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Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram/Archive 6

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Banned but not blocked

Okay, just a quick thing. We have now a perhaps paradoxical situation where Fram is banned from en.wiki but not blocked. Is this is a precedent? Do we need to understand more about what that situation means? I.e. if Fram edits once, does he get blocked? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: we constantly "ban" editors without blocking them, see Wikipedia:Editing_restrictions#Active_editing_restrictions for examples. — xaosflux Talk 20:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Except in this case, isn't the user site banned? My research on the subject yielded mixed results. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 20:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
What makes this any different from a new account being created for block evasion or a sleeper sock or a friendly admin helping you block evade by unblocking a sock? StudiesWorld (talk) 20:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Pedantically, there is no paradox. Blocks can be used to enforce bans (WP:EVASION). As long as Fram doesn't violate the ban, there is no evasion and no reason to re-block. But any edit technically is violating the ban; it's kind of like a topic ban from everything. Not that I'm going to touch any of this with admin rights, but that's how I would play it. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
xaosflux I'm not a dick, so explain what happens now Fram has been banned from en.wiki yet unblocked. If he makes an edit to en.wiki, will he be blocked? I think you know where I'm coming from, so some explanation would be helpful. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:33, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Because Floquenbeam unblocked him due to there being overwhelming consensus to do so. funplussmart (talk) 20:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
That is the long and short of it. He edits en.wp, WMF will likely reinstate the block (or worse, glock). —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 20:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
That's the way I see it, ban evasion is ban evasion. But I'm not going to be the one pushing that button. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
(many EC) It's often fairly trivial to create an account to get around a ban, at least for a short time. And of course many IP editor who are banned are not blocked for long, given dynamic IPs etc. So I don't think that part of the situation is so unusual. The fact that the main account is unblocked is a little different. (Well sometimes socks are banned at least defacto without their connection to their main account being uncovered, and obviously them editing from their main account is still violating their ban. However it's still a little different in that in those cases it's because the connection is unknown and the account/s which were uncovered are blocked.) But really the main difference to me seems to be that the editor is banned by the WMF, but have been intentionally unblocked by an admin based on their reading of community consensus. Whatever happens to the unblocking admin aside, I have strong doubts that the WMF will take kindly to someone evading their ban however it comes about. It's the editor's choice if they wish to do so, I'm sure they're aware of the complexities of the situation. Nil Einne (talk) 20:39, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @The Rambling Man: I don't think you are - just passionate about the issue. I don't think we share the same point of view on this, but I don't think we are diametrically opposed either. As to "what happens": I'd think that Fram would be "in violation" of the ban, whether or not anyone would enforce the violation with another block for example is beyond me (I wouldn't personally enforce it, but I'm not usually active in ban enforcement areas either). — xaosflux Talk 20:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
  • WMF could reblock right now, or they could wait to reblock if he edits. They're essentially the same thing, so I assume (and it is assuming, I don't speak for her) that Bish would then unblock. Or if I'm not desysopped, I could unblock again. So the only difference is, Fram might be surprised if he's not reblocked immediately, edits, and is then reblocked. But other than the surprise (and delay) there really isn't a difference. If he chooses not to edit thru the theoretical ban, it's the same as being blocked. I'm not the WMF; I can technically undo an office action block, as long as I'm willing to suffer the consequences, but I can't prevent them from reblocking either now or later, and I can't *make* then rescind the theoretical ban, just (while I have the admin bit) the technical block implementation. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
    • I want to go on record as saying that WMF would be very much in the wrong if they were to take any recriminatory action against Floq. The unblocked-but-banned status is an awkward one, but it is entirely within community norms for an admin, after reviewing lengthy discussion, to unblock a blocked user. (Indeed, a re-block would arguably be wheel-warring, at least by en-Wiki standards.) The worst possible thing to happen next would be for WMF to escalate an already tense situation by any sort of chest-thumping directed against the unblocking admin. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
WP Policy is clear that "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." (From WP:OFFICE) Rivselis (talk) 21:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC) CU-blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
I know that. And I still mean what I said. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I personally HIGHLY disagree with Floquenbeam's actions.. This is effectively undermining the Foundations' responsibility in upholding the Terms of Use of their own website. I think that is and should be a blockable action. As I've said before, people can fork and run your own webproperty. I even considered opening an Arbcom case about this action. But I need to sleep, and tomorrow i have to work, making that a bad idea. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:13, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
    Suffice it to say that it would be a bad idea even if you had all the time in the world. Lepricavark (talk) 21:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
    Yes, although the WMF has the legal right to demand fealty, they have a commonsense management responsibility to recognize that without a supportive editing community, the WMF would have little reason to exist. This is an important concept: just because one has the right to do something doesn't mean that it is wise to do it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
    Unless they speak a lot more languages than I think they do they already have a very limited ability to do that on any practical level.©Geni (talk) 21:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
    We pretend we're part of a community, but all we are are bums on somebody else's property. That's what computing is about: poor people pretending they can play on the rich man's estate, and so long as play means dusting and sweeping for free, maybe they can, but eventually the rich man comes up with some other plan. We should spend less time studying Wikipedia policy, more time studying Marx and Kaczinsky. Wnt (talk) 21:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
FWIW, Fram has been reblocked by WMFOffice [1] Nil Einne (talk) 00:36, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
And then unblocked again by Bishonen. Thryduulf (talk) 11:06, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Reactions to Further response from Fram

Appreciate you collating this, Carcharoth. Something to consider. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 14:32, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

SchroCat copied it over. It is easy to miss developments in this sprawling mess... Carcharoth (talk) 14:39, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
It's even easier to miss it when SchroCat fails to signs the edit when he did it! Carcharoth, thanks for posting there was an update. - SchroCat (talk) 14:42, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you both. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 14:45, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
My reaction is that Fram should not have dropped any names. That's the point of dealing with harassment issues... the more the names are out there, the more likely the victim of harassment will receive further harassment. I had a clue that Laura may have been involved from the discussion above. And from this discussion, there is now a photo of her posted on a public forum in connection with this discussion. (No, I will not link to the forum and invite further harassment.) I am going to report the photo which is posted on the forum with the words "names to faces." As you can see, bringing up the very name of a person who may or may not have been involved (I really have no idea--I heard about the ban from a friend and my first reaction was "I thought WMF didn't get involved with on wiki stuff") can invite more harassment.
I will say, however, that it's very problematic that we only hear Fram's detailed side of the issue. We have no idea what the scope of the situation is or was. We don't know if Fram is even fully aware of the scope. I would like to hear from the other side in detail, too, but clearly, there are also issues of safety involved. How do we balance such a thing? Is there a way to hear from the other side that won't out whoever they are? Is there more than one side? Why aren't more people concerned with the general harm that a person who is victimized by harassment online goes through in this discussion? I think we should be addressing these issues instead of threatening a general strike or appeals to Jimmy. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:43, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Let's make this not about either Fram or the victim (alleged or otherwise) for a moment, and instead consider the optics of this entire situation. To the surprise of virtually everyone in the community, a respected administrator - albeit one with known civility issues - has been banned by an office action for a period of one year and cannot appeal this. Regardless of however you feel about Fram, this is an unprecedented act and one that ultimately acts as a chilling effect to other editors on Wikipedia, since existing and long-standing community procedures (some of which were very recently reaffirmed in ArbCom cases not too long ago) were set aside for what essentially amounts to an ad hoc decision, thus the visceral reaction. However you come down in this dispute, this is not a good look at all. Editors should have a reasonable expectation of who ultimately is the governing authority on this website. Up until now, it's been assumed that any and all civility disputes are handled via WP:ANI and, if necessary, at WP:RFARB. The existence of a vague, difficult-to-quantify shadow process that supersedes all of this essentially wrecks the self-governing dynamic of the community, and undermines the belief that all of these established processes will work when needed. If that was WMF's intent, then that's fine, but this was something that should have been more clearly communicated. As it is, the fact that this wheel-warring is taking place amounts to a leadership vacuum.--WaltCip (talk) 17:11, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
There was a moment when a more circumspect view was here, consideration of what might not be aired and the very good reasons for that. I do not think the reply above is as cautious as I would hope in editors commenting on this aspect, the other aspects are well aired here and off-site. cygnis insignis 17:40, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Fram himself mentioned his rude comment on ArbCom talk on May 4 as one of the main reasons for action of the WMF against him. In my view this is a massive breach of TOU. What exactly did the english wikipedia community in response to that between May 4 and the recent action of the WMF ? Was there any vandalism report ?--Claude J (talk) 07:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
The problem is that the TOU are very vague, and I would estimate that multiple comments as severe or more severe than that are made every day across the English Wikipedia; a selectively enforced rule is as good as no rule. If the speed limit for driving on a highway is "reasonable and prudent" (yes, that's a real thing in the rural US) and our own local cops will pull people over for doing 85, and this has been the way for years, you can't expect us to not be surprised when a state trooper suddenly decides to step in one day and pull over someone for doing 75. We should indeed be tightening up our civility/harassment policies. But instead of engaging in productive discussion with the community about how we can improve as a whole, the WMF simply decided to impose a decision on their own. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:14, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
But the rules are clear in this respect and Fram is/was an Admin and responsible for enforcing this rules.--Claude J (talk) 07:28, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I have tried to avoid this thread as it is a huge time sink, but several people (with a range of different views on the issue) have contacted me (on and off wiki) asking me to say a few words. I have banged heads with Fram more than a few times, but the phrase I keep coming back to is "being right and being a dick are not mutually exclusive". If I have a pound for every time I have said "well Fram wasn't very nice to say that but he's right and I agree with him" I'd probably never have to work again.

In March 2018, an Arbitration Case was opened between Fram and myself after we got in a bit of a row and shouted at each other. We both expressed remorse, apologised and the case was declined. I don't think it's been brought up, but one arbitrator said, " Fram, this is the third time in just over 4 months that you've been involved in unrelated case requests - to do with behaviour that supposedly the community cannot handle. I advice that some introspection would be useful to stop a fourth time, as it certainly appears that you are the common factor in multiple disputes."

Over the coming months, I believed Fram was making a sincere effort to improve his conduct, which has (mostly) continued since. However, I also got several off-wiki complaints about Fram, with an eye on starting an ArbCom case to get him desysopped. I declined to start a case on the following grounds:

  1. I didn't think there was enough firm evidence to result in an Arbcom case ending in a desysop, based on who was likely to contribute, past cases and the general standard of Arbcom
  2. I felt a case, even if accepted, would result in an enormous amount of drama that would be completely unproductive towards building an encyclopedia (I think this very page has proved that one right)
  3. As an admin who had recently clashed with Fram, I probably shouldn't be the one starting the case as I had something of a conflict of interest

However, just because I didn't personally think Fram's conduct rose to the level of a desysop or ban, it doesn't mean anyone else was obliged to share my view. I am sure those coming to me privately with grievances about Fram are based on a genuine belief they do not feel safe or welcome on the project, and if people do not want to contribute to Wikipedia because of Fram, they are entitled to hold that opinion even if I can get on with him. To give a rough analogy; I'm a 6-foot male middle-aged geek who thinks nothing of walking late at night alone from the station to my home underneath an underpass with some unpleasant racist graffiti on it. If I was a 21-year old woman, I might have a different view on that. I believe the complaints were made privately because they didn't have confidence that Arbcom would be a suitable venue to air grievances privately and get the result they want, which other people have documented elsewhere in this thread. To give a practical example (which drew several off-wiki complaints to me, and not from the article creator), I am certain that Fram deleted Allanah Harper in good faith, that it was a legitimate application of WP:G12 and totally backed up by policy. But equally, so was my restoring the article in a rewritten state that didn't violate copyright, which seemed to satisfy the complainants.

I know Fram has on-wiki thanked me at least once recently for saying he's been incivil but right, so as far as I know my current relationship with him is in good standing. I think Office has acted in good faith using the policies and procedures that are open to them, but I don't think a year's ban with no avenue of appeal is an appropriate response and the blowback from the community was predictable. I also agree with those who have said the office procedures that might work on smaller wikis don't really scale to an established community the size of en-wiki, that the offices' relationship with the community needs work, and that harassment and safety are real issues we need to deal with. I am sure that Floq and Bishonen acted in good faith in the sincere belief they were helping the project. The actions may be somewhat, um, novel but I have full confidence in them as administrators - it's not like they do this sort of thing on a regular basis. I also have confidence that Doc James will be able to present something to the board tomorrow that will get this issue sorted out. If it doesn't, that's the time we need to discuss what to do next.

Finally, I will respect and listen to anyone who feels they have been harassed or feel unwelcome editing here. Whether or not I or anyone else agrees with their views, they should still be treated like people and given a fair hearing. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 07:30, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

That is far too reasonable a reaction to be on this page. nableezy - 08:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
So you mean Fram is insightful, then he should resign voluntarily from his admin post for one year (before trying to be reelected) to avoid more damage to the project.--Claude J (talk) 09:42, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
I mainly agree with Ritchie333 in his description of the situation.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:48, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Far too reasonable indeed. Thank you, Ritchie, for writing this. – SJ + 19:19, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Some of this issues can be remedied if you give admins time limits. The issue is not surprising and still maintains the status quo, a few people get access to ban someone without their actions scrutinized and thereby find a perfect way to dodge scrutiny. Why did they go through this route? because part of the system is broken? the drama boards are not effective? Meanwhile, if it is a case about some editor with 400 edits or less, many people will not even read a sentence just scroll to what an established editor or admin writes and rubber stamps it, ban him. I think wikipedia needs to go back to treating people equally, taking people to the same 'ineffective' drama boards and juries or fix a problem if it exists. Wikipedia for a long time have a thriving small niche of amateur conflict resolution specialists and negotiators managing the affairs of content disputes and behavior, leading to an incoherent application of set policies and procedures, and now the WMF have shown to be below or on the same level. I am sure it is nothing new to a few people. My problem is what makes this case special that drama boards cannot take the case? while a few people have to go through this drama boards, be admonished, and every other stuff. Nothing new, same old same old.Alexplaugh12 (talk) 21:01, 13 June 2019 (UTC)


Congratulations

--qedk (t 桜 c) 09:44, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Reform must be toward democracy, not away from it

In the response to the T&S comments above, I see User:SilkTork said, I believe that working together, the community and the Foundation can come up with a solution. At the very least, as long as there is consensus in whatever solution is agreed, the community will back and support it. ... The two main ways forward that we are discussing is A) Having an interface on Wikipedia for the community and the Foundation similar to the 'Crats noticeboard and the ArbCom noticeboard. A place here on this project where we can communicate directly, and where can discuss suggestions collectively. And B) A new system for dealing with civility and harassment issues. I have suggested to Jan that whatever system it is, it needs to come out of open discussions here between the Foundation and the community. It cannot be something imposed on the community by the Foundation. I have suggested a board with members from the community that are trusted by both the community and the Foundation, working alongside members of the Foundation to hear complaints of civility and harassment. Any sanctions are to be notified via the proposed WMF Noticeboard. Sanctions for harassment to appealed to the Foundation legal dept. Sanctions for civility to be appealed to ArbCom. Members of the Civility/Harassment Board should not also be members of ArbCom to ensure impartially in the appeals process.

Now there are favorable aspects in the above, but we must also be very wary of compromises that legitimize all or part of the recent power grab. Wikipedia is supposed to be a common endeavor of the people of the world, and any centralized power that judges whether your comments are "too nasty" is not compatible with that.

Let me be clear: I have been utterly enraged by the failure of community processes to work fairly against harassment; that was in during the ArbCom case against User:Fae back in 2010. Given the undeniable existence of a large peanut gallery outside of Wikipedia in which anti-gay sentiments were not uncommon, and the coordination between onsite processes and offsite actions that extended to literal media reports, it is easy to see why people would look for another answer. If someone went to T&S in this case, I can certainly see why she would not have trusted a community process.

That said, abandoning the community process rather than fixing it is not progress; it only accelerates the decay. The offsite forums have wasted away almost to irrelevance during the past decade, yet this T&S action seems likely to breathe life into them -- or any other mechanism by which people wildly and irresponsibly speculate to try to fill a void in what they are allowed to know. People who may have complained to T&S are still getting flack from multiple quarters. And it is only a matter of time before someone even more ambitious than Jan manages to seize the position, who might have an agenda to start purging certain Wikipedians for complaining about obvious harassment using the same sort of bullshit reasoning ArbCom used against Fae back in 2010. Only they don't actually have to explain why they sanction people in a way that says anything, noticeboard or not, so that's optional.

The progress we need instead is toward democracy.

  1. We need intelligible 'law' - I proposed a total rewrite to WP:Civility years ago, because it is just a trash bag full of vague aspirations and advice mixed in with might-be-requirements.
  2. Among that, especially, are intelligible rights - we need to declare a civility action for "fuck ArbCom" to be right off the table and have the kind of uninhibited Wiki we do without apology or fear.
  3. We need a national defense where coordinated campaigns to harass editors for political and/or bigoted reasons are resisted by a vast pool of enlightened and independent editors.
  4. We need a trial by jury system where we randomly pick genuinely uninvolved people to decide cases, rather than leaving it to a power cabal or a forum packed with accusers.

Let's strengthen our democracy rather than walking it back. Wnt (talk) 12:27, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@Wnt: Not a bad manifesto to mark the 804th anniversary of Magna Carta, a previous revolt by a community against over-reaching central authority. "No free man shall be captured, and or imprisoned, or disseised of his freehold, and or of his liberties, or of his free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we proceed against him by force or proceed against him by arms, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, and or by the customary law of the land." (clause XXXIX). Jheald (talk) 20:15, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
And for every user that agrees, someone else will agree we need to deal with the same actions from the other side. "Fuck off, its contextual", "Sometimes bad users force us to act badly" "but me and my mate think calling each other sandnigger is just 'avin a larf"". As I have said before, for any system like this to work, context must be ignored and any law must be blind. All users should be equal, none of this "but he is too useful to lose" "well what can we do short of banning?". Anything else and this problem will not go away, it will just be transferred to another group who are being put upon by those who control the system.Slatersteven (talk) 12:47, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Users are too useful to lose. Yes, I think there are some sharks circling Wikipedia with a raider mentality, who say "look, they've written the encyclopedia, now why should we deal with these messy users crapping the place up? Let's shoot 'em all and claim their work as our property." But the truth is that Wikipedia and especially any sister project is still massively incomplete in almost every possible way, lacking history, lacking science, lacking math that can be understood by anyone who doesn't know it already (and even some of them feel iffy after trying to read the article), lacking educational resources. If a student can't get a decent anatomy and physiology handout on the respiratory system to go through and study at each of about five different levels of introductory coursework, the job isn't done. Also, users are not equal -- user work should be equal. If you can tolerate somebody coming on and doing 1000 edits with one ugly interaction, then you can tolerate someone doing 100,000 edits with 100 ugly interactions. It is the same outcome. This is a principle that was not comprehended in the case of Fram -- no, replacing her with somebody new is not just like changing a burnt-out light bulb.
Incidentally, I should say I didn't resort to using racist terms for illustration during this argument for two reasons. One, I'm feeling the minorities don't really deserve to be used as pawns ... and two, I assume that T&S will make its new universal code of conduct to include bans for anybody who uses that word for any reason, whatsoever, including doing scholarly work on the article itself. In meetings they'll be able to tell their stakeholders that they have zero tolerance for racism; when asked by editors, they'll say their reasons are not explainable and not appealable. At least, that is where I expect this kind of process to take us. Wnt (talk) 15:39, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
I think this is a constructive way forward, Wnt. I have on this page been saying that this ban showed a problem that we had as a community dealing with issues of harassment. I, too, would rather that we fix our own problems than have WMF step in. My question is how can we construct a fair process that everyone feels safe in reporting? I don't think that bad language is a problem. We should be able to say what we wish. But speech still can have consequences. I think we should measure the consequences to speech, rather than focusing on what precise language is or isn't allowed. I support a rewrite of CIVILITY to reflect issues that we are facing here. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:59, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
So its basically "if enough users think you are useful you can get away with it ocracy" And you may not have resorted to racist terms, others have, and sexist ones as well. Ugly is ugly and as long as they know they can get away with it they always get worse with time. NO one should feel intimidated or unwelcome here, and it is this attitude that tolerate bullying that causes so much bad publicity. Also No user has a unique set of skills or knowledge, any user can be replaced, that is the whole point, we have a world to draw from, not a narrow academic institution. What this is not is a democracy, because in that the majority (not a self selecting elite) make the decisions. It is no more democratic then what WMF have done. The only difference is that instead of forcing your will on others others are now forcing their will on you.Slatersteven (talk) 16:05, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
@Slatersteven: the tricky bit here is that what is sexist, racist, or generally whatever-ist is depends on cultural context and backgrounds, and will vary from person to person. Someone can have a deeply held belief that deleting a biography on a person who is [insert minority of choice] whatever-ist, but that doesn't mean that deleting that biography was whatever-ist, or more importantly, was the wrong outcome. I've been accused of being sexist for editing a female-centric topic, and it was claimed that I couldn't possibly have any legitimate interest in the topic because simply because I was a man. That person was wrong and sexist, of course, but they nonetheless feel they were right, and that I was the one being sexist simply because I was a white man in a dispute with women. But I don't trust HR people to decide what my intents were simply because they have a mob of twitter activists filing complaints after complaints, and decide that a white man must be wrong because the other side happens to be women. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:51, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Headbomb I think you're right about cultural context. But I also think it's more important to look at outcomes. If you're a man working on an article about a woman, that's obviously not sexist. Most people I know would consider you an ally. However, if there are systemic negative actions by a man on a woman's article, it might be sexist and it might not be. Ultimately, we need to look at how the parties are affecting one another and go from there. And what if we need to have a private venue to facilitate this? These are questions we need to deal with. And Slatersteven I'm not sure what you mean exactly. It seems as though on Wikipedia we don't really have a democracy. Instead, people feel they have consensus when enough interested parties participate and agree on a single page. We don't actually know if it does reflect consensus since we're not all anonymously voting. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:57, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Outcomes are important, I agree. But when there is a clash of cultures / social norms, the last people I trust to adjudicate this are corporate HR goons oblivious to the norms of a community deciding either side was wrong according to their corporate HR values. The reality is that Wikipedia is part of the real world, and in the real world, you will have to deal with different viewpoints, with being offended, and with not getting your way. This is especially important to remember in the age of twitter activism and virtue signalling. Before this incident, I would have trusted T&S to be sane enough to understand the difference between feeling harassed, and being harassed. However, this incident calls the judgment of T&S into question.
That said, there could be zillion of ways to improve relationships and minimize harassment, for example, instead of a 'warnings/punishments/bans' sort of culture at T&S, one of the most productive thing you can do in dispute resolution is talk to the parties as humans (rather than victims/aggressors) and have a discussion and try both sides to de-escalate, or ask some basic questions like "When this person slapped a {{cn}} tag, can you imagine a non-hostile/good-faith reason for why they have done so? How could that person have told you the same thing, in a less hostile/threatening way?" / "When you slapped a {{cn}} tag with the edit summary "INSERT SUMMARY HERE", can you imagine how someone could have perceived that as hostile, even if you didn't mean it that way? Can you think of friendly way to convey that message, and possible even go further and help that person learn how to do X, which you feel has not been done to your satisfaction?".
Then answers can be transmitted to each party, if it doesn't cause privacy issues, or the parties encourage to take this dialogue they have with T&S and apply it to on-wiki issue in the future. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:34, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
What I mean is Wikipedia is already (except in very rare instances justice (and rule) by mob. It is already a case (after all Fram has been unblocked, and how much of the community said they wanted this, 10 users, 20, out of how many?). As to the rest, "well its culturally contextual" has been used to justify all kinds of vileness in the past. (as I said elsewhere in this forum) "sandniggers" was defend for (in essence) just that reason. This will (imagine if we had gone to the press and they saw "well sexism can by justified in context") reflect badly on us as a group, if we tolerate blatant racism, or homophobia or other hate "well yes but where I come from saying "9/11 well it did the world a favour, more dead Yankee scum", is considered acceptable" then we will be seen as part of a wider social problem. We will fight tooth and claw against PSEUDOSCIENCE!!! whilst allowing bullying and intolerance. There is also the issue of leading by example, rather then do as In say not as I do.Slatersteven (talk) 08:45, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
I very much agree with the gist and in particular with the headline here. I think the attempt by the WMF to inflict direct sanctions onto a large, mature, and reasonably stable community like the English Wikipedia, is fundamentally misguided. Yes, our processes are not perfect. There are users who get away with things they should not, and there are also users that are being sanctioned for no good reason. But then no community is perfect. We need to accept (if never condone) the fact that there will be mistakes. The apparently optimal "all misbehaviour will be sanctioned" is only achievable at the cost of erring massively towards sanction - and as Blackstone famously wrote: It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer (and, to go further back, Maimonides set that ratio at 1000 to one and warned against judgement "according to the judge's caprice").
The WMF action against Fram, on the other hand, seems to be based on the idea that some 300 unelected people (most of which primarily have other jobs and duties) will make universally better decisions about a community of 30000 active and many more semi-active editors than the community itself. Indeed, decisions that are so much better that neither transparency nor appeal are necessary. That is a kind of hubris that really needs to be corrected.
I've been a part of many online communities, from Usenet newsgroups and LPMuds to Slashdot, Quake 4 and Die Zeit forums. Wikipedia overall has about the least toxic atmosphere - and I believe this is due to the community processes, with people being voted into positions of trust (and power), with multiple levels of appeal and open discussions of problems. Star chamber trials from up above are incompatible with this. There is always room for improvement, but imposition of a dictatorship by the unelected few ist not an improvement. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:28, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Very well said, Stephan. I only hear about what goes on in social media from people who choose to ruin part of their day by participating in them. I see very little here that comes near to the pathological abuse, targeting and shouting I am informed occurs there, and whereas in those media, nothing of substance is achieved, this ramshackle democracy has, despite its episodic injustices, aggravations, bunfights etc., a continuous growth in the quality of its nigh 6 million articles. That has largely been done without merciless conflict. The finessing of rules we are threatened with seem more largely concerned with a recruitment policy based on a civility protocol designed for adolescents, than with retention of editors.Nishidani (talk) 09:56, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

WMF now doing community micromanagement?

A few times in the above discussion, I encounter the word "micromanagement". I think this might be an important reason for community irritation in this case: Until now, I think it was pretty accepted that the WMF would use the "ban hammer" for really grave, egregious transgressions (of a nature that could also have legal implications), so: If there's a ban by the WMF, then for such a serious issue that it necessarily must result in a global, unlimited and unappealable ban. It is the traditional understanding of the community (in the large projects I'm familiar with) that the community-developed institutions, especially admins and the local ArbComs, are responsible for managing most conflicts between editors that don't escalate into the most extreme kind of feud (and even some pretty extreme ones). This is done by volunteers investing lots of their free time into helping the projects run smoothly.

If now the WMF also becomes active in this perceived area of community responsibility, handing out project-specific and time-limited bans for smaller infractions (even if we would assume that Fram didn't tell us everything, it must be smaller, or they wouldn't have limited the scope of the ban so narrowly), of course the volunteers handling user conflicts must start to wonder what they're doing here anymore. If the WMF knows better than the local admins or ArbComs, and doesn't want to leave such smaller matters to them, the reaction could be: Leave it all to them, then? Dissolve the ArbComs, restrict admin work to technical matters - user conflicts are now the sole responsibility of the WMF, we are not burdened with these anymore, it's no longer a volunteer-managed area. Let the WMF people deal with all edit wars, every instance of name-calling and so on (they would have to hire dozens of full-time staff for that, of course). But the WMF should tell us clearly if that's their plan. It might not even be a bad thing then, really. If done properly and transparently, it could be of help to the communities. There just should be a clear plan communicated to the communities instead of starting with such surprising, sudden interventions. Gestumblindi (talk) 15:31, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

The same on the other page from a different editor.Nishidani (talk) 15:40, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I was told by a friend high up in the management of the Presidio of San Francisco over a decade ago that sometime earlier, when a new director took on the job, he requested an opportunity to interview all the personnel before he sat down to plan a programme. The secretary arranged a schedule of meetings, with a list starting with the executive branch, down through various overseers, police and finally ground staff. Given the appointment list, he scanned it and asked her to invert the pyramid: he would start from the ground up, listening firstly to what the people who actually did the physical work of maintenance and development had to say, and then work his way up, with the last to be listened to those at the apex of the bureaucracy. Nothing revolutionary. Impeccably 'Friscan, though he was an outsider, in its combination of canny managerial nous and a certain 60s-70s counter-cultural tradition. It worked.Nishidani (talk) 18:32, 16 June 2019 (UTC)


Realistic proposals

Lots of verbiage on this discussion page but not many realistic proposals as to what the WMF or we as a community should actually do IMO. Here's the facts of the case, as I understand them:

  1. Fram was banned by the WMF for violating section 4 of the Terms of Use, namely the "Harassing and Abusing Others" provision
  2. According to their privacy policy, the WMF is unable to release any information to the community (that includes ARBCOM) that could identify the complainant
  3. Several employees of the WMF reviewed the case and agreed that Fram violated the Terms of Use
  4. Jimbo and Doc James are looking into the matter, but they likely won't be able to release any info that WMF hasn't already (besides perhaps saying whether they agree with the decision)
  5. WMF has the ability to unilaterally enforce their Terms of Use regardless of community consensus (See: WP:CONEXCEPT and WP:OFFICE)

Given the points above, here are a few proposals that aren't possible:

  • WMF should release more specifics about why Fram was banned
  • WMF should refer the case to ARBCOM
  • en.wiki should reverse Fram's ban itself

Here are some proposals that might be possible:

  • WMF could alter their policies so that going forward ARBCOM can handle harassment/abuse claims filed with the WMF
    • This wouldn't necessarily increase transparency, it would just change *who* is making unpopular decisions shrouded in secrecy
  • Going forward, the WMF could require a community representative to be involved in the process of handling harassment/abuse claims
  • Our benevolent dictator for life could investigate and decide whether to reverse the ban
  • We could fork Wikipedia
  • WMF could alter their privacy policy so that going forward, harassment/abuse claims are not confidential

AdA&D 15:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

For the record, I disagree with most of the possible options of recourse I listed above, but unlike most of the proposals on this page they are actually feasible. AdA&D 15:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Forking is a little problematic, not least due to the difficulty of porting across userrights and usernames to the new wiki and reserving them for the existing Wikipedian. I'm not yet convinced that we need to do it over this latest WMF scandal, but has anyone put any thoughts in to how it could be efficiently done? ϢereSpielChequers 15:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
The problem with your assertions is that you assign immunity to WMF's policy without explanation. WMF might have current technical superiority, but we all know that in reality the Wikimedia project relies on the community, and without the community, it is nothing. And the WMF understands it too, otherwise Fram was already blocked again and the sysops that unblocked him would be too. But they aren't, because the WMF understands that without the community it has nothing. So no, WMF policy is not above criticism, protest and mass civil disobedience, if necessary. Yoohabina (talk) 16:19, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
I think that the suggestions by Anne drew Andrew and Drew are reasonable. And I would say that, like they mentioned, I disagree with them, too. Harassment is such a difficult issue for the community to deal with. People who have not been the subject of harassment don't understand what the victim goes through. Sometimes these situations need to be handled anonymously. I would also say that the fact that this was handled anonymously shows that something very serious must have happened. I wish I knew the details, but we don't and sometimes that's OK. We need to accept that privacy and safety issues are sometimes more important than all of us knowing what we want to know. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:34, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

"People who have not been the subject of harassment don't understand what the victim goes through. Sometimes these situations need to be handled anonymously. I would also say that the fact that this was handled anonymously shows that something very serious must have happened." It would be better if you didn't speculate about what happened or raised accusations without a shred of evidence. Nothing "very serious" has happened. I have no idea why the WMF feels the need to handle this with such secrecy, or why they drop hints about legal and so on being involved. Basically, they are pointing a very ominous picture without providing any evidence for any of this (because, well, there isn't any). If their reasoning is that I have been uncivil towards too many people for too long, or that I have kept an eye on some problematic editors for a longer time, and that from now one they will be banning or blocking people for such things, fine, say so, no need to be secretive. But your comments make it very clear that their process, the way they handle this, is effectively poisoning the well, in a "well, if there's smoke there has to be fire" method.

I would invite the WMF to provide their evidence to a number of trusted enwiki people who have no real reason to defend me, but whom I still trust to be impartial. People like Newyorkbrad, Drmies, Ymblanter, GorillaWarfare, Giant Snowman, ... Let them judge the evidence in private, without sharing it with me; if they agree that a) th evidence is compelling, and b) it couldn't have been handled in public, then so be it. Fram (talk) 19:59, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  • Where do you see in their Terms of Use or Privacy Policy that sharing with ArbCom is not allowed? In fact, upon reading it (especially the section "To Protect You, Ourselves & Others" in the Privacy Policy) I seem to get the opposite impression. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm working off their justification here, which states:

First, our privacy provisions do not always allow us to "pass back" personal information we receive to the community; this means there are cases where we cannot pass on to Arbcom things like the names of complaining parties or the content of private evidence that might support a concern. As a result, the best we could have given Arbcom in this case would have been a distillation of the case, severely limiting their ability to handle it.

I'm assuming this statement is indeed rooted in WMF policy, but I'm not sure exactly where that is. Perhaps someone at the Wikimedia Foundation can provide some clarity. AdA&D 17:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
This provision makes no sense because all functionaries are subject to confidentiality agreements (also called L37 in WMF legalese) and as such, eligible to partake in nonpublic information sharing. --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:02, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Anne drew Andrew and Drew, I think the "community representative to be involved in the process" proposal has merit.--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:03, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm coming late to this, & I have tried to read all of the comments up to now, so I apologize in advance if I am retracing old ground. However, I feel a couple of points need to be made here.

The primary issue I see here is -- if Fram is correct about the reason for his ban by the Foundation -- is that the Foundation acted as if it were the party in charge of en.wikipedia, & we volunteers were simply the junior members in the relationship, with about as much clout as the average members of FaceBook or Twitter. Rather, since we volunteers predated the Foundation's creation, we see ourselves as equal partners in this enterprise to create a free encyclopedia, & the Foundation's arrogation of handling this matter is an insult to us. We have processes, flawed as they sometimes are, to handle conflicts here, & no matter how good of intentions anyone at WMF has in intervening they must use these processes first, & only override them after making a clear case why they did so. This they did not do. The Foundation wants to become management, & make us volunteers their (unpaid) employees. So AdD&D's realistic proposals don't really address this act to subordinate the Wikipedia volunteer community.

If my interpretation of this conflict is correct, there are two very powerful ways to react:

  • A general strike. Of course, we won't get every Wikipedia volunteer & contributor to participate in a strike, but what we need is for the core volunteers to participate. The people who keep the wheels turning & the fuel tanks topped off -- who number no more than 400 people. And looking at the names at the end of the comments here, most of them are here. We strike for three or four days -- long enough to demonstrate our power & mood -- & the Foundation will be forced to realize they must accept we are equal partners, & they cannot keep pulling crap like this & Superprotect.
  • The nuclear option. Every year the Foundation stages a fund raiser. If by the time of the next fund raiser they still have not accepted that we are equal partners, we stage a counter-campaign to defeat their fund raising. In other words, hit the Foundation in the pocket book. I know this is an extreme option -- which is why I labelled it as a "nuclear option" -- but it could be done by just a handful of otherwise devoted Wikipedians. And it is an option that I sincerely hope is never resorted to. -- llywrch (talk) 07:44, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
    The idea that a general strike by the most active users (whose most visible effect would be a couple thousand extra new articles per day not being deleted) would be somehow unwelcome to the WMF (whose metrics have everything to do with number of articles, number of new users, number of edits) is giggle-worthy. —Cryptic 08:08, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
    So you consider the only way to get past the metric-colored glasses of the WMF is to sabotage the next WMF funding campaign? Convince the usual group of donors not to contribute? (I suspect everyone who has posted to this page, despite their own sincere beliefs, could write a very persuasive essay arguing that it is a waste of money to donate to the WMF.) That would bring a nuclear winter over Wikipedia. -- llywrch (talk) 15:08, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
    Well. I'd read your statement as similar to another suggestion here, to actively block the WMF fundraising banners or run a counterbanner alongside them, and didn't think it worth responding to. (If anyone still thinks that's somehow a remotely feasible idea - the WMF would revert such an overt threat and globally lock anyone they considered even peripherally involved so fast your head would spin.) But you're instead saying to, what? Write a bunch of userspace essays and hope all the folks who'd otherwise contribute four or five bucks instead stumbles across one first and Sees the Light? Directly approach major donors? Unless one of the outraged users here secretly has direct influence over a Google-alike's pursestrings or owns a YouTube channel with a couple million subscribers, I can't see something of the sort having any effect to speak of. —Cryptic 22:26, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
    That was not my intent in my second suggestion. I'm talking about off-Wiki advocacy that people should not donate to the Foundation. Write essays for, say, Medium, on the issue. I would think if a long-term established Wikipedia editor argues that people should not donate to the Foundation, it would attract news interest. (And I agree with you that userspace essays would have zero visibility.) -- llywrch (talk) 07:08, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

This wouldn't necessarily increase transparency, it would just change *who* is making unpopular decisions shrouded in secrecy. That might make a difference, though? From the small amount of information we have, it feels as though a big part of the problem here is that the WMF (and the people making these decisions) aren't familiar with longstanding Wikipedia standards and practices. The things we've seen so far hint at Fram generally behaving suboptimally but fall far, far short of the standard that would lead to a block under normal circumstances - it resulted in a block simply because WMF has different standards. That's bad on several levels, since it leads to confusion and random-seeming outcomes. Working it through ArbCom (who is generally extremely experienced with our standards) could solve this. Then, if the WMF feels that ArbCom and our standards are too lenient, they could push us towards what they consider ideal - which might not be fun but would at least result in consistent policies formed in a transparent way, without having to risk outing anyone's identity in any specific case. A big part of the problem here, basically, is that it dosen't feel like the WMF was willing to do the bare minimum to work with the community - working via ArbCom would solve that problem. (And, from a PR standpoint, they would benefit from letting ArbCom take the heat for unpopular decisions rather than taking it themselves.) --Aquillion (talk) 22:28, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedia consultation on new user reporting system

Moving OT notification to talk. This is already advertised in WP:CENT as well. --qedk (t 桜 c) 09:02, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Response to Further comments from Jan Eissfeldt

Thank you for paying attention to community feedback. I want to directly quote part of your ArbCom statement:
"Though my team followed precedent for a Foundation desysop of those who attempt to interfere in Office Actions, in deference to the confusion of this case, the Foundation will not be issuing further sanctions against or desysopping those who edited the block or the sysop rights of those who edited the Fram block to date. We defer to Arbcom’s judgment on how to proceed with regard to such behavior issues in this case."
I'm pleased about that, and I hope that it will help to lower the temperature of the discussions here. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:41, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Likewise! Buffs (talk) 17:36, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • @JEissfeldt (WMF): I'd like to ask a follow-up question about process. Whether warranted or not, this action has been immensely disruptive to the community - saying that it has consumed many thousands of volunteer hours is probably an understatement. It should never have come to that. Based on the last decade and more of community responses to controversial actions by WMF, the community's reaction here was entirely predictable. Which makes me wonder
    • Does the T&S team have procedures to avoid or mitigate obvious, for want of a better word, shitstorms like this one? If T&S doesn't have its own procedures, does WMF?
    • Assuming that such procedures exist (and I find it hard to imagine that they don't), were they followed here?
    • If they weren't followed, why weren't they followed? Can you give the community some assurance that they will be in the future?
    • If they were followed, the procedures are wholly inadequate. Can you assure the community that they will be revised to avoid this? Are you willing to seek community input in revising your procedures?
    • Once you identified this as a critical incident, what was done? It took three days for you to respond. I assume that wasn't consistent with your crisis response protocol. Can you assure the community that you will ldo a careful post-mortem here, with a clear eye towards identifying and correcting the problems here?
  • I realise that you are all busy people, but can you commit to updating these procedures in a timely fashion? One month? Six months? This response has burned a whole lot of goodwill from the community to WMF - goodwill that was slowly accumulated since the last crisis. It has also burned thousands of volunteer hours, and if you're in the school of thought that sees volunteer hours in monetary terms, we're talking about many tens of thousands of dollars. Volunteer time is a precious resource. Keep that in mind. Thank you. Guettarda (talk) 20:05, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
  • @JEissfeldt (WMF): I guess that link should have been to Office Action instead? The other page hasn't been modified since 2 April 2018. That policy page says that "The Foundation does not hold editorial or supervisory control over content and conduct in the Wikimedia projects; this work is done by a largely autonomous community of volunteers who, in accordance with our Terms of Use, create their own policies meant to uphold the educational goals of our movement. However, in cases where community actions have not been effective and/or legal considerations require us to intervene, we may take actions accordingly." The first part seems to repeat what many people have been saying in this discussion. The second part carves out the exception that T&S is relying on. Could you please clearly explain why you do not believe that enwiki community actions have been effective (can you claim they are ineffective if they have not even been tried?) or directly say that the ban was because of legal considerations (that would surely make everybody back off). Rasmus (talk) 21:10, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
  • @JEissfeldt (WMF): It has not been our practice, historically, to report changes to T&S policy to the hundreds of local communities we work with. And every time the WMF takes some action that outrages the community this has been the case (and they happen every couple years or so on average). In the spirit of the definition of insanity (repeating the same actions and expecting a different result), please consider whether that practice is suitable for achieving the overarching goals. Things that affect this community needs to be discussed with this community (and I do mean discussion, as equal partners, with real possibility of the WMF changing course as a result). And if there is some critical reason why the WMF has to overrule the community (a legal obligation or whatever), then being ruthlessly open, communicative, and transparent about it is critical. As others have said (I want to especially call out Risker's and Headbomb's messages here), the current situation was both predictable and preventable: we could have avoided the wasted volunteer hours, the wasted staff hours, and the damage to the trust and to the relationship between the community and T&S and WMF as a whole. --Xover (talk) 07:32, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I translated Jan's comment for the German equivalent of the village pump (de:Wikipedia Diskussion:Kurier#Update). I am following your discussion closely since this is an issue that is also highly important for the German wikipedia (see the infinite local ban against de:User:Edith Wahr from 19 February). I see some hope in Jan's statement although it is certainly insufficient in some points. It would be very good if a global discussion about WMFOffice bans and T&S could begin as soon as possible, and, as far as I understand, Jan is ready to participate. Where could such a global discussion take place? The discussion on en.wp is necessary and has to be continued, but a global issue should additionally be discussed on meta.--Mautpreller (talk) 16:26, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
German equivalent of Wikipedia:The Signpost, you mean, I think. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:00, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
No, I don't think so. You are right that the Kurier is a kind of "newspaper" but its talk page is definitely the place where issues of general relevance for the German-language Wikipedia are discussed. We don't have a page "Village pump".--Mautpreller (talk) 20:13, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Didn't know that, thanks for the clarification! That will be useful if I ever need to post a notice at dewiki! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:37, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
  • So here's something that has troubled me and I'm hopeful that JEissfeldt (WMF) can actually assuage me, and perhaps other members of the community, on. Trust and Safety talks about how they can't do a ban, that they need to go to legal and the executive director to get sign-offs. What percentage of the time don't those sign-offs happen? A good process for me, and one that would give me confidence that we're not in star chamber territory, would be 3 - 10 percent of the time and maybe a bit higher in looking at Conviction rate. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:00, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

What message did WMF want to communicate to us?

Now, almost a week after the incident, it is clear that there will be no more specifics forthcoming from WMF (nor from Fram, or from anybody else, for this purpose). Does anybody finally understand what message did WMF want to communicate to us (by "us" meaning specifically the English Wikipedia community)? They probably failed to communicate it clearly anyway. but what was the message supposed to be?--Ymblanter (talk) 18:07, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, it is the weekend, and presumably the WMF employees in charge of making such a statement are enjoying a break from work. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:20, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
I will be happy to be proven wrong, but my impression is that they already said everything they had/wanted to say, and now we are left decrypting the message.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:41, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Jan stated that he would engage further, and two of the Board members have also said they were preparing to say more. I think it's very important we be seen to act in good faith, so I think we need to at least give them a more than reasonable period of time to do so before concluding that they have no intent to follow through. (Of course, hopefully, they will respond, and it will be something more than yet another load of say-nothing junk. I can't say as I would wager money on that, but hey, anything's possible.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:45, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
My reading of his message was not that they will give us any more details about the incident, but that they will be working with ArbCom / community developing better communication procedures. But may be indeed this thread is still premature, and we can wait a bit longer.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:48, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm willing to wait for up to a week or so after Jimbo and Doc report back to us from the board meeting, assuming what they tell us doesn't prove to be yet more accelerant. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 06:58, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I wouldn't say it's clear at all that "there will be no more specifics forthcoming from WMF". The board meeting was only on Friday, it's been the weekend for two days, and Doc James told us the board were still talking about it. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:22, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, I'd tend to agree. I would hope to hear something from the Board members soon, but it's only been a few days. Now, if after next week no more information is forthcoming, I think we might have to conclude that the message we're getting is one normally communicated as a one-finger salute, and decide on our response accordingly. But let's exhaust all other options before it goes that route; that's not a good ending. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:26, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
(Reply to both messages). It might be that the Board will do the job for us and decrypts the message, but absent this I do not think there is any more specifics forthcoming.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:44, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Likely the Board is going to keep the ban and the response will be no more information but just restating what they said anyways as we all know the WMF is not very transparent at all and they are one of the least transparent groups I have ever seen Abote2 (talk) 20:46, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Don't be so pessimistic; they have to balance legitimate privacy concerns and what they tell us, but I think it's glaringly clear to a number of community representatives on the Board that something was wrong and needed addressing. Part of the addressing is how do you feed back that feedback into the Foundation without smashing people flat who, undoubtedly, were doing what they thought was right under the circumstances. We're going to exit this episode still as a community here and with a Foundation to work with. If Foundation staff start to view the community as a minefield it doesn't help. We need some stuff addressed, carefully and thoughtfully. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 07:02, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
I think anyone predicting what the board will or will not do or decide is simply projecting from whoever makes a prediction. The board met Friday. The issue is complex. The board, is by far and large, made of relatively sane people that are very aware they have a community PR nightmare on their hands, and they may or may not be themselves divided on the issue, or that the issue was too complex to fully resolve in one meeting. "We're looking into it, we'll have more at a later date" is a fine response for now. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:57, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Particularly - even if the Board had firmly stated something on the 14th - indicating the WMF teams need to do something (whether that be a new message, a new action etc); weekends notwithstanding, that has to be made...and then run through the same 3 teams as the initial ban. And then the board. So it might take a while - and the Board probably would want to see anything they asked for before saying anything more than a placeholder to us. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:45, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
I expect, from the silence on anything of substance from both Jimbo and James, that we will hear something from someone at some stage. I also expect it will bind T&S to nothing, but speak of implementing the ToU to further the health of the community, and pledge consultations with AC and with others where practical and similar stuff. I would think it possibly unwise for the AC to be the consultant group, given what's likely to happen when someone who is actually popular gets banned under these policies.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:52, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
As i expected there is no update and the WMF is still one of the least transparent groups I have ever seen Abote2 (talk) 20:49, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

An interesting paragraph

Indeed, I have not seen you literally threatening other contributors. But, I have observed the sum of your activity in certain areas of interest (like copyvios, for example, or automated editing) having a similar effect to that of a threat: causing contributors to be scared to continue to contribute in fear of being constantly monitored and later attacked through community process, and eventually driving them away. From what I've seen, you are very good at spotting problematic edits and editing patterns; the issue is with the way and the perseverance with which you appear to approach the editors responsible for them. In many cases, even if your concerns have been valid, their raising has been done with a degree of abruptness, repetition, scrutiny and persistence that feels like hounding to the person on the receiving end, and causes them to abandon the project or limit their contributions. Now, I don't think this is your intention, but this does seem to be the result in several cases, hence the warning. So, I'm not saying you should stop trying to improve En.WP., only that in doing so you also consider how your activity and approach impacts the users you address and other readers of your comments, and how it contributes to an unfriendly volunteering environment that discourages them from returning to it.

— Kalliope, WMF T&S, Warning email to Fram based on offwiki complaint by unnamed editors, April, 2018


  • We can as well let the admins take a (well-deserved) break whilst T&S deals with our day-to-day issues. And, I, for one, am very uncomfortable about dealing with folks who persistently violate policy, from now onward; never know which editor feels harassed because I have been reverting their non-policy compliant rubbish, all-the-while. Also, some people need to be thrown off the project or their editing activities limited. We have a host of mechanisms including TBans, blocks et al to limit activities. Editing an encyclopedia is not everybody's cup of tea; competency is a fundamental necessity. Frankly there was a degree of non-optimality in Fram's conduct, but for that, a site-ban or a WMF warning?! And, when even his earlier-detractors agree that he has fundamentally improved throughout the last one year? ∯WBGconverse 14:02, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • @Winged Blades of Godric: But that does not matter, even if you are the friendliest and most beloved administrator on this site, you just need to have some occasions of people who feel (or pretend to feel) harassed because of the material you deleted/edits you reverted/material you tagged/links you blacklisted/socks you blocked. Chilling ... --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:14, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    Precisely. Also, there are times when folks choose to bring an editor over AN/ANI, leading to a block/ban. Thus, the editor was attacked through community process. But, the OP will take the blame for forcing him out of the wiki? ∯WBGconverse 14:34, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    • These days, there is a huge push to redefine harassment to be how the person perceives your conduct, rather than your intent behind it. Many universities have fallen prey to this redefinition, I hope the WMF is not next. Such a definition of harassment is completely unworkable. Maybe one of the requirements to edit on Wikipedia is to have a reasonably thick skin. Rockstonetalk to me! 18:47, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Sounds like something that they should have gotten a warning on from an admin, except that aspect (for admin conduct) is dysfunctional in enwiki. North8000 (talk) 14:45, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Well, they did get a warning from an enwiki admin, namely Fram, for persistent copyright violations or other inappropriate edits. Oh...you meant Fram should get a warning,  for calling attention to that, telling them to stop, and if they didn't making them stop? Why? Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:50, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I meant that it sounds like Fram should have gotten a warning from an enwiki admin but such (i.e. where it involves conduct of someone who is an admin) is dysfunctional in enwiki.North8000 (talk) 15:37, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • North8000, yes, I know what it is you meant, and I may have been smarting off a bit. But for clarity's sake, I believe it is the person who is introducing copyright violations, errors, etc., who should be receiving warnings and if need be sanctions, not the pesky admin who keeps catching them when they do it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:45, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
Seraphimblade Yes, but what if they way they handled it was itself a behavior problem? BTW, what I would lobby for would be a subset of admins with impeccable credentials/qualities handling (autoconfirmed-up) user conduct issues, including of admins, with more review of admin conduct going on than we have now.North8000 (talk) 17:15, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
If someone fears that their edits are 'monitored/reviewed/etc' against copyright violations, and that they have a problem with that, I really don't see how that should be an actual issue for the community. Everyone should welcome copyright scrutiny. If you 'fear' it, it can only mean that you are intent on violating copyright policy despite having been warned against it, and refuse to learn. I know I certainly welcome such scrutiny. Then again, I'm not trying to repeatedly include copyright violating material in the encyclopedia either. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:23, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Okay, if it was it was, and that's a separate issue. But the paragraph Fram quoted essentially stated that Fram was catching people doing these things too often and too well, and that made them feel bad. It reminds me a bit of people who speed, get a speeding ticket, and then yowl about the asshole cop. Well—the cop didn't push your foot down on the gas, Leadfoot. If you don't want to risk a speeding ticket, stop speeding. You're welcome to review my edits for copyright violations, because I'm quite confident there are none to find. And if there are, well, that's an issue that should be corrected. If people are embarrassed and upset when they get caught doing something they shouldn't, the solution isn't "Stop catching them, it makes them feel bad", it is to tell them "Well, stop doing that then, and then there'll be nothing to catch you for!". Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:41, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
SeraphimbladeI think "if it was...that's a separate issue" says it all, and that possibility is the one that I was discussing. BTW, asking this in a friendly way, could the fact that you moved away from looking at the possible "separate issue" three times in our thread be the type of thing that might make enwiki weak on self-policing in this area? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:06, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
No, I don't. I think it represents a very deliberate decision made by the community, that issues that damage the integrity of the encyclopedia, such as copyright violations or source misrepresentation, are a great deal more serious than being more terse, blunt, or enthusiastic than one perhaps should have been when calling attention to it. If someone thought Fram really crossed the line, bring that up. If everyone else says "That wasn't a big deal, but what you did was", well, that is what it is. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:29, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • If WMF felt that there was justification to issue a conduct warning, why not communicate it onwiki? The WMF is out of their depth here if they think they can approach editors on their own and issue warnings as they please. Their mandate is to step in when the community has failed but this is the WMF exercising their rights without any basis to do so. It's insulting that they will insert themselves into situations and play the big chip where the need for transparency is the biggest. All an editor needs to do now is to convince select members of T&S to agree to the POV and ta-da, you're absolved of the requirement to prove your case. Terrible, terrible behaviour from the paid side of the field. --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:05, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    "We're paid to do something. This is something. Therefore we shall do it!" DuncanHill (talk) 15:10, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • "Warning email to Fram based on offwiki complaint by unnamed editors," is the last bit relevant and accurate, because the author discusses what any can view and their view of it. I'm assuming the author said it was okay to make it public. cygnis insignis 15:31, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Has this concept of "attack through community process" been floated elsewhere by WMF staff? The community hasn't been great about dealing with repeated incivility, but the above comment departs from discussion of uncivil statements, and frames use of established community processes as attack. This definitely needs clarification. I hope the author just meant forum shopping / vexatious litigating, but my understanding is that Fram has not engaged in this behavior. Dialectric (talk) 15:33, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    (+1). That's a very strange phrase. And, Fram certainly did not forum-shop. ∯WBGconverse 15:36, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • WTF? "causing contributors to be scared to continue to contribute in fear of being constantly monitored and later attacked through community process" is possibly the most ludicrous thing I've ever read. If you don't do anything that is likely to result in censure by community process (whether that be admin action, ANI, ArbCom or whatever) then there is no issue. If you are, then - madness, I know, but - stop doing it. Black Kite (talk) 15:43, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
It stems from the ideological groups who think that criticism is bad and that feelings trump evidence. So from that start point, its perfectly natural to take the view that they should be able to do what they want without oversight. Its a basic incompatible stance with the wiki 'all your contributions are bare to see and be commented on'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:50, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm sure the intended context here is extreme and unwarranted scrutiny, but as written, the words are chilling. Who's willing to track troublesome editor behaviour in an environment like this? Guettarda (talk) 15:56, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I really think every admin should be made aware of the above comment from the WMF and they should think long and hard before acting in an admin role. I would advise against it, unless they backtrack, and I see no reason to think they will. Enigmamsg 18:23, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I thought the WMF got involved here because our community processes had supposedly failed to deal appropriately with Fram. But now it sounds like such processes constitute an attack. Will the WMF please make up its mind? Lepricavark (talk) 16:06, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • That paragraph from T&S exactly matches my impressions of Fram. It's similar to what was said when Fram was added as a party to a recent ArbCom case, a year after T&S's warning email. Since then, I saw the behavior continue (and I guess whatever I saw was an improvement compared to what came before). I think the WMF has a point that the community has tried and failed to address this (and similar situations) many times in the past. I also think it's a false dichotomy that either we have to totally ignore problematic editors or we have to hound them. There's a lot of room in between, and frankly, if someone can't tell the difference between properly addressing problematic editing, and hounding problematic editors, then that person should just flag the issues and send the diffs to someone else to handle instead of trying to correct the problem themselves. We already have procedures for handling problematic editing in a non-hounding way. For vandalism and edit warring, after a certain number of warnings, there's AIV or EWN, where it's passed off to someone else to handle. It shouldn't be considered OK to just revert and/or repeatedly post messages on an editor's talk page and/or argue with the editor at other pages, instead of reporting them to a noticeboard for further action (that's hounding). It shouldn't be considered OK to bludgeon AIV, ECN, ANI, etc. threads by endlessly arguing with the reported editor. That said, I didn't see anything from Fram recently that warrants a 1-year ban. Whatever happened to steady escalation? If WMF was going to act at all, it should have blocked Fram for a day, a week, a month, or a few months as a first step. Next time the WMF acts in this way, I hope they start with the a short block/ban and escalate from there. – Levivich 16:09, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    Levivich, since your impressions exactly matches with T&S', can you please let me know about what is an attack through community process ? I am genuinely curious. ∯WBGconverse 16:16, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    WBG, in my opinion, an example would be the recent Rama Arbcom case. There you have a "problematic edit" (the undeletion of a page), and the editor behind it: received a rude initial message on their talk page 10 minutes after making the problematic edit; was taken to ANI within the hour; to Arbcom within two hours; had a number of editors (Fram among them) posting about their problematic edits every single day for almost three weeks straight, and then they were desysoped. It's true that Rama posted some problematic messages along the way that fanned the flames, but whatever you think about the initial problematic edit, the response was pitchforks and torches: a sustained campaign, all through established processes (like ANI and Arbcom), but a sustained campaign of "you suck, you suck, you suck" on a daily basis from a small handful of editors. Nobody regulated that (though God forbid you vary a section header or go over 500 words). I would call that an attack through community process. Others I'm sure would defend it as totally normal. But all of that could have been done without the rudeness, without the hounding, even if it ended up with the same result. In the Polish/Jewish case, the reported editor said some really horrible things about the filing editor–repeatedly–and got a warning. I'm sure the filing editor felt attacked through community process. (Meanwhile, a CLEANSTART that files too much at ANI just got a one-week block. We block new editors things less egregious while letting veteran editors get away with whatever.) There are examples of similar things at ANI right now. When I filed a recent AE report, I also felt attacked through community process due to calls for a boomerang based on completely-unfounded allegations of forum shopping. I agreed with the ultimate result of the report, but like the Rama case, like the Polish/Jewish case, like almost every case or report, we could have gotten there without so much ugliness. – Levivich 16:35, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    Nice points and I appreciate the thoughts, however much I personally disagree with their contexts. Will reply at your t/p, in some details.∯WBGconverse 16:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • There is this ongoing trope about how the community has "failed" to deal with these issues. No, the community has decided that such behavior does not merit a block. There is a subset of the community that insists that civility be enforced in such a way. However they have never been able to gain a consensus for their position, and so because the wider community has rejected, repeatedly, that view this claim that we have failed has become commonplace. No, we have not failed. We decided that saying "fuck arbcom" is not a year-long blockworthy offense. Im sorry that some of you feel that is a failure. But it is your failure for failing to gain consensus for your view that civility be enforced in such a way. nableezy - 16:28, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    That's just a restatement of the alleged failure. WMF's position seems to be that because the community does not reach consensus that this sort of thing is problematic, the community has therefore failed in regulating civility. The community–or some of the community–wants to say that civility is whatever we say it is. Whereas, the WMF seems to be saying, civility is what they, the WMF, says it is. That's the fundamental disagreement here: who gets to define civility. You can no more assume your definition (or the community's definition) is correct than the WMF can assume theirs is correct. It's not a matter of absolute, objective right or wrong; it's a relative matter of "minimum standards", i.e. definition. So either the community will prevail upon the WMF to accept its definition, it will fork, or the WMF's definition will win. – Levivich 16:35, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    I agree with the last sentence. Not much more, but that one yes. nableezy - 16:38, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    FWIW, there may be a possible resolution in sight (if the WMF are willing to back down): see here. This may not be ideal, but let's see how things go. Carcharoth (talk) 16:42, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • That the WMF feels they can police the community in a way that prioritizes the feelings of people making the actual encyclopedia worse over the actual non-problematic actions of people defending the encyclopedia against problematic actions is bone-chilling. Foxes guarding the hen house. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:14, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
    Very well said. * Pppery * it has begun... 19:12, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • This is the strongest evidence yet that everyone involved in the decision-making in T&S ought to be busy finding new jobs. This paragraph, if it reflects the general thinking of this group, indicates people who are fundamentally unqualified for the jobs they have. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 17:27, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • This shows a profound lack of understanding of volunteer work in the context of editing, where senior, experienced, highly-skilled contributors must choose between the quality of the encyclopedia and taking more time to hand-hold fewer of the less skilled, error-prone contributors, instead of correcting their mistakes in a relatively terse fashion and moving on to the mistakes of other less skilled contributors. It's deeply disturbing that WMF doesn't understand this, sad, and disappointing. EllenCT (talk) 17:48, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • We come back again and again to the question which has constantly plagued this encyclopedia, from its very heyday, to the infamous "Fuck off" RFC -- What is civility?--WaltCip (talk) 18:37, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

  • In many cases, even if your concerns have been valid, their raising has been done with a degree of abruptness, repetition, scrutiny and persistence that feels like hounding to the person on the receiving end, and causes them to abandon the project or limit their contributions.

I.e. recruitment of editors of unknown quality is the aim, and trumps vigilance, competence and commitment by anyone with a proven record. Note in the bolded part that a subjective impression of hurt is accorded greater weight than the recognized technical accuracy of the editor putatively causing 'hurt'. Try translating that into work place practices, telling a foreman who oversees quality control on the production line that, after he has repeatedly noted flaws in the product, and told the assemblers to take more care, that he will be suspended because the head office has heard complaints from individual workers down the line that their feelings are hurt so badly they are considering leaving their job. Jeezus.Nishidani (talk) 19:52, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
All evidence we've seen thus far suggests that if Fram was making users feel unwelcome, it's because they either aren't a fan of his confrontational habit, and/or were doing stupid things like copyvio. If T&S really wants to go down this path, I strongly suggest any remaining active admins, particularly those who deal with copyvio and sanctions enforcement, turn in the mop and let T&S deal with them. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 20:30, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • This paragraph does a great job of summarizing the issue I have with Fram. Xe finds someone doing something problematic and then stays on them forever. We had one editor using "too long of quotes" from sources (which I personally found useful and which almost never came close to violating copyright law) and Fram stayed on him forever. Even as he continued to make shorter and shorter quotes (all well within fair use). And others jumped on the same user (who certainly had had other serious problems in the past, but was at the time editing within policy). And Fram has done similar things with others. Yes, we have rules. And yes, people screw them up. But once you get on Fram's radar, it seems like any error, any contribution that has a mild problem (even if that problem isn't against policy) gets blown up. I also agree with others that the community has concluded that such behavior is acceptable, or even useful. Lots of people (including folks I generally agree with on things) feel that way. I strongly disagree. It drives away good editors and potential new editors. It hurts Wikipedia. And not just because it drives away the person being hounded. I suspect others see these interactions and say "na, this isn't the place for me". And sure, within our culture "Fuck Arbcom" isn't hugely uncivil. And I'd not argue it should deserve a block by itself. But if I were a relative newbie and saw that from a community leader, I'd be much less likely to stick around. I suspect that's true of most people (and probably women and older editors at a higher rate than males and younger ones).
Basically, I think parts of the en.wikipedia culture are toxic. And I think Fram is one of the more toxic people. Well intentioned and darn productive. But hounding at times to the point the environment becomes toxic. In a regular user, it's unacceptable. In an admin, it's destructive.
That said, a block like this, out of the blue by T&S is also bad for EN.WP. If T&S wants to tell the community that it sees a problem, it should start by saying that, not by just blocking. It creates a differently bad environment to just block like this. If the community can't clean up its act, maybe at that point T&S needs to start issuing blocks. But only with plenty of due warning to both the individual (which seems to have happened here) and the community (which did not). But I feel it's the community that needs to get its act together. T&S was, IMO, accurate in their assessment of the problem. But they way they handled it was as bad or worse than doing nothing. They need to engage the community, not just start issuing citations without talking to the community first. Hobit (talk) 21:16, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
I have several concerns about the T&S comment "even if your concerns have been valid, their raising has been done with a degree of abruptness, repetition, scrutiny and persistence that feels like hounding". I have argued in the past that some of our CSD tags and some of our other template bombing could do with being less abrupt. I'm OK with G10s being abrupt and in the past when I've patrolled newpages I have deleted some articles as G10s in the moment they were created, an abruptness that I think was merited. But our policy remains that only A1 and A3 tags should not be applied in the first moments after an article is created. I would like to see that policy broadened to some other templates, but, and here I disagree with the WMF approach. I think it wrong to criticise people for edits currently within policy. Better to change the policy and then criticise those who don't follow the revised policy. In my view, trying to change policy by criticising edits that follow a policy that you object to is incivil and disruptive - I have seen it at RFA more than once where an editor will oppose for behaviour that is within policy but which they disagree with. Some of the tools that we use here to scrutinise sub par edits and deal with repetitive mistakes have actually been written or are supported by the WMF. Use Rollback and it takes you to the rest of the contributions by the editor whose edits you have just reverted. Special:NewPagesFeed gives you an option to search for pages created by username. If the WMF doesn't want us to use some of the tools they maintain or even have created then please talk to us about the tools and we can tell you why sometimes it is just efficient for the editor who has tagged or fixed one problem to then deal with a slew of near identical problems. I'm sure for many goodfaith newbies who have made a bunch of newbie errors then that can result in information overload via templating and notifications. But is the solution with the volunteer using the tools on this site to deal with "valid concerns"? Or should we be trying to engineer a gentler less bitey site where warning templates get autoconsolidated, at least for people who haven't edited since the first of a dozen deletion notifications was slapped on their talkpage? ϢereSpielChequers 23:10, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
G10 and G12 should be abrupt. I'm willing to accept that the pace of all the other ones be slowed down except in the circumstances where the CSD has a built-in warning period (G13, F4-6 and F11) to at least 72 hours to allow the user an opportunity to correct the issues, but I'm not sure how effective this would be in practise. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 23:20, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Reaction to Reinstatement of Office Action and temporary desysop of Floquenbeam

WMFOffice you’ve written If they wish for their admin rights to be restored, a RfA can be opened once 30 days elapse, and the community may decide on the request at that time in such or another way.- in particular where you said “in such or another way” could you clarify whether we may establish in the restoration of privileges policy that bureaucrats may summarily restore adminship once the office action has lapsed? (See Wikipedia talk:Administrators). –xenotalk 03:49, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
WMFOffice, Whom is speaking, please? Don't hide behind the role account. SQLQuery me! 00:39, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
In hindsight, that isn't likely to help anything. Struck. SQLQuery me! 00:51, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Go Fuck Yourself, Big Brother. You won't get away with that crap here. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:08, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Good luck. Even FormerArbRob says telling people like Arbcom to fuck off is perfectly adequate grounds for being disappeared. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:10, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Everyone, please remember not to say "F*** the WMF Office for its heavy-handed and authoritarian actions seemingly designed to inflame and divide the editing community." That sort of thing could get you banned. Try to find a more civil way of expressing it. 28bytes (talk) 00:55, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I think that's plenty civil enough, no? --Dylan620 (talk) 00:59, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Stop fucking stonewalling us. You're only burying yourselves deeper. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 00:59, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  • This is exactly the wrong thing to do if the WMF wishes to de-escalate the situation and maintain the barely tenable perception that they care about concerns raised here at all. – Teratix ₵ 01:01, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment by me, now moved to below. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:20, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    At this point I don't even think the WMF knows what they want, other than to spite en.wp and its consensus. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 01:09, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    Yes it’s nonsense. The WMF is just making it up as they go along. Pawnkingthree (talk) 01:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
This will not end well for you. 2001:4898:80E8:2:56DB:4566:6C0F:24E5 (talk) 01:11, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
No, I asked a serious question, and I would like WMF to give a serious answer. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:12, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Good luck with that. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 01:16, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Indentation mistake. Was not meant to be a reply to you, but to the clown currently running WMFOffice. If what I'm reading is correct, which it damn well appears to be, there is a SERIOUS conflict of interest and someone is about to lose their entire job. 2001:4898:80E8:2:56DB:4566:6C0F:24E5 (talk) 01:19, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm still confused why people think there is any real chance any of the major actions of WMFOffice can be ascribed to any one person. This seems extremely unlikely to me knowing what I know (very little in many ways) about the way any sufficient large organisation tends to work when there is something major and that the WMF has shown all signs of fitting into that category. Nil Einne (talk) 01:42, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
P.S. In case there's some confusion, I wouldn't be surprised if it was primarily one person operating the account for big chunks of time although the precise person could change depending on various things. But I find it extremely unlike the major actions i.e. the two blocks and the three major comments here didn't have multiple people approving them before they happened. Nil Einne (talk) 02:03, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Considering Floq understood that a potential, and not improbable outcome, was a desysop and some kind of ban, I congratulate the WMF on a measured response, though Tryptofish's question could be answered. There is all the world of difference between this statement and action which can point to principles that were clearly laid out and well known and the chain of events that led to the inciting incident. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • IMO this wasn't really a potential outcome, but a likely one. From where I stand, the only real likely alternative was the WMF implementing a superblock quickly and simply reblocking with a super block and giving a very stern warning to Floquenbeam. But the fact that we don't actually have any existing different levels of blocks (AFAIK, although the upcoming partial blocks could be related) means a superblock/officeblock was always likely to take a while. It's not quite like super-protect where we already had different levels of protection which affected different classes of editors so was I assume a far easier software task. Whatever the wisdom of the original block, or for that matter whatever the harm to community relations, the action they took seemed almost definite since the WMF would feel the need to make it clear when they say something can't be overturned especially a ban, they mean it. Frankly I strongly suspect if legal didn't really care before, they really, really care now. There is simply no way the WMF could realistically risk giving the impression their office actions can be overturned by anyone but themselves. I mean there was a slight chance they would just make clear that the ban still stands, and just hope Fram doesn't test the waters. But IMO even that was likely to be seen as way too risky. This is IMO way more extreme case than super-protect. In that case their actions were fairly predictable for any organisation, but in many ways it didn't matter that much to them that they send a clear message as was the case here. We could keep trying until they implement a superblock, or we could just accept that we need to convince them to change their minds on the ban. Nil Einne (talk) 01:57, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
@Nil Einne: from a technical level, if they don't want to get stuck in wheel warring is to just upgrade to a global lock, I doubt stewards are going to try to pull an "override wmf" card. — xaosflux Talk 02:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Nil Einne, yeah I perhaps understated things but that was my point. Floq did the unblocking knowing the consequences and the WMF, rather than even going as harsh as they could have reasonably and with-in policy go, decided to be measured. This stands in stark contrast to how the foundation failed to really explain what seems to be a movement wide change in policy in addressing certain issues, coupled with more nuanced remedies at their disposal, ahead of their acting on it. That's the distinction I was trying to draw, if doing so imperfectly. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:10, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

And can you, can you imagine fifty admins a day, I said fifty admins a day walking in and unblockin Fram and walkin out. And friends, they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Floquenbeam's Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement, and all you got to do to join is unblock Fram the next time it come's around on the dramaboard. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 01:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

That'd actually be really nice. ENWP has always had an issue of long-term 'power-users' getting away with things new users would get blocked for. Q T C 16:02, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

What the actual fuck? CoolSkittle (talk) 01:27, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@CoolSkittle: Alice's Restaurant. Bishonen | talk 08:00, 12 June 2019 (UTC).
  • Is there a reason that you keep blocking Fram with talkpage access and email disabled? Bizarre at best. SQLQuery me! 01:50, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    @SQL: The only valid usage of talk page (and presumably email, although I'm not aware of an explicit policy on the matter) access is to appeal one's block. A blocked user that (from the WMF's point of view) has literally no means of appealing would have no reason to edit their talk page or send email. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:53, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
@Pppery: Not actually true. You may find Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive991#Improper use of talk page while blocked interesting. An indeffed editor was not only freely using their talk page, but was using it to continue to make (constructive) edits by proxy. Ironically, it was SQL himself who tried to enforce what you said here, revoking TPA. The ensuing controversy was so severe that he self-reverted, with a majority of the community opposing the revocation, and all agreeing that there was no existing policy or precedent-based guidance. Mind you, that was a user attempting to make edits via proxy while blocked, which could be easily construed as block evasion, and the majority of the community opposed TPA revocation. So while what you say is a common notion (and FWIW I agree with it), it's certainly not an actual rule that the community has ever backed. ~Swarm~ {sting} 05:52, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Your response contains a contradiction—or, at least, a strong tension—between two policies. The first is that WMF is a last-resort enforcer of the project's basic policies. The second is that Office Actions are explicitly not subject to project community rules or consensus. Unless WMF restricts administrative sanctions to the most clear-cut cases, that means you're basically going to exercise your powers arbitrarily. I don't know where to go from that, other than it's the kind of thing that can do a lot of damage. --Jprg1966 (talk) 02:01, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • If I were Fram right now I would happily stick 2 fingers up to this website and never return!, What a fucking shit show this has become, I 100% stand by Floq's de-escalation of the issue. –Davey2010Talk 02:17, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

you have lost 3 administrators today, care to go for 4?50.106.16.170 (talk) 02:19, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm admittedly late to this discussion, 50.106.16.170, but I don't understand your math...Fram, Floq, who's number 3? Liz Read! Talk! 03:32, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Rob, presumably. T. Canens (talk) 03:39, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
He had already stated a few weeks ago that he was going to leave: this is just a dramah quit. - SchroCat (talk) 06:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Ansh666 also comes to mind, although that was unrelated. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 04:07, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#Notice:_WMF_desysop_of_Floquenbeam total now stands at 5.50.106.16.170 (talk) 07:34, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Dear WMF - maybe we should start talkin' about an Revolution. What do you guays in Frisco thing, how log we let do this to us? Who pays who? You guys have to work for us, not against us. The whole behavior here ist the clear kind of acting as in dictatorships. As long you do such Office actions, we need to talk about this office! -- Marcus Cyron (talk) 04:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Kudos to Floquenbeam for the moral courage to reverse the action. The opposite to the WMF, who need to read the first law of holes. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:00, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Please clarify the desysop

I'm moving my comment here, from above. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:20, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  • I have a question about the meaning of the "temporary desysop". This (among so many other things) is difficult to understand. A "temporary 30-day desysop" would ordinarily mean that, after 30 days, the sysop flag would automatically be restored. It's like a 30-day block, in that after 30 days the user is no longer blocked and does not, at that time, have to file an unblock request. However, the statement above refers to a new RfA. Is it in fact the case that re-sysopping can only occur via a new, successful RfA? If that is so, then calling it a "30-day desysop" is not accurate. Rather, that would mean that the desysop is indefinite and under a cloud, and that the community as a whole is banned for 30 days from participating in a new RfA. Is WMF really sure that they want that? --Tryptofish (talk) 01:04, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Clarification would be good although they said If they wish for their admin rights to be restored, a RfA can be opened once 30 days elapse, and the community may decide on the request at that time in such or another way. (emphasis mine) I take it to mean we could decide a RfA is not necessary after the 30 days has expire, like they seem to have suggested we could do for Fram themselves when their ban expires or is removed. Nil Einne (talk) 01:29, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
I take your point, but I still feel a very serious need for clarification, mainly because I don't see what such "another way" would really be. If some "other way" is required, then it wasn't temporary, and WMF is restricting what the community can do, or at least when we can do it. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:35, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
On the one hand, I think that the minute that 30 day clock is up, the nearest 'crat should immediately restore rights. On the other hand, I think it would send a good signal to immediately have an RfA where Floq gets the most votes ever for adminship. bd2412 T 01:44, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
BD2412, I'm sympathetic but, while I'm not a 'crat, if I were, suspect I would struggle it finding authority for such an action. For better or worse, 'crats tend to be, well, bureaucratic. I would welcome some clarification as I also see an inconsistency between the word "temporary" and the subsequent wording.Might guess is they didn't want to make it automatic, but want to leave it to the community to decide but as far as I know there is no precedent so the community has no rules for such a situation. Far better that they treat "temporary" literally and restore the bit at the end of that period, with the community always having the authority to consider whether de-sysopping should occur. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:40, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
'Crats follow policy. Let's just enact a policy that states: "If a Wikipedia administrator is temporarily relieved of their administrator status by the Wikimedia Foundation for carrying out an administrative action for which local consensus had been established, their administrator status may be restored by any Wikipedia bureaucrat without further process, upon expiration of any period specified by the Wikimedia Foundation". Then the 'crats would be following policy by reinstating the admin bit. bd2412 T 19:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Now proposed at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Allow bureaucrats to quickly re-sysop admins temporarily de-sysoped by WMF for carrying out out community consensus. bd2412 T 19:33, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

The proposal above is similar to of what I was thinking about. However, even if we put aside that it doesn't seem to have gaining consensus at this time, it's IMO it's somewhat of a flawed proposal if intended to apply to Floquenbeam without further discussion. It's IMO an open question whether Floquenbeam carrying out community consensus. Especially since the discussion was not formally closed by a neutral admin or better 3 as we normally reserve for contentious decisions. (Floquenbeam was clear very far from neutral here so should not be the one to assess community consensus in such circumstances.) It was also not open for a minimum of 24 hours. While the later is the standard we normally require for any community ban, it seems to me any unblock on such contentious circumstances as this would also need to follow the same standard at a minimum, but it did not do so here. Note that as always, any close would need to be more than a simple counting of votes. Even in such overwhelming numbers as this, care needs to be taken. As a participant of said discussion, I'm aware there was at least one editor who expressed support for an unblock of Fram, but did not seem to clearly support going against the WMF in the way Floquenbeam did.

So ultimately it seems difficult to judge that Floquenbeam's action had community consensus from the evidence we had. In other words, even if such a proposal were to pass, I don't think it's clear it would apply to Floquenbeam as worded without some further consensus process to determine that. Still this would not need to be an RFA. We could have instead a community consensus process to determine of Floquenbeam's actions had community consensus. If they did, and the earlier proposal passed, then re-admining Floquenbeam after 30 days would seem to be justified without an RFA. Note that a discussion after the fact would IMO need to be clear on what we're discussing. We would not be discussing whether or not there was community consensus for Floquenbeam's actions, but whether Floquenbeam's actions were carrying out community consensus at the time. If Floquenbeam's actions would have had community consensus, but did not at the time because the consensus process was not completely carried out, this would still seem to point to Floquenbeam's action lacking community consensus. It would IMO be a bit of a disaster if we start allowing people to carry out an action based on community consensus before it's clear that such a consensus existed. Still it's ultimately up to the community. I mean we could decide an action which has consensus as established after the fact is considered to have community consensus when it was carrier out if we wanted to.

An alternative course of action would have been for a clearer proposal that would apply to Floquenbeam without doubt. But I'm not sure how easy it would be to word such a proposal without specific mention of Floquenbeam. Do people really want a policy that we automatically re-admin anyone de-syspoed by the foundation for reversing office action when the foundation no longer has an objection to such a resysop? Again, IMO it would be a mistake but it is up to the community if they wish to do so.

BTW, in terms of whether a "temporary" de-syspoed is really temporary if someone has to go through an RFA this is IMO largely a semantic issue. If I'm right that the WMF have no clear opinion on what should happen after 30 days, then it's up to the bureaucrats taking their queue from the community as to what to do. I don't think we have any clear precedent for a situation like this. I'm not aware of what happened very long ago before circa 2007 or so, but the only recent temporary de-sysops I'm aware of are those where there is doubt who controls the account. Funnily enough, what happens in those circumstances may have been one of the things that lead to this whole mess. Still they aren't a good comparison.

I think even with the WMF saying it's up to the community, bureaucrats will struggle to make a decision without some guidance from us on what should happen. I suspect they'll most likely err on the side of not re-syspoing if we really gave no guidance. As said, this doesn't have to be an RFA, but whatever their flaws in the understanding of what goes on here, the WMF were IMO right to conclude we will need to give guidance in some form if we expect Floquenbeam to be resyspoed.

Nil Einne (talk) 03:00, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: As the most likely explanation, I would guess that the person/people who wrote the message simply don't have a good understanding of enWP policies and procedures, and so they didn't know that what they wrote is self-contradictory. That and using the word "temporary", especially in the heading, makes the optics of their action look better. Sunrise (talk) 04:07, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for a very reasonable interpretation, but I still believe that we, as a community, really do not know what can or cannot be done. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:49, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • It is very, very unfortunate that instead of a measured response -- which would have been to maintain the status quo of Floq's clearly community-backed unblock -- WMOffice has chosen to go the authoritarian route and desysop Floquenbeam. I would urge someone with the proper amount of chutzpah and the necessary rights to restore Floq's flag. I think the point needs to be made, as forcefully as possible, that the community will not stand for unaccountable Office actions which bypass or override normal community-based processes.

    Not to be too melodramatic, what is being decided here is who is in charge, and I believe that if the community, collectively and individually, does not stand up to the Foundation and its staff members when they behave in ways which are detrimental to our ability to govern ourselves, we will, over time, lose that capacity altogether. That is really what's at stake here, and Jimbo Wales had better step up his "investigation" and report back PDQ before he loses what he created.

    This is not a call to the barricades ... yet, but it is intended as a warning to Wales, the Board, and the office staff that they are playing with fire, and if they think that en.Wiki -- which is the community, is going to roll over and play dead, they could well be surprised. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    At the very least, the WMF board needs to meet via teleconference and make the decision to set the playing field back to zero, undo every Office Action taken in this incident, and open a frank and honest dialogue with the community instead of hiding behind empty boilerplate bullshit. The people who built this encyclopedia deserve nothing less. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:58, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
There's no need for clarification. They can do whatever the fuck they want without explanation. It is absolutely, strictly, THEIR COMPUTER and they'll throw off whoever they feel like, censor whatever they want, push whatever shitty video game ads on the Main Page they want, and work with any and all paid editors they want. Wnt (talk) 01:56, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Wnt, please stop your pessimistic and paranoid (as well as wildly unrealistic and ungrounded) postings here. I believe everyone is well aware of your viewpoint, and, frankly, you're not helping anything by constantly being Debbie Downer. If you have so little faith that the Foundation wants to help make en.wiki better, despite their current missteps, you should simply stop editing here and find something else to do with your time. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:04, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Good luck. Paranoid conspiracy theories, particularly on Wale’s TP, is WNT’s thing. Capeo (talk) 02:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
...and it is exceedingly tiresome, Wnt. Like a broken record. Go back to Jimbo's talk page where you usually hang out and make dire predictions. Liz Read! Talk! 03:37, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Wnt's posts look perfectly factual and accurate to me, in saying what could happen (not necessarily what will happen, at least immediately). Maybe Debbie Downer is just a Depressive realist ;-). 67.164.113.165 (talk) 04:40, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Since Wnt is prognosticating, unless you've got a time machine that can take you into the future, there's no possible what that you can know that they are "factual and accurate". If what you meant to say was "I agree with Wnt" or "I think that what Wnt said is a possible outcome of this affair", please just say those things, and not wrap your personal opinions up in false claims of factuality. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:13, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
This is an important and thought provoking tangent, imo, i.e. Is what WNT saying "factual and accurate". I admit I do not know enough about the inner workings and relationships between the WMF and the rest of us, so I'd like to try to figure this out by critical thinking and perhaps a thought experiment. I am intrigued by WNT's claim that "it is absolutely, strictly THEIR COMPUTER". What exactly is that statement saying and is it factual and accurate? Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:17, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Okay, 28: F*** the WMF Office for its heavy-handed and authoritarian actions seemingly designed to inflame and divide the editing community. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 04:16, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • 28bytes-- to misquote Fram: Fuck ArbCom WMF which doesn't even understand their own messages and again give themselves powers they don't have. First it was deletions visual editing, then it was mandatory 2FA "AI-generated content", inbetween it is loads of evidence of utter incompetence in many of its members (witness the statement by AGK the WMF Trust & Safety Team above, but also some of the comments at e.g. the Rama Media Viewer RFC case request). Just crawl into a corner and shut up until the community asks you to do something within your remit, but don't try to rule enwiki as if you have the right and the competence to do so. Or collectively resign. But don't give us any more of this bullshit. Fram (talk) 07:39, 4 May 2019 (UTC) 67.164.113.165 (talk) 04:19, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Doesn't really seem to fit here since the WMF have not given themselves powers they don't have. They have always had whatever powers they wanted to on their end of things. Nil Einne (talk) 03:07, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
  • There's no clarification needed IMHO. They've said temporary, it's temporary and he gets the rights back after 30 days. They can desysop but they can't mandate an RfA. I think that's a misunderstanding on their part. Doug Weller talk 05:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    • They can because the bureaucrats interpret being desysopped by the WMF as "under a cloud" and will not give the bit back without a RfA. Enigmamsg 05:39, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
      • The crats, the community at RfA, it doesn't really matter. The default for desysopping is that the bit can be reinstated via RfA at any time, with the understanding that a just desysop could not be reversed for years and years. The 30 day freeze on resysopping, AFAIK, is unprecedented, which is hilarious, because they're admitting that they know that everyone would rubber-stamp a resysop same day if we could, which by extension is an admission that the desysop is blatantly unjust and that they need to prevent it from being overturned for their own reasons. ~Swarm~ {sting} 06:00, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
        • I just think it's significant that the 'crats indicated they will not return the bit because while being without the bit for 30 days is not a big deal, having to undergo a new RfA is. You'll deal with the usual opposes from anyone who doesn't like you, plus added opposes from people who believe "if you were desysopped, you obviously did something very wrong, so you shouldn't be trusted with the tools." Good luck finding anyone who was desysopped and actually passed a RfA. I think Floq would pass because the RfA would get tons of eyes and the community overwhelmingly feels the WMF is out of line, but not without a significant amount of opposes. Enigmamsg 06:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
          • Enigmaman: in both your comments above you seem to indicate a belief that the bureaucrats have presented a unified front on this matter, but I do not see that as the case. What is clear is that to return the bit summarily after 30 days requires either new community policy considerations or an IAR action as this situation is unprecedented on this project. –xenotalk 19:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
            • The discussion may have changed since I read it. I read the discussion at BN/WT:ADMIN before I commented here and based on the discussion at the time, every 'crat (who chimed in) had said they would not resysop automatically. Obviously, time has now passed since my comments, and more replies have been made at BN/WT:ADMIN. Enigmamsg 20:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
        • Swarm, not unprecedented, see [2] for the same. Quite possibly that's the last case of something similar, which received the same response. Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:33, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
          Galobtter, interesting, and relevant. What happened at the end of 30 days? S Philbrick(Talk) 18:44, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
          You can see the discussion at c:Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2016/03#Edit_and_wheel_warring, not sure what happened at the end of it. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:56, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • So, what admin wants to unblock Fram next? I don't care that this is wheel-warring; the WMF fucked this up royally, and consensus that the block and ban is unjustified, as far as I can see, has not changed at all. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 06:04, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    • I would strongly discourage this. The WMF already basically mandated Floq will need a new RfA and it can only be done after 30 days. I doubt they'll be as 'lenient' with the next one. Anyone considering unblocking Fram should consider that there's a very real possibility that they won't be an admin here for a long time. The WMF knows the community is against them. They don't care and they will continue to lash out at those who defy them. Enigmamsg 06:18, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    • Then let them lash out. Let them deop whoever the fuck they please. Let them ban whoever the fuck they please. The more open our defiance, the more open their responces to it will necessarily have to be, and it's going to spill out sooner rather than later. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 06:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I think this must go to ArbCom for clarification. RfA is the community process.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:12, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • When this all ends, I think both Fram and Floq should be able to just approach the bureaucrats and ask for their admin rights back as former admins in good standing. Insisting they go through RfA is just another insult. Reyk YO! 08:01, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Is this the first time someone has been temporarily desysoped? My understanding is this Wikipedia's rule has always been that editors either hold the tools indefinitely, or not at all. I can't think of a case of ArbCom removing the tools for a set period - as far as I'm aware, they always desysop indefinitely, with the editor being able to regain the tools only after the community endorses this in an RfA. I don't think this sets a good precedent. Nick-D (talk) 08:58, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    Nick-D, in the earliest days of Wikipedia, we used to have temporary desysops. Need to check the ArbCom case archives. ∯WBGconverse 09:01, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    Thank you for that reply. As well as the question as to why the WMF thought this was a good response given that it doesn't reflect modern nroms, it's also unclear to be why Floq wasn't referred to ArbCom per the usual procedure for admins believed to have missused the tools. Surely ArbCom could be trusted to handle this? Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

30 days - or 24?

@WMFOffice: - you say that he is de-sysopped for 30 days, and the community can run an RfA after that point. Putting aside (just for now) the rightness/wrongness of this action, surely the community can run an RfA after 24 days. The requirement is "not to become an admin again within 30 days", RfAs take a week, however overwhelming the support. If an RfA is forbidden till then, you've punished him for 37 days - which would mean stating 30 days would be a lie. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:56, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

They never said the discussion had to run for seven days. It's up to us how long we want it to run. Smartyllama (talk) 14:17, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
That's a distinction without a difference. All RfAs here run at least seven days if they're to be closed as successful, so if they're saying an RfA is required (which is not exactly clear, because none of their statements have been clear about anything), then they are saying at least 7 days. Enigmamsg 14:29, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Self-inflicted damage to the WMF reputation needs to be considered

I have been a participant to this project since 2005, a registered editor since 2008, and an admin since 2011. Over that time I've witnessed multiple incidents that the Foundation didn't handle perfectly, but I never lost faith in the WMF entirely. After nearly 15 years, I have lost faith in the WMF. You no longer have my trust. You no longer have my support. If a journalist came to me right now, I would throw the WMF under the bus as a terrible and corrupt organization that has lost its founding principles. It will take serious steps to begin to reestablish that trust. It is clear that I am not the only one feeling this way. A significant portion of the community has had their faith in the WMF shattered. Most notably, Floquenbeam and Bishonen, two of our greatest, and most policy-compliant, admins of all time, who have openly rebelled in spite of the revocation of their tools. These are people who gave a great deal to your project. If you want this project to survive long term, you need to start taking the community seriously, right now. Jimbo has taken us seriously since the early days. If the WMF wishes to betray that precedent, then it deserves to be relegated to the ash heap of history. And it will. You are not immune to the court of public opinion, and you need to start realizing this. This is a turning point in Wikipedia's history. You can either side with the community, or against it. But make no mistake that your decision will make a difference in the development of Wikimedia long after this blows over. If successful in repressing this dissent, it may well break out in the media later on as a successful coverup. There are few things the public hates more than a corrupt charity. ~Swarm~ {sting} 09:37, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  • And in case it literally needs to be spelled out, it’s a big fucking deal that Floquenbeam and Bishonen have fallen on their swords over this. These are not random admins. These are serious pillars of the community who can’t be replaced. ~Swarm~ {sting} 09:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Echo above in its entirety. I have (had?) a lot of faith in WMF, and I know editors who have either worked with WMF, it's sub-orgs or were contractors, and needless to say, they were wonderful people. But, what we are seeing is a terrible, terrible way to reflect their lack of faith in the community. This needs to stop, for an organization which claims they conduct their business transparently, this is the equivalent of dirty and opaque knee-jerk reactions. Each of their response is increasing stonewalling of the community and just seems to be an authoritarian actions as a byproduct of their arbitrary whims. They keep saying each of their actions is thought out and passed through multiple staffs and that just makes it so much more worse than bad decisions, this shows a terrible design by committee that fails from the get-go. As someone who has faith in the WMF, this is just amazingly terrible behaviour from an organization that seeks to help the community. You do not have my vote of confidence any more. And everyone from the WMF who is involved in this and everyone who partook in this opaque, stonewalling move is not welcome to this community. That is all I had to say. --qedk (t 桜 c) 09:57, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

WMF chair "sexism" whitewash

  • The WMF Chair is now directly attempting to whitewash the community outrage as sexist. If this is our reward for dedication to the project, labelled by someone who couldn't who hasn't actually been an active contributor to the project since 2007, then I don't see what the point of any of this is. ~Swarm~ {sting} 10:59, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Rubbish. When you are being trolled and your personal life made sport of, including open calls to go sniffing for dirt through personal social media accounts, in some cases by active Wikipedians who are contributing to this page, then the response here is both understandable and justified. Honestly, you think none of that motivation is for bad reasons? See Jerk. --Fæ (talk) 11:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
There was certainly no possibility of sexism in the community's initial reaction to Floquenbeam's de-sysop, since the reason cited was a general statement of disregard for ArbCom. The prior warnings looked like innocent edits and certainly had no screaming banner of sex hanging over them. Heck, I'd always assumed Flo was a woman, and had to go back and change my first comments because I kept saying 'her' by accident.
That said, there is obvious potential for some "GamerGate" response tactics, which are typically to be held rightly in very low regard. Caveat being that if Wikipedia becomes an organization where central power dictates who is in and who is out and what must be deleted and what spin an article has to have, then it isn't itself any better than GamerGate tactics and there is then no moral basis on which to condemn them; they would just be "ordinary politics" at that point. Wnt (talk) 11:33, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
I have no idea what you’re referring to, Fae. I have done nothing of the sort. Neither have the vast majority of the community who are outraged, including the admins who have given up the bit over this. I don’t know who you are referring to, but it’s certainly not most of us. It’s clear insanity has prevailed here and speaking out against it will only get us slandered by the Chair herself. Until some semblance of common sense and respect for the community has been retaken, I’m done contributing. ~Swarm~ {sting} 11:37, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
It's nonsense because I have been highly critical of the lack of transparency and accountability for the use of the WMF Office account for years and was one of the first in the line to support firm re-action. What Raystorm has written on this page did not slander me, nor do I feel disrespected.
Read the personal statement in context. This was a response by Raystorm, who is being subject to intense trolling and ridicule by a number of f***tards. It was not a statement by the WMF board, and I did not read it as a statement by the WMF Chair. This is Raystorm putting in her 2c and it is perfectly understandable if she is hopping mad at the bullshit she and her personal life is being subjected to.
So, read, think, get real. --Fæ (talk) 11:57, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Will confirm User:Fæ's comment that this is a personal statement by Raystorm and not a board position. The board has not yet had the opportunity to meet. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:44, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Second, it is not, was not meant to be AFAIK, and does not sound like a statement from the Board. It is personal statement and I appreciate Raystorm's effort to make it and to follow up with the details. Pundit|utter 14:52, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I see sexism here in the response to the ban. I also see a bunch of mostly male editors who have a great deal more tolerance for harassment than do female editors. I don't know if you want to label that as sexist, but this whole discussion should be Exhibit A for why our editing community remains mostly male. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:48, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • With respect, the gender issue was never raised at all until Raystorm did so. I can see no gender-based comments in this entire thread before that section. Black Kite (talk) 18:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Black Kite. EllenCT (talk) 01:07, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
I've been pondering this, and I agree too. Sexism is a very serious, and very real, thing. It should be taken seriously, and there is no place for it at Wikipedia. But that does not mean that the very real concerns of many members of the community are the result of sexism. To a far, far greater degree, the concerns were triggered by some incredibly clumsy moves by the WMF. Editors should be able to call foul on that without being accused of sexism. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:21, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Nuance always gets lost in outrage. My read of Raystorm's post mentions the user in question has been the subject of harassment for being named and caught in the crossfire here. I don't think the community is being accused of sexism as a whole, but rather noting the damage to the named user is greater because the user publicly identifies as female on the site, especially since - I believe? - Raystorm identifies as male. Regardless of how we got here, this is a problem worth noting. I strongly disagree with the sentiment the community outrage is sexist, but I do believe an arm of it absolutely is. SportingFlyer T·C 06:04, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
SportingFlyer, Raystorm is Maria Sefidari - see here for more information. Mr Ernie (talk) 06:25, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
@Mr Ernie: Thank you - I read the comment below which suggested the user's name was Raymond Storms and took it literally. SportingFlyer T·C 06:57, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
@SportingFlyer: - and to clarify for everyone else - I was referring to a hypothetical situation of two males in my below post.. starship.paint (talk) 07:06, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
@Starship.paint: I apologise for jumping to conclusions. SportingFlyer T·C 08:18, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
@SportingFlyer: - okay, don't worry about it! starship.paint (talk) 08:20, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
@Calliopejen1: - I also see a bunch of mostly male editors who have a great deal more tolerance for harassment than do female editors. - okay, so from your statement, males apparently think differently from females. I don't know if you want to label that as sexist - would males thinking differently be sexist? Not in my view. It would only be sexist if the male editors would not tolerate harassment of other male editors, but allowed harassment of female ones. Frankly, I don't think anything at all would change if, hypothetically, the accuser was Lawrence Male, and the Foundation member being Raymond Storms. starship.paint (talk) 01:50, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment Not only am I not a "gamergater", I never even heard the term until Raystorm decided to paint the community with it. I'm unsure whether I should be offended or not and I am deliberately not reading up on whatever her pet issue is. Enigmamsg 20:49, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Can someone link to where Raystorm made the statement this thread discusses? If it had been posted here, the recent refactoring (which IMHO has been helpful) removed it. -- llywrch (talk) 19:40, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
    /Archive 1#Response from Raystorm. —Cryptic 19:50, 18 June 2019 (UTC)


Dispute resolution

I claim to have real-world dispute resolution experience. Both naughty aggrieved kids, and disgruntled old employees. My take on Wikipedia dispute resolution is that it is a bunch of amateurs doing it poorly. Non-criminal disputes are not resolved in public, but in a private room. Resolution begins with a gentle facilitator who happens to have a big stick in their back pocket for their discretionary use at the end of the day. The facilitator may have an assistant aka junior trainee facilitator or mentor facilitator. There are the two conflicting parties, each may have 1-2 support persons. The facilitator speaks to each of the parties, separately, before the group conference (i.e 3-8 people). There may be a small number of cycles, but timely resolution is a requirement. Outcomes include a resolution, or at least one binding agreement with the facilitator.

In this case, while I don't know Fram or any of the facts, I suspect that a suitable outcome is a binding agreement between Fram and the Facilitator along the lines of strict adherence to a code of conduct. A future violation should be readily decided, objectively, by a Facilitator. Real world possible extreme outcomes include a facilitator recommending to management the dismissal of the employee, or referral of the matter to police.

Real world dispute resolution often sees an imposed outcome where the naughty party then proceeds to escalate the dispute with the facilitator. This is a good outcome for the victim party, they are released from the dispute. It is OK for the facilitator if the facilitator abided by their own code of conduct and holds the firm support of their organisation. The usual outcome is some form of resolution, a soft agreement on working together better, or working apart, and a soft agreement that everything said in the room is not for repeating in public. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:46, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

What do you do when a kid who can't toss the newspapers on the right lawns says she's being harassed because a kid with a paper route who's good at it complains about her when she keeps screwing up? EllenCT (talk) 02:55, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
1. Listen.
2. Separate the pertinent facts from the irrelevant facts from the substantiated and mere opinion. "can't toss the newspapers on the right lawns" is likely both untrue and irrelevant. What are the facts of the alleged harassment? Was there harassment? Is there perceived harassment.
3. Talk to the other kid. Listen.
4. Depends on the story. At best, the first kid needs support, and the second skilled paper kid is unskilled at supporting the first kid's upskilling. At worst, the second kid is cleverly sabotaging and undermining the first, and the situation needs management. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
What if the kid who isn't delivering the papers is also friends with the editor of the paper, and "asks a favour"? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:53, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
With that sort of thing you'll find the advantage of the facilitator having private separate meetings with the parties. They are liable to slander. They may invoke powerful other people. Do you think the editor of the paper enjoys having his bully nephew invoke their relationship in his troublemaking? Do you think the editor of the paper might make a more useful contribution if (i) he is brought into the dispute unprepared and publicly in front of his office, or (ii) he is brought into the dispute, privately, and only after the facilitator has helped the bully kid with expressing their position, and the kid affirms that he wants to involve the editor. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:51, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree with Joe about how it works in the real world, although I'd phrase "amateurs doing it poorly" as "untrained volunteers doing the best they can". And that's the first of several key differences between Wikipedia and the real world. In the real world, facilitators, mediators, arbitrators, etc., are trained professionals, not anonymous internet users. They are usually unknown to the parties except in their role as facilitator or whatever. Rarely are they the parties' co-workers, and that means they're totally uninvolved, won't be accused of favoring one side or another, and the parties don't see them again after they're done. The parties usually pay money for their services, and the risk of failing to come to an agreement (or failing to abide by a binding decision) is that they will have to pay more money (e.g., to lawyers), so they have motivation to cooperate and find a workable resolution they can live with. Not so here, where it's free to disagree. Also, the "shuttle diplomacy" you describe (private meetings with each side, in addition to "public" group meetings) is very effective and used in all sorts of real world venues, but I think it would have community pushback here due to the unique culture of transparency. (See, for example, this page and its archives.) – Levivich 03:07, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Facilitators are not necessarily trained. Employee disputes do usually involve co-workers. Social services dispute resolution (or "counselling") involves people tied together by life circumstances. I think many of the Wikipedia disputes that are ill-suited for current Wikipedia resolution methods are very similar to the set of problems involving kids with socialization difficulties through to disgruntled older employees.
My experience does not involve dispute resolution payments to anyone. It's either social services, with underpaid or volunteer staff, or organisation staff whose primary role is not dispute resolution, and they don't really want to do it, but they have to. I have seen and followed some fee-receiving. They may work for legal disputes where parties already are or have lawyers, but not for social difficulties among volunteers, children, or simple workers.
Face-to-face closed-door meeting is very important in the real world dispute resolution I know. It is hard to think of how it could be replicated in an online setting. One of the features of an initial meeting of a facilitator with an party (whether aggrieved or accused) is that the party may some some seriously disturbing, biased, inaccurate and defaming things. These discussions occur privately and un-minuted for good reason. The challenge of the facilitator is to help the party better articulate the issue from their perspective. Turn "he hates me and harasses me all the time" into "when he calls me from across the floor it makes me feel embarrassed in front of my colleagues". Communication by body language, eye contact, patient listening while a party works through their feelings, these things will be difficult to do without. One possibility I have thought of is similar to the concept of Wikipedia:Writing for the opponent. If a complaint or a testimony is given to the facilitator or to the other party, it may work to have the receiver re-write the testimony in their own words, for confirmation that the testimony has been heard and understood. I worry that this may be overly formal, tedious, and tending to generate unwanted written records.
Resolving interpersonal subjective social frictions, incivility, harassment is not something that I think ArbCom can ever be good at. It requires that facilitator to be patient, kind, and to have that big stick in their back pocket. The big stick would be the WMF Terms of Service. The facilitator need not have final authority, but they must have the backing of someone with final authority. I think WMF has to take ownership of submissions of complaints of incivility and harassment. I think a Code of Conduct is essential for a workable civility or harassment dispute resolution process. Transparency of process is important, even if details are kept private.
Respect for natural justice is essential. I'm afraid, regrettably, that an anonymous complaint cannot be acted upon. Doing so turns the facilitator into an apparent bully, and the perpetrator into the victim. At best, a facilitator or moderator can investigate and call out the accused for their publicly known actions, invite the perpetrator to engage the facilitator directly with their unacceptable behavior, then proceed from there. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:28, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Anonymous complaints can most certainly be acted upon. That's what investigations are for. If you receive an anonymous complaint saying "User is making death threats", without anything to back it up you dismiss that, sure. But if you receive an anonymous complain with "User is making death threats" accompanied by 25 diffs of death threats, failing to "act on it" because you don't know the identity of who complained about death threats is nonsensical. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:53, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Can be, but not without your investigation. You are going off my page here. A counselor, or dispute resolution facilitator, or grievance officer, does not "investigate" so much as listens to what the parties think their problems are. Its less about facts than perceptions. And if there is a credible death threat, then suddenly this is a criminal dispute out-of-scope for private dispute resolution. However, many kids, and family members, make death threats. Is it credible? You have to decide which way to go, attempt a resolution, or refer to police. In the workplace, a death threat is deadly serious. 25 diffs of death threats on a public website should call for a bad on the person, and referral to police if the person can be identified. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:59, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
In some cases, obviously, yes. This highlights the utility of restructuring our user reporting architecture. Instead of the current AN/I, there should be a noticeboard similar to AIV for obvious and immediately actionable conduct problems. Everything else should go through a more structured process, ideally with some of the features SmokeyJoe has mentioned. The system we have now just leads to people slinging as much mud as possible, inevitably getting pretty dirty in the process. Not only is it dysfunctional, it reflects poorly on the project. —Rutebega (talk) 18:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for this, SmokeyJoe! I was thinking along similar lines - we are not actually great at resolving disputes on-wiki. Mediation and de-escalation don't often happen, in part because they are actually very difficult to do and we don't train anyone to do them. Victim support doesn't really happen at all. The only element we have is a disciplinary panel (Arbcom). Worth looking at the (volunteer) dispute resolution roles of the UK Liberal Democrats ... The Land (talk) 19:05, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia is pretty good with Content disputes. Every page has a talk page. WP:3O. WP:RFC. WP:AfD & WP:DRV. It is not good at trouble between volunteers. WP:ANI does a fair job in many cases, flair-ups between individuals, for example. I had a good look at the Wikipedia:Mediation Committee and formed most of these views. It did its mediation in full view, and hard evidence was recorded on the wiki from the very start. That is not how to manage trouble between volunteers. The Mediation Committee also didn't have the big stick in their back pocket. Victim support doesn't happen in full view with all correspondence recorded, in full view. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:44, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Editor retention

 

It's been noted by various people that if you piss off the volunteers, they leave. This is certainly true. However, I strongly suspect that the people who worry about our governance process, or are even aware of its existence, is a very small faction of our volunteer community. They may do a disproportionately large share of the editing (not to mention all the mopping), but overall, they're not who we need to be worried about when we're talking about editor retention.

The pie chart I've linked to is five years old, but I doubt anything has changed much. The top 10,000 people, which almost certainly includes all the people who have commented here, contributed 1/3 of the edits. The rest of the community contributed 2/3.

Let's assume WMF does some hypothetical thing which pisses off enough of the top 10K, that 10% (uniformly distributed) of them quit. Let's further assume that this same action makes wikipedia a more user-friendly place by reducing aggressive behavior, threatening language, and disharmony. Which results in a 10% increase in retention among the long tail of the community. This gives us 3% fewer total edits from the big users, but 6% more total edits from the small users, for a net increase of 3%. Even if you stipulate that this thing done by the WMF was a breach of process, it's still a win as far as increased community involvement is concerned.

Yeah, I know. The numbers are somewhat made up. And it doesn't take into account that the top 10% includes essentially all of the users with advanced capabilities. But, the WMF doesn't exist to (only) serve the serve the power users. It exists to serve the entire user community. As do all of us in the admin corps. My value as an admin isn't when I adjudicate some highly technical AfD argued by policy-quoting experts on both sides. It's when I help a newbie with something that needs a mop and convert them into a long-term contributor. I think we sometimes lose sight of that.

-- RoySmith (talk) 23:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

RoySmith, I think you're right to a degree, and we should generally try to avoid having a bite for new contributors. That being said, though, pissing off a few senior contributors to the extent they leave might have the same impact as annoying thousands of new contributors, since many of them only edit once and never again. We need to think very carefully before we do that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:29, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Not everyone with less than 8000 edits is new. Some of them may even be among us. —Rutebega (talk) 23:49, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
  • RoySmith: Do the pie chart and your premise ignore the quality aspect of wikipedia articles and edits? If you count edits that are vandalism, disruption, misinformation, disinformation, blogging, testing, plugging of WP:WWIN content and such as equal in value to a high-quality summary of peer-reviewed scholarly sources, then your analysis is right to that degree, but deeply flawed from the community aims perspective. It is generally the repeated vandalism/abuse/disruption/gaming/disrespect of our content and editing guidelines that get our admins and active editors obnoxious and hostile. Sometimes they are more obnoxious than is necessary. Yet, Wikipedia needs these gadflies if we want well-sourced, scholarship-based, neutral and better quality articles. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:41, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
It's certainly true that much of the "rest of Wikipedia"'s edits are poor in one way or another, and have been reverted - especially 5 years ago and further back. But equally, and especially in those days, quite a lot of the top editors' work was doing the reversions. Johnbod (talk) 16:24, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 
T&S versus the effects of false information and disinformation?
        • Johnbod: Thanks. We need to find ways to politely, yet firmly, discourage poor editing. Or better, how to evolve the poor editors into better editors. I tend to review, edit or intervene in dispute-filled, sensitive topics relating to religions, history, ethnic or interreligious conflicts, elections, and such topics in South Asia, East Africa and elsewhere. I am concerned that some well-meaning editors commenting on this Framban page may not be considering the "Health and Safety" impact on our readers and our fellow human beings too poor to afford internet-connected devices. There can be and sometimes is a real effect of fake hate propaganda, misinformation, disinformation and careless (or intentional) nonsense in en-WP article by the way it affects the social media, public or political discourse. We need watchful and when necessary aggressive admins to help maintain the quality of Wikipedia articles. All editing is not of the same value. Quality is important. Our admins and editors need an open community-consensus process to patrol and act. I hope the WMFOffice initiatives at T&S and the actions such as Framban do not adversely affect the "Quality and Reliability" of en-WP content. We must not jeopardize the "Health and Safety" of individuals and communities affected by what our articles contain (e.g. our health/pharma/medical/civil war/terrorism/past genocides/conflicts/etc articles). Of course, we can and should achieve this without unnecessary obnoxiousness or hostility between editors. Obnoxiousness and harassment is, at times, a serious problem in en-WP. We must welcome new editors, yet we must also be protective of our admins because they are, at times, subject to a lot of abuse and burnout. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:24, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • @RoySmith: - while it's an interesting argument (and not without at least some theoretical benefits), your penultimate line reads "it's when I help a newbie with something that needs a mop and convert them into a long-term contributor". Your hypothetical mooted a 6% increase in new edits. But that assumes that the loss of helping editors + loss due to a less well-run website, won't eat away those new editors. The aggression absolutely does drive them away. I would like a firmer CIVIL requirement... though one that is promulgated, not imposed from the darkness. However there is more than one way to discourage new editors from sticking around. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:45, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I'd not noticed this section before. Roy, again, said what I wanted to say better than I could. So call this a strong endorse. Hobit (talk) 21:26, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
  • The false premise here, Roy, is that WMF gives a rat's dingus about the encyclopedia. They care about staying out of the headlines so that the donation money flows into the trough. Controversy is bad for business, so controversial Wikipedians can walk the plank... Carrite (talk) 04:14, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
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