WMFOffice

General Talk

Fram's talk pages

Please restore the archive box to User talk:Fram - the current situation should not mean that barriers should be placed in the way of other editors, seeking to find past discussions in which they were involved, or have an interest. More generally, please do not remove such boxes in other cases.

Also, please restore the large amount of material you removed in this edit onto one or more pages in that archive. Again, more generally, please do not remove discussions (aside from any that must be oversighted, of course) without archiving them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

What Andy said. Adding: I find it sad to have to go to other Wikipedias to express my feelings. I don't think protection of the talk page is needed. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The ban is preposterous. The actions taken on Fram's talk page is beyond stupidity....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 15:25, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Note that I made no comment about the ban itself, nor about protection of the talk page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi Andy, thanks for pointing this out. Our standard when placing an Office Action ban has been to blank user and talk pages, since the user is barred indefinitely from all projects and has no further need for those pages. We went with that standard when implementing this ban, too, but you have a good point about this case being different. We agree that there is no need to remove the archives from Fram’s talk page. We’re going to return the content to Fram’s talk page, with the ban notice at the top. When Fram returns from their ban in a year, they are free to decide what to do with the current contents of their talk, whether they wish to archive them or not. WMFOffice (talk) 19:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. What I said should apply in the case of "all project" bans. The talk page often has contributions from other editors, in good standing, and that content should be archived, not deleted. An (unfortunate) analogy could be made with how we do that for the talk pages of deceased editors. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Discusison of the ban, not the talk page

WMFOffice you now suggest that Fram is barred indefinitely from all projects , right? Is that the same as indefinitely blocked? Or just banned? And when was Fram banned from "all projects"? I thought he was only banned from en.wiki? And did you know he's not even blocked there any more? Are you competent enough to do this job? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The Rambling Man Just take a minute to re-read what WMFOffice posted. They're not suggesting Fram was banned from all projects, indefinitely. They are suggesting previous bans for those users who were banned from all projects (say Russavia) had their talk pages handled in this manner, and this precedent was employed here. Nick (talk) 20:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

There's no clarity at all. It's incompetence at its finest. When do we use terms like "barred"? I'm sorry, but the Office have shown themselves up here, and can't be trusted to make any serious decisions. Communication skills at an all-time low. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The Rambling Man, that term is perfectly acceptable, and I request you reread their comment as it is quite clear. Vermont (talk) 01:10, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

WMFOffice, I AGFed you all for a little bit (as a former Arb I appreciate secrecy whenever it's necessary), but now I'm beginning to doubt whether y'all had a point in the first place, and even worse, whether you guys have any common sense at all: desysopping Floq was just a really boneheaded thing to do. This community was already pretty upset with you, and I wonder whether what you did just now has damaged things irreparably. It's really high time the mask came off and you started speaking openly and truthfully. Drmies (talk) 02:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

What should they do, Drmies, if Legal tells them to keep their mouths shut? As far as I've read on all of these many pages, Trust & Safety conducted an investigation and Executive and Legal issued the desysop/blocking order which the WMFOffice (whoever that is) carried out. I think we'd have more success contacting WMF Board members than convince WMFOffice to go against the wishes of THEIR bosses.

I speak not as one who supports any of these actions but as someone who in the past has had to carry out the wishes of a superior that I personally didn't agree with. WMFOffice was convinced to restore Fram's archives by comments on this talk page but we are not going to convince them to undo blocks and desysops that have been sanctioned by Legal & Executive offices. I'm convinced that, ultimately, they didn't make the judgment call. It's above their pay grade. No offense to whoever you are, WMFOffice. By the way, who ARE you? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:11, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I think they use the role account because the way the Internet is, a staff member would have received death threats by now. With that being said, I am not sure what was worse, superprotect or this (and I was a steward during superprotect). --Rschen7754 04:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

User:Liz, I understand what you're saying but it doesn't matter. A role account acts for the organization. Whether the role account is operated by a person who's lower in the hierarchy than others makes no difference; if they can act on something they should be able to explain something. A role account represents the entire organization, not a person, but it is operated by a person or persons who should know it's a two-way street. So we should hear, or have heard, from Legal etc. Drmies (talk) 14:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Not that I'm telling you how to run things but would it not be more sensible to resysop Floq and atleast unprotect Frams talkpage so discussions can continue ?, Right now the only thing you guys are doing is adding fuel to the fire and escalating everything a 1000x worse,
To my knowledge in the 6 years I've been here not one WMF block has even been overturned nor has a WMF block ever enraged 99.9% of the editors here .... surely that should be telling you something ? Like I said not telling you how to do your jobs but resysopping Floq and removing the protection from Frams tp would certainly help the situation here imho. –Davey2010^Talk 02:44, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• Re Floquenbeam, and Fram come to that. You are an absolute disgrace and you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. Cassianto^Talk 05:21, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Use of account for replies to queries

This is a legitimate role account authorized by the Wikimedia Foundation to perform Office actions.

The following are listed as the legitimate office actions:

• Foundation global ban
• Temporary Foundation global ban
• Partial Foundation ban
• Foundation event ban
• DMCA compliance
• Child protection
• Secondary office actions
• Conduct warning
• Interaction ban
• Removal of advanced rights

I do not see included in this list the use of this account for responding to queries or posting in discussions. Where is such use authorised? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 14:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Peter Southwood, I agree. My reading of the policies is that the actions should be taken by the role account, and any onwiki responses about the actions of the account should be by an account tied to a named person. Of course, most of the responses about specific actions should be by email (to the address provided) rather than on-wiki to avoid privacy breaches. Onwiki responses should be to general non-specific queries about the function of the role account. If a 'committee' response needs to be posted, it should still be by a single named individual as the point of contact, with the phrase "on behalf of..." appended to the statement. Carcharoth (talk) 12:24, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Who are you? Show yourself!

Who are you? Show yourself! Benjamin (talk) 04:27, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

https://i.imgflip.com/3394as.jpg Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 04:58, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Ha! Bravo! ~Awilley (talk) 19:04, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for that, @Salvidrim!:. I have thoroughly enjoyed it, and posted it to r/wikipediamemes. Benjamin (talk) 23:27, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Block lengths

Does your ban run to 10/6/20 or 12/06/20. By reblocking for a year instead of the original date you extended the block but your notice says the ban was for a year. Does this mean the ban expires 10/6/20 but Fran remains blocked until the 12th. You should clarify your intent as no-one is going to fix this for you either way. And honestly, it makes you look a bit incompetent when you screw up something as simple as this. Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Was this ever clarified? Benjamin (talk) 23:53, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "User:WMFOffice - Ban Proposal". Thank you. —FASTILY 08:03, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

June 2019

Please assume good faith in your dealings with other editors, which you did not do on Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram. Assume that they are here to improve rather than harm Wikipedia. Normally, I would give an account with only 91 edits a level 1 or 2 warning, but your unsubstantiated aspersions about respected users violates our policies and our trust. Furthermore, your actions are the direct or proximate cause of at least four respected admins being desysoped, which is disruptive. - MrX 🖋 11:13, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd just block them and be done with it, they created a helluva a lot bigger shitstorm then a fuck arbcom post ever could. Great job protecting the pedia by making it far worse. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 13:13, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Office actions#Secondary office actions

Regarding your removal of Floquenbeam’s administrative rights: please explain how Floquenbeam’s unblock of Fram involves a “major [breach] of trust performed by Wikimedia functionaries or other users with access to advanced tools that [is] not possible to be shared with the Wikimedia communities due to privacy reasons and therefore can not be handled through existing community governance mechanisms.” [emph. mine] There was no privacy concern specific to Floquenbeam’s unblock. Accordingly, it appears that the desysop of Floquenbeam is a violation of WP:OFFICE as “existing community governance mechanisms” could have handled the case. please advise who performed the desysop of Fram, who performed the desysop of Floquenbeam, or if not willing to disclose, who the line manager of this/these individuals operating the role account. –xeno^talk 16:42, 12 June 2019 (UTC) updated –xeno^talk 17:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@Xeno: See m:Office_actions#Who_performs_office_actions?. The original phrasing in that section is Wikimedia administrators and others who have the technical power to revert or edit office actions are strongly cautioned against doing so. Unauthorized modifications to office actions will not only be reverted, but may lead to sanctions by the Foundation, such as revocation of the rights of the individual involved. -★- PlyrStar93 _{→Message me. ←} 16:51, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for that pointer. It goes on to say “When in doubt, community members should consult the Foundation member of staff that performed the office action, or their line manager.“ Who performed the action, and who is their “line manager”? Who performed the desysop of Fram and who is their line manager? –xeno^talk 16:57, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

User:Xeno this whole thing defies logic. I emailed them a few weeks back about a comment someone made trivializing rape and the response from Trust and Safety thought the community had things well in hand with a community block versus a siteban. Weird a fuck ′arbcom would raise to the bar but the other would not. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 17:35, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Question withdrawn. –xeno^talk 18:16, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Please be careful

...with how you proceed. I don't think a war between the Foundation and the volunteer administrators and editors who write and maintain Wikipedia is in anybody's best interest. I don't know Fram and I'm not familiar with whatever rules you're invoking to ban a long-term editor out of the blue without providing rationale or accountability, but I do suggest you rethink your approach. Desysopping respected admins like Floquenbeam isn't helping anything either. ~Awilley (talk) 19:01, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree very much with that. I strongly suggest that what is most needed now is deescalation of the conflict, and that deescalation is more urgent than asserting organizational priority. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:00, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I also agree very much with the above. Drop your masked corporate role account, and put faces to the people who are attacking the volunteers who write Wikipedia. Your organisation, which should be facilitating the writing of Wikipedia and behaving with some measure and dignity, has foolishly desysopped an admin as respected as Floquenbeam in what looks like a knee-jerk fit of administrative rage and overreach. As Tryptofish says, deescalation is more urgent now than asserting your organizational priority. --Epipelagic (talk) 07:25, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Notification of ArbCom case request

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Restoration of admin permissions to Floquenbeam by WJBscribe and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. As threaded discussion is not permitted on most arbitration pages, please ensure that you make all comments in your own section only. Additionally, the guide to arbitration and the Arbitration Committee's procedures may be of use.

Thanks, WJBscribe (talk) 00:04, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion

I suggest that, similar to with tech updates, any project affected by a WMF office action be informed of the action and any information the WMF Office is able to (legally speaking, to preserve privacy and such) provide on the project's version of WP:AN. This would likely significantly reduce conflict in the future by providing a WMF response and notice by default. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 02:20, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I would go further and recommend a separate notice board similar to WP:AN and WP:BN like say WP:WMF Office Noticeboard for office actions that involve people with the English Wikipedia as their home Wiki. I would also recommend standard notices similar to the notices sent by Arb Com clerks after a decision has been finalized. I would think that would help with the communication issues. -- Dolotta (talk) 23:38, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

@Vermont: what do you think about m:Requests for comment/WMF-community trust person? Same question for WMFOffice. - Alexis Jazz 23:43, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

I would concur mostly the first proposal, as en.WP doesn't need yet another noticeboard. However, given the nature of some of these actions, I think the appropriate target venue would actually be ArbCom (perhaps via the arbcom-en mailing list), with ArbCom discretion has to how/whether/when the propagate that information further into the wiki. If the WMF issuances we're talking about are expected to be completely devoid of sensitive information already, then I would have no problem with it going to AN. PS: This really has nothing to do with "home wiki". If someone is an en.WP user at all, even if they also spend more time on pt.WP or Commons, these office action notices will still be pertinent at en.WP (maybe at all three of them, if it isn't a site-specific action).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:53, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Role accounts that edit are a very bad idea.

Role accounts are a security and accountability problem. They have good uses for receiving information, but as actively editing and tool using accounts, they invite suspicion and distrust.

This account has made 47 edits on en.wikipedia.org and 449 global edits. Do you even have a record of who did these?

For so many reasons, one account per person is a better way to go. Use User:WMFOffice for Special:EmailUser/WMFOffice sure, but for actual editing and actions, use User:WMFOffice (person x), for example. The unique identifier can be identifying or non-identifying. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:35, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

This would be consistent with WP:ISU —PaleoNeonate – 02:30, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

For three months, WMFOffice desisted from editing, but subsequently resumed editing, and at a rate greater than ever before. Should this be read as a lack of respect for the community, specifically WP:ISU? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:45, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I would tend to think so. It is trivially easy for WMF to assign User:WMFOffice024 or whatever accounts to their people, and preserve accountability. This could literally all be taken care of within a single hour.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:42, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Nobody can't say I'm not unhelpful.

I made a template to help you craft a mildly moderately informative user ban message! Click here to test it out in the sandbox. I hope you find it useful. - Alexis Jazz 01:11, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Reversion of office actions resolved by motion

The Arbitration Committee has accepted the WJBscribe case request under the title Reversion of office actions and resolved it by motion as follows:

Community advised Office actions are actions taken by Wikimedia Foundation staff, and are normally expected not to be reversed or modified by members of the community even if they have the technical ability to do so. In this case an office action was taken against Fram (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), who was blocked and whose administrator rights were removed by the role account User:WMFOffice in implementing a Partial Foundation ban ([1]). No similar action had been taken before on the English Wikipedia, and it proved highly controversial.

In response, Floquenbeam (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) and Bishonen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) both used their administrator user rights to unblock Fram ([2]). Floquenbeam's administrator rights were temporarily removed by WMFOffice (talk · contribs) ([3]). WJBscribe (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) used his bureaucrat rights first to restore Floquenbeam's administrator rights, and later to restore Fram's ([4]).

Although official WMF policy states that Unauthorized modifications to office actions will not only be reverted, but may lead to sanctions by the Foundation, such as revocation of the rights of the individual involved, JEissfeldt (WMF) (talk · contribs) indicated that the WMF would not implement further sanctions against the admins involved in reversing these actions ([5]). In recognition of that decision, and of the exceptional nature of the circumstances, the committee notes without comment this series of events. The community is advised that administrators and bureaucrats are normally expected not to act when they know they do not have all of the relevant facts, and that this is especially important with regard to office actions where those facts may be highly sensitive. As a general rule, wheel warring may be grounds for removal of administrative rights by the committee as well as by the WMF. Lack of sanctions under these exceptional circumstances should not set expectations around similar future actions.

For the Arbitration Committee, – bradv🍁 02:18, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Reversion of office actions resolved by motion

Cheeky Girls unreferenced apparent slander

Hi WMFOffice. I am concerned at how difficult it is to have this edit reversed. Negative statements referenced in one case to the deprecated Daily Mail and in the other to nothing at all were removed per BLP but have been repeatedly restored. Appeals at WP:BLPN and WP:AN/I have not attracted any help at all. What would a court make of this? Is that really the only way to get action? Softlavender needs a talking to, as they have repeatedly restored poor material to articles (the above is a sample edit) and your community is dysfunctional in that it is not enforcing its supposed principles of "do no harm", WP:BLP or WP:DAILYMAIL. Is there anything you can do? --69.120.40.196 (talk) 14:26, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

It appears that the IP who posted this message has been blocked, and the page history seems to show that the description above may not be entirely accurate. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Tags on user pages

Hello Office person/people. I'd like to ask you a favour. It's something I've seen come up elsewhere previously.. When it comes to edits such as this, could you please consider, or provide a response to, the suggestion that you don't hide the sockpuppeter tags. Whilst we appreciate and respect the global office actions being taken, and don't in any way want to diminish their importance and prominence, if you want bans like this enforced by the volunteers on this wiki, if you want sockpuppets identified and reported, then some of the links provided by these templates are going to be useful in helping us do that. I think it's currently ambiguous whether this blanking of sockpuppet templates is an office action. If I receive no objections, then I'll consider that to be no objection to sometimes restoring these templates (in a secondary position to the template you've placed). Thanks. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 08:07, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz: Let me ask about this in our operations meeting tomorrow. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:57, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz: Thanks for the flag. We spoke internally about this today and we agree in principle with this complaint. We've amended our process to blank all but the maintenance content when issuing global bans. Of course, there's always the possibility that we accidentally remove something used by volunteers for the purposes you describe, so by all means the community can feel free to add back templates or categories that may be useful for tracking abuse. Hope that makes sense and apologies for the inconvenience that may have been caused by this in the past. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 16:38, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Joe, I appreciate the clarity. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:13, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 3 February 2021

Change the email to cawikimedia.org and change the logo to File:Wikimedia-logo black.svg. 1989 (talk) 17:14, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Done, thanks. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 17:32, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Global lock request - User:EvilLair

The user has a history of cyber-stalking on and off wiki. It is also evident that the culprit has a history of harassing a YouTuber with false DMCA copyright complaints. With such evidence, EvilLair should be declared inadmissible here. VGPsports (talk) 02:34, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@VGPsports: Hi there, please see meta:WMF Global Ban Policy#Requesting a global ban for more information on how to request an Office action. Thank you! Wikimedia Foundation office (talk) 22:33, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@WMFOffice:: OK, got it, thanks. VGPsports (talk) 22:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Phạm Văn Rạng and Legende Legende Legende

Would you mind if you ban all two users by the Wikimedia Foundation? The sockpuppets of the said two are keeping emerging. 174.89.100.11 (talk) 14:54, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

See here for global ban requests. Heavy Water (talk) 03:17, 14 April 2023 (UTC)