling aspect of that specific case was the, in the view of many in German-language's community, unnecessary "extra ban" as a "partial Foundation ban" in that project, after the user was already locally banned. So the WMF suddenly appearing long after the case was thought to be closed and imposing an add-on ban (that effectively changed nothing) seemed quite strange. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:00, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Translation of the message from the WMF to the German-speaking community

Dear members of the German-speaking community,Several volunteers approached us with questions about the current office action; the Partial Foundation Ban of User: Janneman / Edith Wahr / Judith Wahr in respect of your project. Since we have seen similar questions in your discussion above, we decided to make the explanation publicly available here, where it is most easily accessible to interested members of the community: Why did the Foundation act and why just now? As described in the Meta page on Office actions, we investigate the need for an Office Action either when we receive complaints from the community or when it is required by law. In this case, we reacted to complaints from the community. All kinds of Office Actions are only carried out after a thorough investigation and after a detailed review by various Foundation employees. This procedure usually takes about four weeks. In the present case, this procedure was delayed, because it coincided above all with the current Improving Trust and Safety Program. Some of the overhaul of policies in the program, which began in July 2018, had an impact on the investigation and had to be completed before we could close the case. So, while the case went through the same procedure as earlier Office Actions involving German-speaking Wikipedia, as part of the 2018/2019 Annual Plan, new and less powerful measures became available within the existing, stable framework of Office Action Policies. Who contacted the Foundation with complaints? The Foundation strives for Office Actions to be as transparent as possible. However, we also balance the privacy and security of all parties involved, as well as legal issues, as provided in the general information section of the Office Actions page. That's why we do not share the information about from whom the complaints were referred to us. Why did the Foundation act, even though all three accounts were already blocked? The investigation took into account the community's discussions late last year, as well as the fact that not all three of the person's accounts were affected by the community block. What kind of appeal is possible against this office action? Because the Partial Foundation Ban is the result of a regular office action investigation, it is subject to the same rules that are known by the Foundation Global Bans: there is no possibility for appeal. Trust and Safety, as the team that conducts Office Actions investigations, begins all cases by assuming that volunteers themselves decide how to exercise their free time under the terms of use and autonomously within the community within Section 10 of the Terms of Use created by us. The terms of use do not distinguish whether a user writes or improves content, builds and provides tools or other tools for other volunteers, or helps by acting as a functionary of the administrative, checkuser, or oversight buttons. Occasionally, however, community members come to us with strong hints that local communities in some cases have long term difficulties not only maintaining their own rules in these cases, but also maintaining the structure of ToU . We will continue to address these rare cases brought to us within the framework of the Office Actions Policy. Sincerely, --WMFOffice (discussion) 10:54, Feb. 21, 2019 (CET)

provided by Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@Kudpung: I suppose that's a machine translation? For it also translates the names of Janneman's other accounts "Edith Wahr" and "Judith Wahr" into English, which doesn't make sense... I fixed this part and added "machine translation" for clarity; if it's actually a human translation, feel free to remove it :-) Gestumblindi (talk) 02:18, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Addition: As the rest of the translation looks fine and quite natural, I removed "machine" from the heading myself, probably translating "Wahr" as "True" was just a mistake? Gestumblindi (talk) 02:23, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I am a 100% bilingual, but I often let a machine do the typing. I spent many minutes cleaning it up for syntax, false cognates (and there were a lot of those), etc, but I forgot to think of the names. Thank you for your diligence - it also demonstrates that some people do indeed take the trouble to read additional content in collapsed sections. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:52, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

In this case, although the T&S gave in typical manner of lawyers in "ongoing trials" no details its pretty clear what happened. Janneman was as mentioned a long time editor esteemed especially in english and american literature (his major editorial activity dates some time in the past) and was a long time admin. He had the main account Janneman, a second " Edith Wahr" and a third one and last by the name "Judith Wahr". The word "wahr" means "truth" in german and "Edith Wahr" sounds like "edit war" and indeed he was on many occasions not very polite. Jannemann was for some years more and more in anger about the use of "US-american" instead of "american" especially in his "own" articles. In the german wikipedia both is possible, in the academic circles and wide parts of the public "american" is traditionally used. A lot of other german wikipedia editors think nowadays "US-american" the more specific choice to be used for example in short characterizations in biographies, don´t think twice about it and see this as common usage (to older people with slight reminiscences to 68er times or the GDR). At one point Janneman as "Judith Wahr" lost his nerve and threatened one such user in a totally inacceptable manner. He had a prehistory of bans and his two older accounts were banned indefinitely on his own request some time ago- meaning he gave up editorial work under his main user name. Technically this was not a permanent ban (he could have applied for reactivation of his account). Under his last account Judith Wahr he was immediately sanctioned and first blocked three days, than by another admin infinitely (December 9, 2018, log book, Discussion "Vandalismusmeldung" 2018). The german admins saw therefore no reason for further action. But according to the rules of the german wikipedia this was no permanent ban, in principle he could reappear under a new user name, though this would have certainly be detected in view of his former behavior. There was a complaint to the wikimedia foundation and office action followed two month later (February 19, 2019) resulting in a permanent ban (in the german wikipedia, not in other projects). The german admins hat no clue and were taken by surprise (in my view a serious communication problem and likewise here). Some came to the conclusion, that the WMF mistrusted the german Admin-community of volunteers as a whole and that the WMF should handle all such cases of permanent ban in the future by themselves. --Claude J (talk) 09:38, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Just a clarification: Janneman/Judith Wahr used completely inacceptable words against that user, but he did not actually "threat" them, that is, he did not use words threatening to do something to them; what his outburst contained was, when read literally, a request to the user to do harm to themselves, but it was clear that it was said in a fit of rage. You are right that there are no unappealable permanent bans in German-language Wikipedia; any infinite ban (such as this one was) can, in theory, be appealed at "Sperrprüfung". German-language Wikipedia also has not developed the intricate distinction between "blocking" and "banning" that English Wikipedia has (the blocking policy is short, there is no distinct banning policy). It is understood that accounts are blocked if issues with that account can't be solved otherwise, but usually, if people come back with a different account and behave well, these are not blocked. Vice versa, there is a standard blocking reason "Sperrumgehung, keine Besserung erkennbar", that is "block evasion, no improvement shown" - so, if there is improvement, we don't always block users evading their block with a new account. Gestumblindi (talk) 10:58, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

As someone active in the German-language Wikipedia but not involved in the case of Janneman/Judith Wahr I would like to explain why many editors like me (with few exceptions like User:Magiers) were happy with those unspecific statements of this ominous office account: Since his accounts were already blocked, there was no perceivable change of the status quo and more importantly, since he was already blocked and apparently had not contributed with a new account it seemed obvious to me that the reason for it had to be something he did outside of Wikimedia projects (and hence to be dealt with off-wiki, with possible off-wiki consequences for him).--Debenben (talk) 19:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I did not want to discuss the case here in detail, because it does not belong in this project. But you pinged me and made some speculations, that do not seem to have much insight in the case. I know the past development of Janneman and the reason of his growing dissent to the project in detail, I also have read the rant, he was blocked for, and it gave a legitimate reason for the block in de-wp. But I don't know of any evidence, that there was some kind of off-wiki incident after, and he denied that explicitly in User talk:Janneman. So why do we have to speculate about something, that has no evidence? And why this stadium of not knowing the real background from the people, who are respondible for the ban, makes you happy? Are we in Wikipedia not all dedicated to the principle of easy access to knowledge, so that people don't have to speculate but are able to know? --Magiers (talk) 20:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@Magiers: You are right, sorry for the speculation, I have no evidence to suggest that Janneman did something wrong exept for the onwiki-things described above. What I meant to say is: Before the current case opened my eyes, I trusted the WMF-office account more than I did trust Janneman. If the WMF-office people felt the need to suddenly ban someone whose account had been blocked for months and did not do any harm on-wiki since, suddenly, without consulting anyone in the community and without giving a proper reason the only logical conclusion for me was that they were afraid of making some legally contestable statements in face of a potential trial in court. I did not comment in the discussion about the office action at that time precisely because I did not know any reason for it and I did not want to speculate. I would see things different now, probably other people would, too.--Debenben (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

The de and zh wikipedia examples show that WMF office bans are being applied in strange and arbitrary ways in general. User:INeverCry is another example. We already globally banned him as a community on 22 November 2017. Whose brilliant idea at WMF was it to waste two more months "investigating" him before concluding that yes, in fact, he should be banned, and doubly so? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:51, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#User:WMFOffice - Ban Proposal

Hi all, I've proposed a indef ban & block on WMFOffice. Comments/!votes are welcomed. -FASTILY 08:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Note: discussion closed as a non-starter. starship.paint (talk) 02:53, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

note: I'm trying to start a split to a subpage for WMFOffice-specific actions at Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram/Proposals about WMF Office. (but I didn't remove anything from this particular section) Wnt (talk) 12:37, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Will User:WMFOffice posters identify themselves?

Will the posters behind the role account User:WMFOffice posts of Statement A, Statement B, Statement C, and Statement D identify themselves and who they represent? For transparency and accountability to the community. Also requesting future identifications while using the account. starship.paint (talk) 11:37, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@Schreibvieh: - you okay with merging your topic into mine? It seems that we both had similar ideas at the same time...? starship.paint (talk) 11:42, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@Starship.paint:All good, I removed my comment, as it is not needed any longer.--Schreibvieh (talk) 13:08, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Assuming they won't do that, I wonder if they would tell us whether they intend to limit access to the account and control over the "Trust and Safety" bans to personnel within the actual office, or whether they are using or will use subcontractors like Cognizant to review postings? Do they have to provide expedited access to official or covert government agencies to make these decisions? Are they subject to a coordinated program of censorship with other social media that requires a uniform business model, terms and conditions, and procedures for enforcement, as well as a gag on their motivations and procedures? Yeah, they're not going to answer those either. But my paranoia can, and my paranoia is more reliable than most other sources of information I have here. Wnt (talk) 11:55, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

So the enwiki community can harass them like they are Laura and Raystorm? No. I applaud the WMF for taking reasonable measures, such as the use of the WMFOffice account, in an attempt to shield their employees from the toxicity of the enwiki community at this current time. It is a credit to the Foundation that they are respecting the duty of care they owe their employees by preventing a single individual employee from facing widespread harassment for merely publishing a statement that is coming from the WMF as a whole. Perhaps reflect upon why a WMF employee would want/need a degree of separation from the atrocious behavior of the community at the moment. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 12:12, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with basically everything you say here, BU Rob13, except that your broad-brush attack on the community is unwarranted IMHO. The fact that a small minority have engaged in disgraceful behaviour should not detract from the fact that the community is legitimately angry about what has happened and feels that something has gone badly wrong in the management and running of the encyclopedia. To you that may be "toxic" but to us it is an attack on our values, which are all about openness and due process except where there is demonstrably reason not to be open (and so far there's no evidence of that here).  — Amakuru (talk) 13:06, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Respectfully, what actions have you taken today to bring a stop to the harassment of Raystorm and Laura? Where are the blocks? Warnings? Discussions? If the community does not address these issues, they are complicit as a whole. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 13:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I had a look at their talk pages and the histories of those, but only see polite notices that they have been mentioned here. Please give me links/diffs where the harassment takes place and I'll see what I can do. --Randykitty (talk) 13:49, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

We could start by archiving the section, as Raystorm has clarified she had no role in the decision to ban, rendering the section irrelevant to the overall discussion. – Teratix ₵ 13:30, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @BU Rob13: Well, speaking for myself, I am at work today and just dipping in and out of this discussion. So unfortunately don't have time to investigate and bring action right now. I will look in more depth later, or support motions to block at WP:ANI if they are filed there. That doesn't mean I don't condemn it, though, as you do. I'm sorry that you are feeling disengaged from the community and want to leave - your contributions will be missed if you do. Perhaps I'm a deluded optimist but I continue to believe that most people here are fundamentally good, and want the best for each other and the readership.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:41, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Really? I have nothing against you, but you were an admin up until yesterday, and if you felt those actions needed to be taken against certain editors as a result of their behavior on this page, you could have taken them. Castigating others for not doing what you also chose not to do is a bad look. Grandpallama (talk) 16:01, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• Rob, I agree with everything you say about harassment and I also agree that the level of aggression and foulmouthed abuse being hurled around is too high here at enWP. BUT: A secret trial, with secret and unaccountable judges, no opportunity for the accused to defend themselves, secret accusers, secret accusations, secret evidence, and to top it off, no appeal possible? Sorry, but for me that's a bridge too far and I will not stand for this kind of Stalinist practices. At a minimum, ArbCom should have been informed, with Fram being allowed to defend themselves, again at a minimum, by email to the Arbs. It's not so much the action that I object to (for all I know, it was completely justified), it's the method that is completely, utterly, and totally unacceptable. --Randykitty (talk) 12:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  It seems that ArbCom was informed that action was being investigated against Fram. StudiesWorld (talk) 12:32, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  It was mentioned to Opabinia in such a way that she did not feel a pressing need to follow up, and buried in the minute notes for everyone else. That doesn't feel robust enough to me. Tazerdadog (talk) 12:50, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• Arbs are accountable to the community, WMF is not (or at least feels it's not). And just informing them that an action is being prepared without any details is not what I had in mind above. --Randykitty (talk) 12:55, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• A meeting, it should be noted, was held at 1AM EDT (6AM BST). On a worknight. I wasn’t there due to the timing, but it certainly wasn’t anything brought up in alarm on-list. Courcelles (talk) 13:07, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Why should we care about the names of WMF employees who perform these actions? Can't we just assume that the WMF is acting as a block and then agree or disagree with those actions? I care about protecting the Wikipedia community's right to govern itself, not about singling out WMF employees or about speculations about board members' personal lives. Those are the kind of tangents that will only help the WMF make its case that the community isn't to be trusted. Let's get back to the core issue: We need to force the WMF to realize that Wikipedia wouldn't exist without us and that they can't risk alienating us. We should discuss how to make this clear to them and leave all this other crap alone.--Carabinieri (talk) 13:02, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with that. WMF employees should just be executors, following instructions from the communities that they serve. It's things like ArbCom that take responsibility and have accountability. They are democratically elected by the community to handle tricky stuff. I will not accept unimpeachable decisions from nameless bureaucrats (not meaning our own 'crats, of course) that never were elected. Whatever Fram did or didn't, whomever filed a complaint against them, all that is irrelevant to me. It's the process that is absolutely and irredeemably wrong. --Randykitty (talk) 13:09, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • WMF employees should just be executors, following instructions from the communities that they serve.
  • Then resign. Because this isn't accurate at all: we edit at the pleasure of the WMF, who can take away that privilege at any time. And there's no way they're going to hand over all decision-making to this (frankly bonkers) community. So you're not going to get what you want without forking Wikipedia and starting your own community. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:35, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
    • The volunteers are the hand that feeds the WMF. –xeno^talk 13:42, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Note: I tried to move this section with the other WMFOffice specific actions to Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram/Proposals about WMF Office, but got reverted on this section. Someone else will have to move it if they want. Wnt (talk) 12:56, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

+1 to Randkitty. AFAIK, I've had no intereaction with Fram, good or bad, nor ever even crossed paths, so I've no way of knowing of any bad behavior. The handling of any, given there is any, is deeply troubling, especially given the sense I've gotten in the past of indifference to complaints & unfairness of (supposedly) fair processes--& those were the open processes. This does not bode well for any of us, all the way down to beginners--maybe worst even for the inexperienced. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 09:16, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

As an FYI, a section on WMFOffice's talk page archive on Meta may give some insights as to the foundation's position (four years ago at any rate). -- Dolotta (talk) 23:05, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Are "warned" editors subject to harsher examination?

In theory, the Terms of Service either allow or don't allow something. (ignoring the intentional lawyer-mumble such things always have). So in theory, any editor, whether "warned" about TOS issues or not, either violates or does not violate TOS by the same criteria. Unfortunately, Wikipedia policy has a bad habit of telling any editor caught doing 60 in a 55 mph zone that now he has to drive at 45 or less. We don't do that IRL because it is designed to fail (except, of course, in the probation and parole system, where it is designed to fail, because the politicians want 'criminals' in 'prison').

Now I don't mean to say that a warning should never happen - it is conceivable that an editor could be told that he is "just short of the line" (but here it is, and it's not moving) or "given a pass just this one time" (implying that only behavior of equal severity or worse will trigger a ban). The question here is: does WMF stick to that, or are they judging editors they 'warned' like Fram more harshly than they judge un-tarred editors? If they do, then the protestations of the necessity of their policy seem to be wholly unjustifiable, since all they will do once they get properly under way is increase editor turnover to the point where everyone gets warned once, then knows to leave. (except for the paid editors who have a support team to back them up in their good work) Wnt (talk) 15:43, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Two similar bans & one "conduct warning" on Chinese Wikipedia

Hi there. This is Yan from Chinese Wikipedia. I would like to share two WMF-imposed bans on Chinese Wikipedia. These cases share many similarities so I hope sharing them here will lead to a more in-depth discussion for Fram's ban and hopefully the WMF's banning policy in general.

There is a list published by the Foundation showing users banned by the WMF (mostly), which so far I haven't seen anyone discussing them. Two users from Chinese Wikipedia, 守望者爱孟 and Galaxyharrylion were banned by the Foundation in 2017 and 2018 respectively. These users are probably the most controversial Wikimedians contributing Chinese Wikipedia, with their block (by "block," I mean blocking from editing by local administrators instead of WMF) triggered countless discussions and arguing on Chinese Wikipedia locally. I have personally spoken to both users, and they both showed me the emails they get from the Trust and Safety team. After they were globally banned, lengthy discussions were triggered again - of course, they won't be as lengthy as this one in English Wikipedia as zhwiki has a smaller community, but one of them was severe enough to cause articles created on Chinese Wikipedia in that month saw a significant decrease because everyone went discussing what was going on.

Here are some differences and similarities I discovered:

As the message from the Foundation suggests, the ban on Fram was only limited on English Wikipedia, partly because they updated the terms which allowed them to do so. However, these two users I mentioned were banned entirely from all Wikimedia projects even though both of them mostly contribute zhwiki only. Another difference is, both users on Chinese Wikipedia were highly controversial - you can tell by looking at their block logs. However, in both cases, the two banned users were behaving far less controversial without actions too aggressive, and there were no community discussions around these users by the time the ban was imposed. The Trust and Safety team failed to give any reason, not even exact edit diffs which Fram received from previous warnings. Additionally, both users were banned without any warnings.

Claim these two users controversial is because, if we held a request for comments on Chinese Wikipedia by the time of those bans, there wouldn't be most people opposing the ban like Fram's case on this page, and there wouldn't be most people supporting the ban like INeverCry who was banned by the WMF as well, while most local Wikipedians at least consider WMF's banning was an over-kill - they might need blocks/bans but not something like infinitely banning them from all Wikimedia projects. But again, by the time of the bans, they behaved normally. Actually, one of these users was just unblocked by a local admin after a years-long blockade.

Another Wikimedian on zhwiki, who is a close college working with me on China's Wikipedia community recently got an email from the Trust and Safety team, saying this is a "conduct warning" and he told me the context of that email suggests this is a type 2 warning. Again, no details or diffs were provided in the email saying what exactly you did was wrong. However, the email did ambiguously mentioned several broad scopes of what the T&S team thought what he did was deemed not appropriate, but no diffs. Unlike previous bans, the user who was warned behaved quite well on Chinese Wikipedia, with no bans or even warnings from local users/admins against any problems mentioned in T&S's email. He replied T&S's email, with no reply or further explanations at all, even he said his email asked several answer-able questions that won't be too difficult or requires privacy information.

It's also worth mentioning that, in all three cases on Chinese Wikipedia that I know so far, T&S repeatedly use "privacy" to deny any meaningful explanations. The third case which a user received "conduct warning" sent an inquiry email with no reply; the first two cases were set, there was someone wrote to their email and did get replies, but there was still no meaningful information contained in it.

I recalled everything from my memory (I have no time for referencing), so some details might not be correct.

So here's my speculation and personal feelings after seeing 4 cases by the T&S team. The most noticeable difference between cases from zhwiki and Fram's case is that no one in the Trust and Safety team nor the Wikimedia Foundation understands Chinese, but somehow they are capable to judge cases in a language that none of them understands, which was like a slam on my face as an admin on Chinese Wikipedia - why no one on zhwiki acted but the Foundation's team have to act? So that means there is someone constantly and secretly reporting to the T&S, who may be personally in opposition to the one being reported trying to fabricate against them. After the first warning by T&S, you got watched by our big brother and even after you said fuck for once, you're done. This is a chilling effect that prevents contributors from standing out. I don't even think the Foundation's account WMFOffice will actually come out and respond to public's condemn because the WMFOffice account never made a public appearance on zhwiki at all, and the inquiry email the third user sent out ends up with no reply. They seem to be able to understand Chinese while imposing the ban while their Google Translator stopped working after the bans. Their protection on "privacy" put us volunteers at the risk of being framed by others. If, say, some admin deletes my article, maybe I could look out which off-wiki event he/she went, then write an email to the Foundation claiming I have been harassed by the admin - as easy as that. You got warned by the Foundation, you asked why, and they tell you to protect victim's privacy I can't tell you. After you said "fuck" or any curse word once, you got banned, and you got no chance for appeal.

The T&S team is exactly the opposite of what Wikipedia's transparency: every log is traceable and will keep forever, we don't even have a way to PM others, and almost all discussions are visible to everyone. The true irony is the English Wikipedia (and global north) Wikipedia community stopped growing since 2010. The community was totally fine in pre-T&S era, why it suddenly become such a huge deal for the Foundation to work this out? More importantly, does it solve anything? If Fram does anything wrong off-wiki, the T&S team should ban Fram from off-wiki activities; if Fram curse on-wiki, then other admins should take care of that. Banning a user for one year on English Wikipedia does not solve anything. The T&S team has been becoming more active and making decisions that local communities made up by volunteers instead of paid employees in the Foundation feeling inappropriate. The list of users blocked by WMF linked above started in 2012, and spiked since 2015, with three users so far in 2019 and probably more because they are now able to partly ban a user. The Foundation shall learn step away from communities, which are working hard to fight exactly the same problem the T&S is designed to do.

The T&S team did more than banning users. (UPDATE: I just saw someone shared a similar ban on dewiki above.) But I don't feel like sharing more at this moment.

--Techyan（Talk） 21:48, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Yan. The German bans had been mentioned before, but this is the first I've heard of the Chinese one. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 22:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Techyan: Be reminded that the T&S revised the office ban policy earlier this year to allow for temporary and limited-scope ban, previous only global indef ban was allowed. However, I do share your concern in respect to the non-disclosed nature of the bans. With that in mind, the zhwiki community does not have unequivocal support for the aforementioned banned users like enwiki do for fram from what I gather. I don't think it's possible to abolish the office action policy if that's what you're suggesting. The suspicious nature of this office action lies in the possible conflicts of interest between the office and fram, I also don't think that's the case for these two users on zhwiki. Nonetheless, should the office decide to hear appeals, I do agree these two members of the community deserve a chance, and not indef bans. Viztor (talk) 13:01, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I feel compelled to point out that the Foundation Terms of Use does explicitly forbid harassment, but on civility, only says, "support a civil environment," and "we encourage you to be civil and polite," which to me does not seem to forbid the kind of language you might expect to find in PG-13 movies or a typical non-customer facing workplace environment. We've had enwiki arbcom cases saying salty language alone doesn't constitute personal attacks or harassment, but clearly I think we all agree that slurs, on the other hand, do. If T&S is applying vocabulary-based civility standards instead of just behavioral factors, those need to be made far more explicit than the current language. It's clear the community as a whole reacts far worse to slurs than mere expletives, but slurs do not seem to have resulted in T&S issuing warnings. EllenCT (talk) 23:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Yet again, EllenCT nails it. Strange that after a billion bytes of argument (including mine), it can be summed up in one paragraph. Black Kite (talk) 23:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

WMF have extended the ban by two days to 12/6/20 instead of 10/6/20

Clearly just unfamiliarity with the tools when resetting the block but it does make them look less than competent with the use of the blocking tool. I have asked the office d to clarify their intent [here]. Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I am just catching up to what happened and I am speechless. So many thoughts right now (and sadly no time) to express them, but the fact we already lost 4 admins (Fram, Floq, Ansh and Rob) with 5th being in danger for desysop as well now....oof. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 07:40, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

No, Ansh did not leave because of this, and Rob said a few weeks ago he was leaving - this was just a diva quit. - SchroCat (talk) 07:43, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

While he had intentions of leaving, Ansh left because of this per User talk:Ansh.666, citing it as "the straw that broke the camel's back". I see for Rob if true. I won't comment on the "drama" part and using WP:AGF. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 07:47, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

5 [2] Tazerdadog (talk) 07:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

No, Rob left because of this. Doug Weller talk 14:18, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

A broader question about process

Because the Wikipedia community recognizes that is not omniscient and sometimes makes mistakes, we have processes in place to recognize and correct those mistakes. If an article is wrongly deleted, we have Deletion Review. If an editor is wrongly blocked, we have a guide to requesting unblocks, and failing that, a block review on the administrators' noticeboard. If we elect someone to ArbCom who turns out to be awful, we have the chance to vote them out when their term expires, and if they're really, really awful, there are processes in place to have them removed from the committee. These processes are not perfect, in part because they're implemented by people, who are also not perfect, but they are there because having some documented procedure for fixing mistakes is vital.

When it comes to the WMF Trust & Safety team, however, I am unclear on what the process is to deal with a mistaken action. The answer appears to be "We do not make mistakes. Therefore, there is no process for correcting them." That is, to put it mildly, disturbing, and in my opinion is a large part of the reason that the community is acting with such revulsion at the way the WMF is conducting itself. If we recognize that every organization is capable of making errors from time to time, the natural question is "what is the process for getting them fixed?" The answer cannot be "none, because we are infallible." So, WMF, what is the process we should use for getting a mistaken T&S action corrected? 28bytes (talk) 15:59, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

My guess as to what the WMF will say: Many, many words that say absolutely nothing and boil down to "None, because we are infallible," even though Jimbo and others have pointed out that there is always the last-resort appeal to the Board (via him, typically).

What the community should say in response: "Well, then, it's time for the Board to fire you, install a new set of T&S people, and institute a formal method of final appeal short of demanding action from the Board."

And when the WMF ignores that statement entirely, then enwiki should boycott the next annual fundraiser, including blocking the WMF's advertising banners for it and/or ensuring that each one is accompanied by an enwiki-wide banner that explains the community consensus to boycott the fundraiser and links to WP:FRAM to explain why. It's becoming increasingly clear that the only way to get the WMF to listen to the community is to hit 'em where it hurts... the wallet. rdfox 76 (talk) 16:07, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I like your ideas, Rdfox 76. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

It sounds like Jimbo and Doc James are actively trying to bring this crisis to a close. Since there has been no further escalation, I say let's give them a chance. I am hoping this tone-deaf interaction with the community on the part of this Foundation role account will prove an anomaly rather than the norm. But anyway, there's no reason not to be cautiously optimistic that progress on this front is forthcoming, including but not limited to safeguarding that this incident does not repeat. This has been an enormous distraction, with likely some heavy costs attached to the project. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again. El_C 17:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I still don't know on what basis people are confidently stating this action was a mistake. There seems to be a quite a lot of assumption that anything done on the basis of non-public information is automatically an error, and quite a lot of taking Fram's word against the WMF's. The Land (talk) 18:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

In fairness, that's in large part due to the fact that WMF hasn't said much. Even those who are arguing for privacy over transparency should be able to acknowledge that there are things the WMF could be more transparent about in terms of their decision here that they haven't been. There've been a number of pointed questions about procedure and process that have been ignored, which could have easily been answered without getting into particulars here. Grandpallama (talk) 18:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

What Grandpallama said. Established admin editor making a disclosure (however unreliable it may be) vs. faceless entity enacting a one-year ban and following up with non-responses. Fram could be literally any other editor (including an LTA) and this whole process would still leave a sour taste in people's mouths, however justified the ban turns out to be.--WaltCip (talk) 18:30, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

The WMF could have denied Fram's statement (if it isn't true) without putting anyone's privacy at risk. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:34, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Yet they didn't even do this, or attempt to escalate the ban on Fram when he did discuss this (which, if privacy was that much of a concern they should have done so). There are a lot of things that WMFOffice and the people behind that account should have done, but did not do, instead just claiming everything - even things that wouldn't have implicated ANY sort of privacy issues (i.e. that Fram had been warned twice before and that this was his third strike, that it was specifically based on harassment (since this was and is, at most, implied for all possible parties, Fram included), and their rationale for limiting the ban the way they did) was privileged. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 20:40, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Exactly. Even if it turns out that banning Fram was indisputably justified, the WMF still made at least one error here, perhaps two. The first was in communication. Without revealing any private information, the WMF could have said that there was off-wiki evidence (if there was), without revealing anything about what it was. That would have at least indicated the need for private handling rather than community review. The second was attempting to usurp the community, and by now, after VisualEditor, after Superprotect/MediaViewer, they should know better. They have had that experience; they know that is going to cause a huge, massively damaging storm, they know not to do it. (At least I damn well hope, after this time, they know not to do it.) Even having ArbCom handle it privately would have been suboptimal, if everything was indeed on-wiki, but that still would be better than it coming from San Fran. Wikipedia was here first, and the WMF was created to serve it and its community. Not the other way around. The relation between the community and WMF has always been one of uneasy cordiality at best, but if WMF attempts to interfere with the project's editorial independence, it should expect a reaction like this one every last time. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:38, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd say there is a third significant mistake in not realizing that an explanation, of some greater sort, would be needed to accompany the initial announcement. Grandpallama (talk) 18:43, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Even if (and arguably, especially if) that explanation is "We do not trust the existing community processes to handle this particular scenario." At least then the recurring comment I am seeing here of a systemic problem on Wikipedia re: "the unblockables" can be validated.--WaltCip (talk) 18:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Definitely not arguing the WMF has handled this perfectly. Even if it was appropriate for them to do this as an office action rather than via Arbcom, I certainly agree that more communication probably was possible and would have avoided quite such a raging trashfire of a discussion. Probably time for me to wheel out my essay on Foundation-community dynamics again. Equally, I have plenty of personal experience (from all kinds of settings) of situations where someone has behaved unacceptably, complaints have been made in private (because they can't or shouldn't be made in public), someone has been banned/kicked out/fired as a result, and a bunch of people have strutted around afterwards going "well I never had a problem with him", or "it's OUTRAGEOUS due process hasn't been followed", "But what about ALL the vital work they do?", or "ZOMG conspiracy, someone is out to get him". So I am fairly open to the possibility that that's what happened here. The Land (talk) 19:12, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

"Definitely not arguing the WMF has handled this perfectly." Understatement of the millenium. Not only did they not handle it "perfectly", they could hardly have handled it any worse. If I were to try and think of a way to enrage the community, it would be quite a challenge to top what the WMF did. Every single thing they did was wrong and it's troubling that all you can say is they "didn't handle it perfectly." Enigma^msg 02:51, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

@The Land: I take Fram's word against the WMF's because I have observed and interacted with both of them for the better part of a decade and have found Fram to be more credible. Simple as that. 28bytes (talk) 18:35, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Things are getting removed from this page to other places, and the discussions are widening with some repetition, so please excuse my making this a response to you rather than in a better place; I looked for one. The WMF exhausted my assumption of good faith a long time ago. This is totally about allowing English Wikipedia to govern itself, and at root about respect for us, the editors. The WMF are not our bosses and even if they were, this high-handed action without even a clear explanation to Fram himself shows a disrespect that puts them in the wrong. I would not go so far as to support the suggestion that admins make retaliatory bans on WMF accounts editing here: blocks are supposed to be preventative, and besides it's useful to have the visual reminder of who's on the payroll. But whatever Fram's reputation or one's opinion of them, this is unacceptable conduct towards the community and the WMF have lost the right to have us assume they must have had adequate justification. Their action toward Floquenbeam makes it worse. We are a community of volunteers, not a village of serfs, and the important thing right now is to get the WMF to back down and apologize. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:45, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Floq re-sysoped

And in the latest developments, WJBScribe has restored Floq's admin permissions. Personally, I agree strongly with that action. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:44, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

The log summary was "return admin rights - neither ArbCom nor any other community process has mandated their removal". See ongoing BN thread. --Yair rand (talk) 23:48, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

And Arbitration Request... ST47 (talk) 00:26, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

He did the right thing. Oshawott 12 ==()== Talk to me! 01:57, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. GiantSnowman 08:53, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I disagree as well. To the level that I cannot in good conscience keep mine. Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#Desysop_(TheDJ) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:16, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Trypto and the others commenting actually agreed with the action. You disagreed. Enigma^msg 14:08, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Sigh. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Discussion about the "Forthcoming shortly" placeholder

Original title: "Discussion about second WMFOffice comment"

Which there almost inevitably will be. (edit conflict × 2) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

WMFOffice, thank you for providing more information. I appreciate your attempting to engage. StudiesWorld (talk) 19:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Very, erm, interesting timing. Lepricavark (talk) 19:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

We would like to hear what you have to say. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 19:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Floq, finger off the trigger - for a little while as least. - SchroCat (talk) 19:02, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

That would definitely be advisable. No harm in waiting a few more minutes. StudiesWorld (talk) 19:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Fucking outrageous. WMF are treating this like some kind of joke. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@TRM: They haven't said anything yet? (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Are you joking? This placeholder was posted two minutes before Fram was about to be unblocked. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Give credit for realising the urgency, and that communication, even a placeholder if that's the best they got, is absolutely needed. --Xover (talk) 19:06, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Odds: More boilerplate 5/6; More boilerplate with some information we didn't actually know 2/1; An actually good explanation of their actions 5/1; Fram unblocked 10/1. Black Kite (talk) 19:06, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• 5/6 wins. Bookies always do, don't they? Black Kite (talk) 19:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  No, it's the 2/1; I don't believe the WMF ever made the claim that, for instance, Arbcom [...] was one primary target of the person in question, before. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• What does "shortly" mean in your lexicon, please? I assume you posted this because Floquenbeam is set to unblock right about... seven minutes ago. If you want to prevent that, please specify how shortly. In 15 minutes? An hour? A week? Bishonen | talk 19:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC).

I'm not good at math but sounds about right. Praxidicae (talk) 19:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Amazing that they’ve had hours to respond, as humans would, but leave it until two minutes before Fram is unblocked. This is fucking literally unbelievable. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand why they weren't prepared for the inevitable backlash. Lepricavark (talk) 19:15, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The Foundation has never been prepared for the consequences of its actions, I see no reason to suspect that they would have changed their ways for this. DuncanHill (talk) 19:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm appalled by what the Foundation did here, but I doubt they never prepare for consequences. The way we've probably experienced it is that when they do bother to try to anticipate the consequences of their actions, it leads them to moderated measures which aren't seen as objectionable. EllenCT (talk) 19:25, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Whatever you do, please don't think you need to respond just because the masses are lining up by the door. Respond because we want transparency to what happened. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:09, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Will the last one out turn off the lights... Shearonink (talk) 19:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks to Black Kite for hitting me up on my talk page; I checked this page for WMF input at 18:58 and was about to hit the button. I'm not an idiot or a jerk, so I'll hold off until we get this info. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• ...Withdrawn question about role account edits moved to talk...
• I have changed the title of this section and moved the original title below the heading. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Discussion about second WMFOffice comment, now that it is actually posted

• We take these actions only in situations where we believe no other option is available that will preserve the health and/or safety of the community." Let me be the first to say, fuck that bullshit. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Comment moved to discussion section in Special:Diff/901426089 ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• No new information. No decent justification. Not good enough. I suspect there is a large element of score-settling going on here - we know Fram has had interaction with someone in a relationship with a member of WMF, let alone his role as a critic. - SchroCat (talk) 19:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  It's unfortunate that so far as I know they only knew about the deadline when I finally was able to reach someone in the office, and that was only a couple of hours ago. Give them a chance to make a proper reply, which they've told me they are preparing. I'm sure it will be today now that they know Floq's intentions. Doug Weller talk 19:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• This is pretty lackluster for even a canned reply. Praxidicae (talk) 19:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Welp, we've gotten the new statement, which is nothing but more boilerplate with no new information. Exactly what we expected... rdfox 76 (talk) 19:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• • I mean, honestly, what would you expect a "good" statement to look like in a case that we now know involved harassment? "Here's the diffs so people can go harass the person who reported harassment"? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:33, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• "Harassing OR abusing". Get it right. Black Kite (talk) 19:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Does that affect the point I was making in any way? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Whichever way, you've missed the point, which comes as no great surprise. - SchroCat (talk) 19:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Of course it does. If the WMF disappeared anyone who abused anyone else ... Black Kite (talk) 19:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The issue is...well, many but primarily the interference in a local issue and a manufactured crisis (a la Trump's border wall.) They shouldn't be claiming this was some egregious abuse and an issue of trust or safety, or both but that it somehow doesn't exist on other projects and won't exist in a year. It's an overreach. I'm no fan of Fram's behavior but it's hardly the worst thing that's been said on Wikipedia by a generally respected user/sysop. Praxidicae (talk) 19:39, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) BU Rob 13, we now know that the case involved an allegation of harassment. If putting maintenance templates on two pages constitutes "harassment" worthy of an IBAN, I think their definition is suspect, to put it about as politely as I can. (The product of a bull which is not a steak comes more to mind.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• "we screwed up and we dumped the matter on arbcom in the hope they will make us look slightly better".©Geni (talk) 20:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Again, NOTHING. Wait, oh wow, now I get it!!! Thanks WMF for the clarification!!!!! Not in any way shape or form. The community now takes precedence. There's nothing here that requires the "office" to prevent harm, that's utter claptrap. Unblock Fram and seek an RFC on the role of the Office. "We know this action came as a surprise to some within the community" are you being serious? ARE YOU BEING SERIOUS? You're a bunch of cowards. Disgusting. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• That response had essentially no content. Consensus is clear, and Fram said yesterday "Any non-violent action taken by enwiki individuals or groups against this WMF ban has my support", so I have unblocked him.
  Regarding "not having all the facts", the one overwhelming fact I do have is that he is free to edit any other project. Therefore, there cannot be any personal-safety-related, child-safety-related, legal-related, or similar reasons. For the same reasons, I am not touching the double secret iban that apparently exists, because that is, indeed, something I don't know enough about. But with a project-specific ban like this, there is no possibility of lasting damage to an unblock now, and going thru local processes is an option if whatever the problematic behavior was continues. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  (edit conflict × 2) Note that the policy for office-action removal of advanced rights limits when that action can be done to major breaches of trust performed by Wikimedia functionaries or other users with access to advanced tools that are not possible to be shared with the Wikimedia communities due to privacy reasons ... (emphasis mine}, so the WMF would be breaching its own policy by carrying out a desysopping here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• (long-time listener, first-time caller) First point at least makes a little sense to me, second point doesn't. Fram wasn't the first to say scary mean words to ArbCom and probably won't be the last. Sure, there's some conflict of interest if ArbCom is handling a matter involving abusive behavior toward ArbCom, but I would hope that ArbCom would be mature enough to handle that neutrally. From what little I gleaned from that statement, I'm getting the feeling that T&S should have told the complainer to go through ArbCom, or at least asked permission to share information with ArbCom. creffett (talk) 19:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) ArbCom has, in many instances, had to hear a case which involved a vocal critic of ArbCom, and in some cases parties even criticized the Committee or particular members of it harshly during the case. So, that's absolutely nothing new to any arbitrator. If criticizing ArbCom were a way to escape their jurisdiction, a whole lot of people would be saying "Fuck ArbCom". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

We needed actual, usable information, not more canned non-responces. Right now, Fram has told us more useful information in a single paragraph than WMFOffice has told us in two replies, which is more an indictment of WMFOffice and their legal team than anything else. If you want us to get on board with your (increasingly) ludicrous ban, you need to both give us a valid explanation that doesn't encroach on any privacy rights and you need to quit it with these asinine responces that only seem to serve the purpose of riling editors up. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 19:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• This response is just as vague as the last one. I agree with User:Floquenbeam. ―Susmuffin ^Talk 19:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Question: is there a way for admins/oversight to conveniently view all of Fram's revdel'd/suppressed edits and check whether any of them harassed anyone? I agree with the idea of not telling the rest of us who specifically was harassed. The rest of us can check Fram's still-visible edits but that leaves the edits we can't see. I've seen the occasional abrasive discussion post or obsessive argumentation from Fram but don't remember anything that would rise to this level. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 19:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment the WMF post sounds like a statement of no confidence in the community. We probably have to respond to it on that basis. (Btw I don't have much confidence in the community either, but it has a better track record than the WMF does.) 67.164.113.165 (talk) 19:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• (edit conflict × many) I know this isn't exactly going to be a popular statement given the current environment, but here goes. I, for one, appreciate this new, more detailed statement, which actually seems to make an effort to explain the situation and address various concerns while considering the privacy of those involved, instead of a vague hand wave about the Foundation knowing best. I had a suspicion that conflict of interest between Fram and Arbcom has been a factor recently, and I was curious how Arbcom was going to handle that. I guess we have our answer: the WMF did it for them (apparently, according to BU Rob13, with no prompting). If the Foundation is stepping in with that in mind, well, okay I guess. I trust members of Arbcom to be able to handle a personal conflict of interest, but maybe it is better if the entire Committee is forcibly recused in this kind of situation. I'm not entirely on board with the precedent this sets, but I at least have confidence that the WMF is acting in what it believes to be the project's best interest. But, since this is the WMF supplanting what's supposed to be a community process, they should also have come up with an appeal mechanism. I strongly disagree with the notion of an undefendable complete ban with no chance for appeal. I know some wikis do permanent bans with no appeal but we never have on English Wikipedia. Any editor who earns a ban or indefinite block on this project has at least the standard offer as an appeal mechanism, and so the Foundation's block in this case goes against one of our fundamental best practices. I would appreciate if the Foundation would reconsider the parameters of their ban. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Ivanvector, I appreciate this well-reasoned and level-headed reply. I wish that people weren't going bonkers.StudiesWorld (talk) 19:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Ivanvector, I agree - I mean, I would like more information, but I can see how that would be difficult while keeping the identity of the complainant(s) etc confidential. Galobtter (pingó mió) 20:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Floquenbeam did the right thing and I await whatever WMF is going to do to make this worse than it already is. 2001:4898:80E8:2:A5F:2E62:10E4:D7D1 (talk) 19:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Also how long until someone makes a userbox with something like "I do not support the WMF"? 2001:4898:80E8:2:A5F:2E62:10E4:D7D1 (talk) 19:57, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Negative time. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• If ARBCOM faced a COI issue in taking this issue up, then that is for them to decide. Not to make stretchy legal analogies, but a judge or a lawyer recuses himself or herself--they are not removed from a case by a higher authority automatically to "protect" them. I can absolutely see why ARBCOM might push the issue away and choose not to deal with it--however, they should be doing so with a public record, explaining the issue. If ARBCOM was one of the targets, does that mean that the complaint came from someone at ARBCOM? I don't know, but that is terribly inappropriate and I sincerely hope (and frankly, do not think) that that is not the case. Not because people at ARBCOM should not be safe from harassment, but because they should have to follow the same procedures as the rest of us, regardless of any political fallout which may occur by doing so. Again, I hate making a legal analogy, but that's like a judge recusing herself and then tampering with the court of appeals case by contacting the new judge. If there is an issue raised and ARBCOM has a COI, that needs to be publicly noted. There is no reason for this issue not to go through ARBCOM.

I have no issue with year-long bans. I don't personally know Fram at all but I can understand that some people can change with time. Given the alleged nature of the issue (problems with ARBCOM and/or members of ARBCOM), I can maybe even see why you would only ban Fram from enwiki. But WMF still must understand that performing an action of this nature with a newish policy (and who instated that policy again?) on a well-known editor, without any documentation or explanation of why, was foolish, inconsiderate, and disrespectful to our community here at enwiki.

We deserve an apology, and frankly, if Fram is a decent enough person by your measure to receive only a partial ban of 1 year, then Fram likely deserves an apology as well. You cannot document every single bit of evidence that went into this decision, we get it. But saying nothing at all was unethical and unwise, and not at all conducive to the kind of environment we need in The Free Encyclopedia. Read that again. The Free Encyclopedia. In fact, I daresay that the way this was handled (not the action itself, but how it was handled) was directly in contrast to the values of a community of people wishing to build a Free Encyclopedia. Prometheus720 (talk) 20:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

In such cases in the past, Arbcom referred the issue to community sanctions processes by explicit motion. The T&S action was absurd. EllenCT (talk) 20:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• BTW, just as an aside, I stopped taking any of this "statement" seriously after the first phrase: "Over the last few days ...". Can't these people get even the most basic facts about their own actions right? The ban was enacted a mere 24 hours ago. Seriously... – Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps the T&S team were experiencing internal dissent before the action, one would hope anyway. EllenCT (talk) 20:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Since we know that they told some people in advance (though we don't know exactly how much they told or to whom), we can presume that at least some of the people they told objected, so they may, indeed, have been hearing about it over the last few days. – Levivich 20:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)