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

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Opabinia externa (talk | contribs) at 22:01, 22 June 2019 (→‎What is the WMF doing?: quick note). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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    Shortly before 18:00 UTC on 10 June 2019, the English Wikipedia administrator Fram was banned by the Wikimedia Foundation from editing the English Wikipedia for a period of 1 year, consistent with the Terms of Use (quote taken from the block log). A note was placed at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard, resulting in a large community discussion. In order to both centralize the discussion and remove it from the noticeboard two 'crats agreed that it should be moved to a new location. The original discussion (Special:PermaLink/901372387) was copied here at 12:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC) with this diff. Note that threading may have changed for readability.
    There is a collection of prepared/official statements published by various stakeholders, for your convenience.
    There are also different summaries of this page if you do not wish to read the entire page and its archives.

    Please also see the two Arbitration cases that were opened in relation to this incident, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Reversion of office actions (decided 5 July 2019) and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram (Case closed on 19:16, 21 September 2019 (UTC)).

    User:Fram banned for 1 year by WMF office

    This section holds the original announcement of Fram's one-year ban on the bureaucrats' noticeboard, and the comments of many editors. Most of these comments were made prior to follow-up statements from Fram and the WMF and may be outdated. Further discussion probably belongs in a newer section of this page.

    Fram (talk · contribs · logs · block log) Please note admin User:Fram has been banned for 1 year as per Office action policy by User:WMFOffice. - Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 17:56, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    What the hell? There had better be a damn good explanation; Fram is arguably the best admin in Wikipedia's history, and while I can imagine problems so bad they warrant an emergency WP:OFFICE ban without discussion, I find it hard to imagine problems that are simultaneously so bad they warrant an emergency ban without discussion but simultaneously so unproblematic that the ban will auto-expire in a year. ‑ Iridescent 18:01, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    And also only applicable to enwiki, meaning Fram can communicate on other wikis. I note that the WMF only recently gave themselves the power to do partial bans/temporary bans.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:09, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Galobtter - Any clue about whether Fram's ban is the first exercise in implementing these or have other editors been subject to these P-bans, earlier? ∯WBGconverse 18:43, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Winged Blades of Godric, first on enwiki at least per User:WMFOffice contributions, I checked de wiki and found some more de:Special:Contributions/WMFOffice; the timing of those dewiki bans suggests the policy was put into place to ban those two people. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:47, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Winged Blades of Godric: It is not. The first WMF partial bans were done in German Wikipedia. The earliest that I know of is Judith Wahr in February. Policy regarding partial bans were added around the same time (about two hours prior to the bans' implementation). -★- PlyrStar93 →Message me. ← 18:50, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't want to import drama from other projects into here but is there any more public info (i.e. discussed on de.wikipedia in a public location and still available) on what went on there? As mentioned, the timing of the policy change suggests it was likely at least partly done to allow a block of that specific user. Given the way the WMF stepped in, I expected something similar to here, may be an experienced editor who was blocked. But they only seem to have around 900 edits. True the ban there was indef though unlike this one and it doesn't seem the editor is particularly interested in editing elsewhere however as others said, it was technically also only a partial ban since it didn't affect other projects suggesting whatever it is wasn't severe enough to prevent editing any WMF projects. Nil Einne (talk) 06:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I suspect this isn't going anywhere further but for the benefit of others I had a quick look at machine translations of one of the discussions linked and think that possibly the account linked above was just one of the accounts the editor used which may explain the low edit count. Nil Einne (talk) 10:19, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    See #FYI: Similar incident in de.wp some months ago. Which reminded me of something I'd read about but completely forgot when replying. It sounds like the editor concerned was already either blocked or banned by the community so it probably wasn't quite like here where plenty feel any ban of the editor concerned is unjusitified. Of course concerns over WMF's over reach or getting unnecessarily involved in project governance as well as other issues like the WMF ban unlike the community block or ban being unappealable still arose. Nil Einne (talk) 22:02, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm with you on this. Fram and I have butted heads a time or two (I think?) but I just am trying to wrap my mind around a decision like this with no real explanation. I understand the nature of WMFOffice blocks but I would think that anything egregious enough for an emergency decision like this would have had some indication prior to it happening, like a community discussion about bad behavior or abuse of tools which would reveal PII (os, cu), but Fram was neither of those. I can't seem to think of a single thing that would warrant such unilateral action that could also result in only a one year ban (as opposed to indefinite, if that makes sense) and so narrowly focused on one local project. Praxidicae (talk) 18:06, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Going to echo this as well. This is a very cryptic block, which seems very hard to tie to any public behaviour. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:01, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, saying "email us" is not sufficient explanation for banning a well-known veteran editor and admin like this.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Per Iri. It's also so unproblematic that he's not banned on any other WMF projects?! Banning from en.wiki only seems like something ArbCom gets to do, not WMF. And I see he's already been desysopped by WMF, instead of locally, too. If there are privacy issues involved, I certainly don't need to know what's going on, but I do want ArbCom informed of what is going on and get their public assurance that they agree with the action, and this isn't bullshit. They even preemptively removed talk page access. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:11, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Whatamidoing (WMF), I know you're heartily sick of my pinging you, but if ever there was a situation that needed an explanation from Commmunity Relations, this is it. ‑ Iridescent 18:13, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    This is T&S business and I am not sure if Community Relations knows better. — regards, Revi 18:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Which goes back to my original point: if it's egregious enough (T&S) to warrant a unilateral decision like that, why only a year? Praxidicae (talk) 18:15, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) If it's a T&S issue, then why is he still trusted on every other project, and why is it simultaneously so urgent it needs to be done instantly without discussion, but so unproblematic it expires after a year? "We're the WMF, we can do what we like" may be technically true, but the WMF only exists on the back of our work; absent some kind of explanation this looks like a clear-cut case of overreach. As Floq says, if there's an issue here that can't be discussed publicly then fine, but given the history of questionable decisions by the WMF I'm not buying it unless and until I see a statement from Arbcom that they're aware of the circumstances and concur with the actions taken. ‑ Iridescent 18:20, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I've asked ArbCom to comment at WT:AC/N. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:26, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • WTF? Echo everything that Iri says. ∯WBGconverse 18:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • As above. I am not Fram's biggest fan (the feeling is more than mutual, don't worry) but when I saw this in my watchlist it was an actual spoken 'WTF' moment. We need a good explanation, quickly. GiantSnowman 18:50, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Office has full-protected Fram's TP in the midst of this discussion; it is hard to believe they do not know it's going on, but certainly easier to believe that they feel they can ignore it. 2A02:C7F:BE76:B700:C9AE:AA89:159B:8D17 (talk) 18:52, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Like everyone else, I simply fail to understand why the Foundation would ban a good-standing admin for no apparent reason. funplussmart (talk) 18:52, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • T&S: training and simulation? Very confused. Talk English please. DrKay (talk) 18:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • A big ‘ole whiskey tango from me too. –xenotalk 19:03, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've put a note on meta:User talk:JEissfeldt (WMF), I believe that is the place for a wiki-talkpage-request. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:05, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • (moved from an) Holy shit, what? That’s insane. It appears that their admin rights have also been removed... can only wmf restore the rights, or will fram have to go through an rfa?💵Money💵emoji💵💸 19:06, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Neither; this is a WP:OFFICE action so we can't overturn it. Per my comments above, I can't even imagine the circumstances in which this is legitimate, since if it were genuinely something so problematic he needed to be banned instantly without discussion, it would be something warranting a global rather than a local ban, and permanent rather than time-limited. ‑ Iridescent 19:09, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • "HELLO? IS THIS THING WORKING???" Explanation required. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:13, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I sent a note to the WMF email address listed on User:Fram and asked for an explanation. I would suggest that perhaps other people might want to do the same. I imagine that T&S has valid reasons, but I believe that some sort of summary explanation to the community, at a minimum, is called for in this case. UninvitedCompany 19:15, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Uh, yeah. Explanation required, please WMF. The fact he's only been banned from en.wiki and not globally locked suggests it's regarding something that's happened regarding this wiki. So, we're waiting. Black Kite (talk) 19:22, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      In the absence of any explanation, the cynic in me guesses that at some point in the next 12 months the WMF are going to reattempt to introduce the forced integration of either Wikidata, VisualEditor or Superprotect, and are trying to pre-emptively nobble the most vocal critic of forced changes to the interface. ‑ Iridescent 19:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Don’t forget Media Viewer —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 23:56, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @Iridescent: The cynic in you has some evidence in its favor ... . * Pppery * it has begun... 19:41, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      This is worth quoting in full: This priority will focus on deeper evolutions to the core product — integrating content from Commons, Wikidata, Wikisource and other projects into Wikipedia. This will be accompanied by rich authoring tools and content creation mechanisms for editors that build upon new capabilities in AI-based content generation, structured data, and rich media to augment the article format with new, dynamic knowledge experiences. New form factors will come to life here as the outcomes of earlier experimentation. We will showcase these developments in a launch for Wikipedia’s 20th birthday in 2021. Nice of them to ask if we wanted this, isn't it? ‑ Iridescent 19:46, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, if the WMF office knew anything, they knew this would blow up. So waiting is inappropriate really, they should have already been in a position to respond immediately to this. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:26, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    •  Bureaucrat note: (and response to User:Money emoji) While it is useful to have a notice here about this action, there isn't really anything for 'crats to do right now. The WMF Office action indicates a 1 year prohibition on administrator access at this time that we would not override. Per the administrator policy, former administrators may re-request adminship subsequent to voluntary removal. As Fram's sysop access removal is not recorded as "voluntary", the way I see it is that a new RfA, after the prohibition period, would be the path to regaining admin access (outside of another WMF Office action). — xaosflux Talk 19:29, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • At ths point I don't even care about the reasoning but there is no way that the WMF can claim this is preventative. If it's so bad that WMF had to act in what appears to be a local matter, why is there no concern about this a year from now? Why, if whatever happened is so bad, is there no concern about ill intent on the hundreds of other projects Fram could edit? I'm not suggesting Fram be indeffed but I think some transparency from WMF is needed here, the optics are very bad and no matter which way I connect the dots on this, it seems extremely punitive. Praxidicae (talk) 19:30, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, the term "Poisoning the Well" comes to mind. Fram comes back, has to go through an RFA if they want the tools back (where they did a hell of a lot of good on preventing shitty code and tools from being unleashed here). There is a substantial population here that will vote against them simply because of this action, being right or not. spryde | talk 22:31, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes, WMF has poisoned the well and provided precisely zero justification for doing so. Heinous. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:33, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @Praxidicae: this has the comment I most agree with on the subject. It never was preventative, and I think that being the case is what caused much of the stir. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 13:19, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah,a big whiskey tango foxtrot from me as well. What the hell are they playing at? Reyk YO! 19:41, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Could this have been self-requested? I can't imagine T&S saying yes, but you never know. In any case, piling on here. An explanation is required. Without one, people will assume the worst, either about Fram, or the WMF. I'm ashamed to admit my mind already went to same place as Iridescent's. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:48, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Speculation can take us anywhere of course. Keep in mind there could be additional T&S terms that we are unaware of (such as a speculative "may not hold admin or above access on any project for a year") - functionally, enwiki is the only project where advanced access provisioned, so may have been the only one where rights modifications was warranted. — xaosflux Talk 19:51, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Add me to the list of those who said "WTF" out loud after seeing this. The scope of the ban is baffling, too; if Fram has violated the terms of use, why only a year, and why only the English Wikipedia? If they haven't, then why a ban at all? Also, the WMF is doubtless aware that Fram was an admin with a long an prolific history of productive editing. Any office action against them was always going to be controversial; so why wait to post a statement at all? I see that the de.wiki bans were also to a single wikimedia project; but I haven't enough German to find any subsequent discussion. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:52, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • WTF???? I wasn't aware of any misconduct from Fram that warranted this. I'm eager to know what prompted this ban.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 20:01, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Early betting at Wikipediocracy is that this is preliminary to some sort of centralized imposition of either Superprotect or Flow or Visual Editor, Fram being one of the most outspoken critics of WMF technological incompetence and bureaucratic overreach -- not that there is much room for debate about that at this point. I share the views expressed above: we need answers. Carrite (talk) 20:04, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Which is clearly way outside any "office actions". That's called "repression" where I come from, should it be in any sense true. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:11, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Every block needs to be given a reasonable explanation. Without an explanation, we cannot know if a block is valid or not. This entire situation is suspect until an explanation is given. ―Susmuffin Talk 20:07, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Since it doesnt appear anyone has asked the question: Has anyone asked Fram? I am sure at least one of the admins and/or arbcom has had off-wiki correspondence with them at some point. While obviously asking the subject of a ban for their version of events has its own drawbacks, in absence of any other information.... Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:08, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, no reply. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I've already asked on Commons (where he's not banned) if he wants to make any public statement, and offered to cut-and-paste it across if he does. Technically that would be proxying for a banned editor, but I very much doubt the WMF wants the shit mountain banning Fram and me in the same week would cause. ‑ Iridescent 20:11, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I'll do it, then no harm no foul if TRM gets permanently banned. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:13, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Well I pinged him before you posted this and offered same. I have no fucks to give and lets see if he likes me more ;) In more seriousness, I am concerned that the WMF has enacted a wiki-specific limited-time ban, which indicates two things: Firstly its a local en-wp issue, possibly linked to a specific ENWP individual editor, and secondly that its punishment not a genuine concern for safety. If it was, you would just ban someone permanently, and from all wikimedia projects. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      To expand a little on the above: I want the WMF to ban editors permanently if there is a *safety* issue. I dont want them interfering in local wikis because someone got their feelings hurt. If they want to do that, they can do the rest of the work policing the userbase too. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • (edit conflict) So what, are they repressing people with no explanation now? What did they violate? SemiHypercube 20:12, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      SemiHypercube, disappearing people without explanation is accepted practice at Wikipedia in extreme circumstances; there are sometimes good reasons we want someone gone and don't want to discuss it publicly for their own privacy's sake. What's unique here is that the WMF are saying that Fram is untrustworthy here, but trustworthy on every other WMF project, and will become trustworthy here in exactly 365 days' time, both of which are confusing to say the least. ‑ Iridescent 20:16, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Not to mention that "disappearing" someone like Fram is going to cause a shitstorm, unlike the Great Purge, where you just purged those causing the shitstorm too. I'm afraid to say, and Arbcom may now ban me forever, but this looks like incompetence of the highest order by WMF. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:30, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • People I trust say this is warranted, but I do object that this was communicated to stewards and not the local ArbCom. Most en.wiki users don’t even know what a steward is, and the local arb with the least support here has more voters for them than even the most popular steward. Stewards do great work and I trust them and have a good working relationship with them, but local only blocks should be disclosed to the local ArbCom, not a global user group that is mostly behind the scenes on en.wiki. This action was guaranteed to get local pushback, and having users who were trusted locally be able to explain it. I’m someone who has a good relationship with the WMF and stewards, and as I said, from what I’ve been told by sensible people this was justified, but if I was trying to think of a better way to make the WMF intentionally look bad on their biggest project, I couldn’t. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I can not recall a single instance an explanation was given in the case of WMF ban (and being active on Commons, I have seen them a lot). I do not expect this situation to be different.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Stewards are informed the reason for every WMF ban, including this one. They can’t say what it is, but considering that this was such an extraordinary event, letting the local group that would be most comparable know the reason would have been the very least that could have been done. Then an arb could say “We’ve seen why and it’s warranted.” TonyBallioni (talk) 20:21, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      TonyBallioni, given that it only affects en-wiki it must relate to en-wiki. I no longer have Magic Oversight Goggles, but can see nothing remotely problematic in Fram's contributions or deleted contributions in the past month; is there anything in the contributions of Fram (or User:EngFram, who the WMF have also ejected) that raises the slightest concern? (You obviously don't need to specify.) ‑ Iridescent 20:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Iridescent, I don’t see any recent suppressed contributions that raise red flags. I don’t know any more than anyone else other than “Yes, this was intentional, and yes, it looks valid” from people who are generally sensible. Of the WMF departments, T&S is usually one of the most sensible. My objection here is that I know they’re pretty sensible because I’ve worked with them in the past on other things and trust them. Most en.wiki users don’t know that T&S is any different than [insert pet bad idea from the WMF here] and so communicating with the local ArbCom so at least some name recognition here could say they know why. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:40, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Pretty sure WMF has never made a unilateral decision on a local matter that resulted in a long term editor and sysop being removed for local issues either. So...Praxidicae (talk) 20:21, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    TonyBallioni, now that at least Fram's side is out, do you still trust those people? spryde | talk 13:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This might sound a bit like conspiracy theory nonsense but has anyone checked to see if WMFOffice is compromised? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:22, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Ivanvector, I was thinking something similar but that seems unlikely, as stewards have indicated that the ban was justified, and the wmfoffice account doesn't seem compromised, based on its edits. 💵Money💵emoji💵💸 20:39, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've emailed them - I suggest everyone do the same to push some weight on that route. There are actions that could warrant this - but they'd have to be confident it was Fram not a compromised account. That normally requires a bit of time consideration. Which let's us ask...why such a dramatic sudden action . ARBCOM can handle off-wiki information, so that's even fewer possible actions that could lead to this. We should also ask ARBCOM to discuss it at their monthly chat - I suspect several requests from us would have more impact. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:29, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes yes, I emailed them hours ago. Nothing at all, of course. I do wonder how much thought went into this on behalf of WMF. Perhaps the UK government have paid them to create some kind distraction from Brexit? It's probably the only rational explanation. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:33, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    It does not matter at this point what the action was as WMF acted only in a local capacity and not the global capacity that they should act under. There is no action as far as I'm concerned that would warrant WMF Office involvement in just a local project, this is black and white in my opinion and if Fram's behavior (or non-behavior, considering we don't know what has happened) was a problem only for the English Wikipedia, it should have been dealt with by measures that are in place on the English Wikipedia and not by a WMF employee/global group acting as a rogue arbcom. Praxidicae (talk) 20:31, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    From WP:OFFICE, the WMF have the right to ban from a single project on the grounds of Repeated misconduct within a single Foundation-supported project, with considerable impact either on that project overall or on individual contributors who are active in that project., but that seems unlikely here, and if there were some kind of misconduct going on, if it were at the level the WMF needed to intervene I'd expect the ban to be permanent. ‑ Iridescent 20:37, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Ditto, see my comments above. If T&S have to be involved, why are they doing time-limited bans? Thats how ENWP deals with serial problem users. If its a T&S issue they should either not be involved in day-to-day misbehaviour or should be enacting permanent bans. Time-limited either indicates its punishment or that its not an issue that rises to T&S level. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:44, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • So, are we technically prevented from unblocking? Tiderolls 20:36, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Not in a software sense, but the WMF will insta-desysop anyone who overturns them. ‑ Iridescent 20:38, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Then they need to get their collective asses in gear before someone does something regrettable. Tiderolls 20:43, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Not really. I agree that the shroud of darkness around this matter is regrettable (they haven't even gone to the extent of telling us "we can't tell you anything" yet...), but as long as we sit on the WMF's servers then we as a community are ultimately powerless to do anything about this. We can ask the question, but if we don't like the answer then our only options are to (a) keep quiet and toe the line, or (b) fork the whole encyclopedia under CC licence on to a new set of servers... (and if Wikivoyage vs Wikitravel is anything to go by, such an exercise would probably not end up a success).  — Amakuru (talk) 20:49, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Everything you post is true, Amakuru, and I'm still open to the fact that WMF's silence to Fram's advantage. My point is just because the WMF can take an action, doesn't necessarily mean the should take that action. Tiderolls 21:03, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Was that fork borne of a constitutional crisis? –xenotalk 20:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Actually, Wikivoyage was a fork of Wikitravel, not the other way around. (See Wikitravel#Community fork in 2012). * Pppery * it has begun... 20:58, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @Amakuru: - there is one other step we've seen before. In the wake of the Superprotect saga, and the failure of the Community board members to act, all three were replaced. But before we get that far, and waiting on T&S' "we can't tell you anything for your own good" - perhaps we reach out both to community liasions and to our board members? Nosebagbear (talk) 20:57, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Indeed, if a sufficient number of admins agree this should be reversed, WMF will be committing suicide to act against them. This will go to the press (I can guarantee that given questions I've received offwiki) and WMF will look stoopids. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:55, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      (edit conflict) @Xeno: The details are here... "excessive monetisation of the site (a plan to put links to a booking engine on every page was one example) and the poor and worsening technical support offered by the site's owners" is given as the main reason. So maybe a sort of ongoing low-level constitutional crisis? The trouble is, it hasn't really worked. Last time I checked Wikitravel always appears way further up the Google hits than WV, and has more daily edits.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:59, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      User:Amakuru actually Wikivoyage is now significantly more popular than Wikitravel and has received way more edits for a long time :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:39, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I don't think forking has ever really worked in the long run. See, for example, Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español. It would probably work even less here given that the English Wikipedia is the world's 5th-(?)largest website and that any fork would likely fizzle. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:36, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Do you think enwp would fare any better if the unpaid administration went on a general strike? –xenotalk 22:04, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I think it would earn immeasurable respect for unblocking Fram and dealing with the consequences. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:06, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Does anyone know of any T&S team members who would be responsive to the community? Surely one of them has to be a reasonable human being that we can actually communicate with? I find it hard to believe that "Trust" & Safety has no problem (further) decimating community relations without any attempt at damage control. Then again, WMF never fails to disappoint in these situations. ~Swarm~ {sting} 20:51, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      The whole lot of them are listed here (you need to scroll down to reach T&S); pick one you think looks trustworthy. ‑ Iridescent 20:55, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      40% of the T&S team don't trust us to let us know what they look like. Enough said. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:57, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Not entirely fair—40% of them just haven't copied their photo across from Meta yet (e.g. here's what Sydney Poore looks like). ‑ Iridescent 21:00, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Not that it is important for this matter now, but Karen Brown is the same person as Fluffernutter--Ymblanter (talk) 21:24, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Also, Sydney Poore is FloNight and her picture is on her user page. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 07:06, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:AGF says we should assume good faith on the part of editors. Absent of any further information from the WMF (or indication that there are privacy issues involved), my default assumption is that he did nothing wrong. Unless the WMF issues a real explanation, there's no proof that this isn't just the WMF trying to suppress criticism of its various failed experiments. Also, on any other wiki, site administration acting this tyranically would be a forkable offense. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 00:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • (self-removed) Legoktm (talk) 02:10, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Noting that you are *employed* by WMF. ∯WBGconverse 02:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm a software engineer with a part-time contract with the WMF (technically not an employee), though I've been a Wikipedian for much longer, and it's in that role that I'm writing here. Legoktm (talk) 02:39, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Based on my interactions and what I've observed on-wiki, it's easy for me see multiple people sending complaints to the WMF - just because those people aren't speaking up here, doesn't mean they don't exist. (my third attempt at leaving a comment here.) Legoktm (talk) 03:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Overly harsh and punitive blocks are rarely never a good idea. Even when the reasons for blocking are clear. I'm sure Fram must feel he has been treated very unjustly. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • +1 to the "WTF?" camp - I cannot wrap my head around how or even why a veteran admin such as Fram was blocked by the WMFOffice.... I also find it slightly bizarre that the block only goes on for a year and not indef ? (Not that I want it indef but I just find it odd and somewhat pointless). –Davey2010Talk 19:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just recently we ran into Guido den Broeder on Commons who immediately started to accuse me of having been canvassed by Fram. (which I wasn't) I suspect Lyrda is a sock of Guido (Guido refuses to even deny it) and Lyrda's talk page contains the note "I have revoked your talk page access after phony claims of rape". Did they proceed to do something to get Fram banned? I can't say for sure. All I'm saying is, I don't like the smell of any of this. - Alexis Jazz 19:10, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Guido is already confirmed as a sockpuppeteer, many times in fact, so that's no news. Also confirmed as lying about their socking. Blocked, unblocked and quickly reblocked. And if I was wrong about Lyrda, they would have no reason not to deny it. - Alexis Jazz 22:42, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't understand this by the way. If Fram has done something terrible and unforgivable, they should be blocked indef. If they didn't, WMF should let the community handle it. What possible purpose does a 1-year ban serve here? - Alexis Jazz 22:42, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • WOAH WHAT?!?! That ban took place while I was on a wikibreak. I never see anything controversial that involves Fram at all. Looking at the statements, I don't see what rules Fram has violated or caused controversy on. INeedSupport :3 21:33, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is a cancer, not an injury. I hope the community looks at this issue in the context of epidemic crackdowns on freedom of speech throughout our world by millions of bureaucratic fiefdoms, big and little. You see, unless we all start paying attention to all of the widespread crackdowns on freedom of speech, thought, and press (Assange, perhaps); wherever they might be, the foundation of our freedoms will be washed away 1 little stone at a time. To quote Dylan, "something is happening here but you don't know what it is, Do you, Mr. Jones."
    I will tell you exactly what is going on, imo. We, the people, are being systematically brainwashed into giving up ( not having them taken away ) all of our precious freedoms of thought, speech, press and association, and its not just some kind of happenstance. It is an orchestrated self perpetuating cultural shift away from aspirational and community empowered governing bodies toward protective, moralizing and pushy governing bodies.
    Voltaire said "the comfort of the rich depends upon an abundance of the poor". I'd say, the power of the top 1/1000 of 1 % depends upon a shallow, self centred and limited focus by us, the masses of people. Its a huge error in judgment and perspective to look at this Fram event as an isolated event; its just part of an injected cancer that's spreading into and around every single aspect and segment of humanity. Its actually trite to call it "evil"; I'd call it an aggressive and global and terminal attack upon every speck of potential goodness that rests within our collective human spirit.
    You must force yourselves to open your eyes to see this incident as just 1 little cancer cell amongst millions; you must recognise and attack the totality of the cancer and must create and/or join a global force to do that. The current banning/& lack of transparency is like a mosquito bite; its the cancer that needs your attention. If you look at it that way, the way to deal with the mosquito will be obvious. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:57, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Statement from the WMF Trust & Safety Team

    (edit conflict) Dear members of the English Wikipedia community,

    We have been approached by several volunteers with questions concerning the recent Office Action, the time-limited partial Foundation ban of User:Fram covering your project. As we saw similar questions also being asked in your discussions around the project, including here, we thought it is most accessible to interested community members to provide clarifications publicly here:

    • What made the Foundation take action at all and why at this specific time?
      • As described on the Metapage about Office actions, we investigate the need for an office action either upon receipt of complaints from the community, or as required by law. In this case we acted on complaints from the community.
      • All office actions are only taken after a thorough investigation, and extensive review by staff. This process usually takes about four weeks.
      • Office actions are covering individuals and not just individual user accounts. Therefore, the measure covers more than one user account in this case.
    • Who made the complaint to the Foundation?
      • The Foundation always aims to be as transparent as possible with office actions. However, as outlined in the general information section of the office actions page, we also prioritize the safety of involved parties and legal compliance. Therefore, we do not disclose who submitted community complaints.
    • Why did the Foundation only ban for a year?
      • As part of the Improving Trust and Safety processes program, less intrusive office actions were introduced. Those options include time-limited and partial (project-specific) bans to address serious concerns that are, however, temporary or project-specific in nature. For example, if a user has been problematic on one project in particular while contributing without concerns to another community wiki, this can now be addressed in a more targeted way than a full Foundation global ban.
    • Why did the Foundation de-sysop? Does this mean that Fram will not be an administrator when his ban ends in 2020?
      • The removal of administrator access is intended as enforcement of the temporary partial Foundation ban placed on Fram. It is the community’s decision what to do with Fram’s administrator access upon the expiration of the Office Action ban.
    • What kind of appeal is possible against this office action?
      • As a this time-limited Foundation ban is an outcome of a regular office action investigation, it is governed by the same rules already familiar from Foundation global bans: it does not offer an opportunity to appeal.

    As the team carrying out office action investigations, Trust and Safety starts cases from the position that it is up to volunteers to decide for themselves how they spend their free time within the frame of the Terms of Use and the local community’s rules provided for in section 10 of them. The Terms of Use do not distinguish whether a user participates by creating and curating content, building tools and gadgets for peers doing so, helping out as a functionary handling admin, checkuser or oversight tools or in other forms. However, on occasion community members submit evidence strongly indicating cases where local communities consistently struggle to uphold not just their own autonomous rules but the Terms of Use, too. We will continue to consider these rare cases brought to our attention under the framework of the office actions policy. Best regards, WMFOffice (talk) 20:58, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    However, on occasion community members submit evidence strongly indicating cases where local communities consistently struggle to uphold not just their own autonomous rules but the Terms of Use, too. We will continue to consider these rare cases brought to our attention under the framework of the office actions policy. So does that mean you have determined that the ENWP's community failed to uphold its own rules or the TOU in relation to Fram, despite no actual case, action or report being raised against Fram on ENWP? Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:02, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Of all the non-answers I've seen in my life, that's possibly one of the most long winded. Reyk YO! 21:08, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Award-winning. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:09, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Oooh, this sounds like a whole new way of getting rid of people we don't like... without going through the tedium of due process, ANI, ArbCom or anything. Just badger the WMF with complaints and, hey presto, the user is vanished. Winning!  — Amakuru (talk) 21:16, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    @WMFOffice: What was it about this complaint that meant it required investigation and action by WMF Trust and Safety instead of enwiki's ArbCom? If you cannot state this publicly (even in general terms), please send an explanation to ArbCom's private mailing list so they can confirm that there were good reasons for this action to be handled in this matter. WJBscribe (talk) 22:47, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Fram's response on Commons

    Thank you to everyone who commented at the various discussions or sent me an email about this. I'm as baffled about this as any of you, I'll share whatever information I have. i'll not repost full emails, as that is normally not allowed, but I'll try to give a fair assessment.

    In April 2018, I received an office email from Kalliope (on behalf of the Trust and Safety team) with a "conduct warning" based on offwiki complaint by unnamed editors. "I have taken a look at several conflicts you’ve had over the years with other community members as well as Foundation staff, and I have noticed increasing levels of hostility, aggressive expression—some of which, to the point of incivility—and counterproductive escalations." The "as well as Foundation staff" is quite telling here...

    In March 2019, I received a "reminder" about two edits I made in October 2018 (!); this one and this one. Even though acknowledging that my edits were correct, and that "We remain convinced that the activity on Laura’s articles listed above was not intended to intimidate or make her feel uncomfortable." (which is true, as I was, as is most often the case, new page patrolling when I tagged and corrected these), they issued a one-sided interaction ban (yep, the WMF issues interaction bans as well apparently, no need to bother enwiki with these any longer).

    And then a few hours ago, they posted my one year ban, and helpfully gave the actual reason. Which is one edit, this one. That's it.

    "This decision has come following extensive review of your conduct on that project and is an escalation to the Foundation’s past efforts to encourage course correction, including a conduct warning issued to you on April 2018 and a conduct warning reminder issued to you on March 2019. With those actions in mind, this ban has been triggered following your recent abusive communications on the project, as seen here [1].

    This action is effective immediately and it is non-appealable."

    Basically, after you recive a conduct warning from the Office based on undisclosed complaints, any pretext is then good enough to ban you (1 year now, I presume indef the next time I do anything they don't like). That I just happen to be one of the most vocal and efficient critics of the WMF is probably a pure coincidence (sorry to tout my own horn here, but in this case it needs to be said).

    No evidence at all that the enwiki community tried and failed to address these issues. No indication that they noticed that my conduct has clearly improved in general over the last 12 months (I said improved, not been raised to saintly standards). No, an edit expressing widefelt frustration with an ArbCom post is sufficient to ban me.

    I would like to state empathically, if someone would have doubts about it, that I have not socked (despite the rather nefarious sounding "Office actions are covering individuals and not just individual user accounts. Therefore, the measure covers more than one user account in this case."), I have not contacted or otherwise followed or bothered anyone offwiki, I have not even contributed to any of the Wikipedia criticism sites or fora (though it does become tempting now), ... Everything I did is visible on enwiki, no privacy issues are involved, and all necessary complaint, investigations, actions, could have been made onwiki.

    Basically, this one-year ban is at the same time a means to silence one of their most vocal (and fact-based, consistently supporting WMF criticism with many examples of what goes wrong) critics, and a serious (and unwarranted) blame for the enwiki admin and arbcom community, who are apparently not able to upheld the TOU and to manage the site effectively.

    This ban is not open to appeal, so I'll not bother with it: but I most clearly disagree with it and the very flimsy justification for it, and oppose this powergrab by the WMF which can't be bothered to deal with actual serious issues (like the rampant BLP violating vandalism at Wikidata, where e.g. Brett Kavanaugh has since 31 March 2019 the alias "rapist"[2] (A BLP violation whether you agree with the sentiment or not).

    I have not the faintest clue why the WMF also couldn't post the justification for their block online, but communication has never been their strongest point.

    Any non-violent action taken by enwiki individuals or groups against this WMF ban has my support. If you need more information, feel free to ask. I also allow the WMF to publish our full mail communication (I don't think it contains any personally identifying information about me or others), to give everyone the means to judge this impartially for themselves.

    Again, thank you to everyone who expressed their support, especially those who would have reasons to dislike me based on previous interactions. I'm not a model admin or editor, but I believe I was steadily improving. But that's not for enwiki to decide apparently. Fram (talk) 07:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    Copying Fram's statement from Commons here. --Pudeo (talk) 08:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • +clear right so content fills width: no content change. --Mirokado (talk) 17:46, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Responses by Jimbo (Jimmy Wales)

    1. "I was entirely unaware of this before just now. I'm reviewing the situation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)"[3][reply]
    2. "[…] Both Doc James and I are on the case, trying to understand what happened here, and the ArbCom is discussing it as well. Drama will not be necessary, but more importantly, drama will not be helpful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)"[4][reply]
    3. "I can assure you that my commitment to, and support of, appropriate principles and our established constitutional order is far far more important than any personal conflict that I may have ever had with anyone. I'm not taking any position on this yet, because the reasonable thing to do is to listen to all sides calmly and come to an understanding of the issues.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC)"[5][reply]
    4. "I'd like to remind everyone that it is my long established view that all bans are appealable to me. I seldom intervene, even if I have some minor disagreement with a ban, because no major constitutional issues or errors are at stake. It is too early to know what is going on in this particular case, but please if anyone is planning to "fall on their sword" for principle, let it be me. But, I really don't think that will be necessary here. The WMF staff are diligent, thoughtful, and hard working. If an error has been made, I'm sure they will revert and work out procedures to make sure it didn't happen again. If the ban was justified, I'm sure they will find a way to make it clear to - at a minimum, if privacy issues play a role, to me, to the board, and to the Arbitration Committee. Therefore, dramatic action would not be helpful at the present time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)"[6][reply]
    5. "I think you and I can both forecast that a wheel war will not serve as a useful introduction to a calm and reasonable discussion. Give it a little time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)"[7][reply]
    6. "I'd like to remind you that it is not even 9am in California. I think it quite clear that unblocking before they've had a chance to even get into the office will simply serve to escalate matters. I suspect that Fram himself would agree that there is no emergency. Rather than cloud the waters and make it even harder (emotionally) for a backdown (if such is warranted - we don't know yet!), it will be best to take the high road and wait until a more appropriate time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)"[8][reply]
    7. "Yes, I'm firmly recommending that we all relax a notch or two. It's not even 9am in California. There is no emergency here. I have raised the issue with the WMF, and so has Doc James. I am also talking to ArbCom. It is really important that we not take actions to escalate conflict - nor are such actions necessary. If there comes a need for a time for the community to firmly disagree with the WMF and take action, then that time is only after a proper reflection on the full situation, with everyone having a chance to weigh in.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:33, 11 June 2019 (UTC)"[9][reply]
    8. "I continue to advise calm and slow movement. Further wheel warring will not be productive and will only tend to escalate matters further. I am recommending the same to WMF, as is Doc James. We are discussing the situation with them in the hopes of finding the right way forward.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:10, 12 June 2019 (UTC)"[10][reply]
    9. "Doc James and I have been pursuing this with diligence. I continue to recommend the following to everyone here:
      • Don't wheel war - it isn't going to be helpful in achieving the goals you want, and could actually make it harder
      • Do express your opinions clearly and firmly and factually, with kindness - it's the best way to get your point across
      • Remember that there is no emergency here - the phrase "important but not urgent" fits very well - getting this right and fixing this situation is incredibly important, but it doesn't have to happen in 4 hours (and it also, of course, shouldn't take months)
      • I applaud those who have kept separate in their minds and words the separate issues here. The issue of Fram's behavior and whether desysopping and/or some form of block are appropriate is separate from the "constitutional issue" of process and procedure. Conflating the two would, I fear, only serve to raise emotions.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:16, 12 June 2019 (UTC)"[11][reply]
    10. "To be clear, to the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any direct requests by board members to line workers through middle management here. Certainly, James and I are speaking to the board and CEO, not attempting to intervene at that level at all. The board should only operate at the level of broad principles and through the top management, not detailed management of specific issues.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:55, 13 June 2019 (UTC)"[12][reply]
    11. "[…] This is not about individual people, this is a question about our constitutional order. This is not about this specific situation, but a much more important and broader question about project governance.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:58, 14 June 2019 (UTC)"[13][reply]
    12. "[…] If we characterize this as a clash between ArbCom and the WMF, we are factually in error. It's not as easy as that.
      And of course, if I were to take a dramatic action, some would cheer, and some would scream. And if I go slow and deliberate, some will not like that, either. But it is my way, the only way that I know, and when I stick to slow and thoughtful deliberation I have learned in my life that the outcome is better than if I do something sudden.
      I suppose if I had to decide "whether the community or the foundation is my true heir" I'd go with community. But I actually don't think in that way. My true heir is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. That's what I think we all care the most about, or anyway it is what we should all care the most about. One of the reasons that Wikipedia has succeeded is that we don't take anything as absolutely permanent. WP:IAR and WP:5P5 spring to mind.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:45, 14 June 2019 (UTC)"[14][reply]
    13. "[…] I wasn't trying to contrast or compare the necessity/valuation of the WMF with the community at all. I agree with you that they aren't easily separable, and I also believe that when we fall into a too hasty 'WMF vs community' narrative - either in the community, or in the WMF, we are probably making it harder to see how to optimize and resolve problems.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:46, 14 June 2019 (UTC)"[15][reply]
    14. "We on the board are in active conversations. I think you will receive a comprehensive, cogent reply, but we are looking to be thoughtful, reflective, to examine every aspect of this, and neither allow invalid precedent to be set, nor to set invalid precedent. The best way to avoid a bad outcome is to look to first principles, look at what has gone wrong, and to propose a process for healing but also for building a process that works better in the future.
      In those board discussions, I am stating my own views directly and clearly, but it would be inappropriate to share them here and now, because as we all know, there are those who like to engage in "Jimbo said" argumentation, which doesn't clear the air but instead often only creates more heat.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:58, 21 June 2019 (UTC)"[16][reply]
    15. "This is pretty accurate as a too-brief summary of the history. This is an edited version of the key sentences as I would put it myself: "Jimbo's goals then were for the community to be self-sustaining and self-governing such that it would fulfill its mission with less of his involvement as time went on. It was never a goal for the WMF to have any sort of authority over or involvement in community or content decisions beyond the removal of libellous material and copyright violations and other limited actions for public safety of various kinds, which the WMF took on for reasons of compliance." And that isn't the whole of it really, I would also argue that the WMF can and should have a role of facilitating and guiding community consultations to help the community resolve sticky issues where there is a failing of process. Reading between the lines here, you can likely guess my view of the current situation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:02, 21 June 2019 (UTC)"[17][reply]
    16. "You have clearly misunderstood what I said. Nothing about "facilitating and guiding community consultations" even remotely implies that I think they should be "judge, jury, and executioner". I don't even know what chain of thought got you from one to the other. The point is that there are things we know to be true: there are very few admins created and while most people (the vast majority) think that's a problem, there is no consensus and no process towards consensus towards resolving that issue. It's a thankless task to take on and run a project to work through various options to find something that would get us to a better place - no one has stepped up to do that (a few have tried, and thank goodness for them). WMF community support people have done a great job on consultations around terms of service and so on - we do have some positive examples of how to do this right. It isn't about ramming things down people's throat - it's about taking on the hard job of listening and framing debate, convening real-life groups to work on issues, etc.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:51, 21 June 2019 (UTC)"[18][reply]

    Further comment from the Foundation

    [Forthcoming shortly] WMFOffice (talk) 18:58, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Dear members of the English Wikipedia community,

    Over the last few days we have received many requests to review the recent issues that have surfaced due to the office action taken against Fram. We are reviewing such feedback with care and aim to reply in helping to clarify the situation. We expect to reply at least one more time as we continue to review the feedback. We hope the following helps to address several points raised so far:

    The Foundation is strongly supportive of communities making their own decisions within the framework of the Terms of Use, as outlined in section 10. There have been many questions about why the Foundation's Trust & Safety team handled this case rather than passing it to the local Arbcom to handle. This happened for two main reasons.

    • 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.
    • Secondly, we believe it would have been improper to ask the Arbcom to adjudicate a case in which it was one primary target of the person in question, as this could put volunteers into a very difficult position and create the appearance of a conflict of interest regardless of the actual handling of the case.

    For these two reasons this case was handled differently than Trust and Safety would usually have handled cases falling under section 4. of the Terms of Use.

    In terms of us providing direct justification for this ban to the community, as both several community members and we have already mentioned, we do not release details about Trust & Safety investigations due to privacy concerns. What do we mean by that? We mean that when someone reports a situation to us, or someone is involved in a case we investigate, we are obligated to keep their identity and any personally-identifying evidence private. That includes not only literally not publishing their name, but often not sharing diffs (which might show things like "who the named party was targeting" or "what dispute this investigation arose from") or even general details (in many cases, even naming the specific infraction will allow interested sleuths to deduce who was involved). What we can say in this case is that the issues reported to us fell under section 4 of the terms of use, as noted above, specifically under the first provision entitled “harassing and abusing others.”

    Many of you have asked questions about why a one-year local ban was placed in this case, as opposed to the more-common indefinite global ban. The Trust & Safety team updated the policies to allow these less-stringent sanction options for use in cases where there was reason to think time might change behavior, or where disruption is limited to a single project. The intention of these new options is to be able to act in a way that is more sensitive to an individual’s circumstances and not have to give out indefinite global bans for problems that are limited in time or project-scope. Based on the evidence we received, this is such a case and we are hopeful that if Fram wishes to resume editing in a year, they will be able to do so effectively and in line with the terms of use. Prior to this policy update, the only sanction option available in a case like this would have been an indefinite global ban.

    We know this action came as a surprise to some within the community, and we understand that many of you have deep concerns about the situation. We can only assure you that Trust & Safety Office Actions are not taken lightly, nor are they taken without sign-off by multiple levels of staff who read the case’s documentation and evidence from different angles. We take these actions only in situations where we believe no other option is available that will preserve the health and/or safety of the community. We will continue to monitor your feedback and provide at least one more reply regarding this matter. Best regards, WMFOffice (talk) 19:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Further clarification

    To follow up on the earlier statement from today, we can provide additional clarifications:

    The scope of Trust and Safety investigations: The Foundation's office action investigations generally review the conduct of the user as a whole. Therefore, they usually involve conduct on the projects over an extended period of time. In the case of established editors, the time window reviewed often extends beyond any individual complaints received and can include conduct spanning several years. The scope is one of the main reasons why such investigations usually take at least four weeks. Such investigations evaluate the conduct of a user and by default not the substance of their views.

    Conduct warnings: Conduct warnings are a rare office action. They are normally issued when a situation is observed to be problematic, and is meant to be a preventative measure of further escalation. It is considered as a step geared towards de-escalation of the situation, when there is believed to have sufficient margin for it. It informs the recipient that behavior they may consider acceptable is in fact not, grants them the opportunity to reflect on it, and encourages them to take corrective measures towards mitigating and eventually eliminating it. However, should these warnings be ignored and the problematic behavior continues, further actions (such as bans) may be deemed necessary and their text usually references the possibility.

    Style and substance: Critique is an inherently important part of an encyclopedic community. Neither the Foundation nor community institutions, like ArbCom, are above criticism. Such criticism naturally can be direct and hard on the facts, but in a community it should also remain strictly respectful in tone towards others.

    Enforcement: The Wikimedia Foundation never seeks to force administrators or other community members to enforce the Terms of Use (just like an admin is rarely 'obligated' to block a vandal), but we do greatly appreciate the work of administrators who choose to do so. Admins who do take such actions should not be subjected to threats of removal of their admin rights, when their actions are based on a good faith belief that they are upholding the Terms of Use (and any action in support of enforcing a Foundation office action or a community global ban is, by definition, upholding the Terms of Use). If community believes that their good faith efforts are misguided, the issue may need discussion, if necessary, a different approach. We are always happy to join in such conversations unrelated to individual cases. Best regards, WMFOffice (talk) 00:33, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Reinstatement of Office Action and temporary desysop of Floquenbeam

    Hello all,

    We are aware that a number of community members believe that the recent Trust & Safety Office Action taken against Fram was improper. While the Foundation and its decisions are open to criticism, Office Actions are actions of last resort taken by the Foundation as part of our role and our commitments to hosting the Wikipedia sites. In section 10 of the Terms of Use, we identify that the need may arise as part of our management of the websites to take certain actions, and these actions may not be reversed. Using administrative or other tools or editing rights to reverse or negate an Office Action is unacceptable, as is interfering with other users who attempt to enforce an Office Action or the Terms of Use.

    As has been correctly observed by users on the bureaucrats' noticeboard and other places, Office Actions are explicitly not subject to project community rules or consensus. If a user attempts to reverse or negate an Office Action, the Wikimedia Foundation may take any action necessary to preserve that Office Action, including desysopping or blocking a user or users. In this case, and in consideration of Floquenbeam's actions in reversing the Office Action regarding Fram, we have reinstated the original office action and temporarily desysopped Floquenbeam for a period of 30 days.

    Floquenbeam's contributions to the projects are appreciated and we are not against them regaining admin rights in the future, hence our action is not permanent. 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.

    However, we cannot permit efforts to obstruct or reverse Office Actions or to subvert the Terms of Use. Doing so would undermine the policy's ability to protect our projects and community. On these grounds, we will not hesitate to take further appropriate actions should such abuse occur again. The same applies for any attempts made by Floquenbeam to evade the sanctions announced against them today or by attempts by others to override that sanction. We will reply to other concerns in a separate statement as indicated in the post prior to the attempt to overrule the office action. Best regards, WMFOffice (talk) 00:32, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Further response from Fram

    I have to step away from the computer for a bit, but there has been a further response from Fram over on Commons, see here. Maybe someone can copy that here, or include as a subsection above in the original response section. Not sure. Obviously too much back-and-forth will get difficult to manage, but pointing it out as no-one else seems to have seen it yet. Carcharoth (talk) 14:01, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    For the record, since Fram has wisely not been saying too much over on Commons (apart from dealing with some trolling directed against them), but has said some more, there is this. My experience of this sort of cross-wiki communication with a single-project banned user is that it can get out of control, so it should be minimised (but it is still important to keep an eye on what is being said). This is particularly important in this case, because the head of the WMF's T&S team have said they will enact a global lock if Fram edits over here, and arguably proxying here for them can be seen as enabling that, so some care is needed here. Please note I have asked Fram if they wish the local block to be re-enacted to avoid accidentally triggering that (this is a pragmatic response to what the WMF said, not a judgement either way on whether the WMF should have said that or the principles involved). I believe self-requested blocks are still allowed (and can be lifted at any time), so if that gets requested (no idea what Fram's response will be), maybe someone else could look out for that as I am logging off soon for the night. Maybe put this in new section if it needs more prominence. Carcharoth (talk) 23:45, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    About the ban

    First, thank you to everyone who stands up against or at least questions the handling of this by the WMF (no matter if you think I'm a good admin or if you believe I should have been banned a long time already).

    Then, to the actual case. As far as I am concerned, there are no privacy reasons involved in any of this (never mind anything legally actionable). I'll repeat it once more, if it wasn't clear:

    • I have not contacted anyone I was in conflict with in any offwiki way (be it through email, social media, real life contact, whatever)
    • I have not discussed anyone I was in conflict with in any offwiki way (e.g. I have not contacted employers, I haven't discussed editors or articles at fora, twitter, reddit, whatever).
    • I haven't threatened to do any of the above either.
    • I don't know who made complaints about me to the WMF, and I won't speculate on it. The information I gave in my original post here just repeated the info I got from the WMF.

    I invite the WMF to either simply confirm that my original post was a fair summary of the posts they sent me, or else to publish the posts in full (I don't think any editors were named in their posts, but if necessary they can strike out such names if they prefer). I also invite the WMF to explain why standard procedures weren't tried first, i.e. why they didn't refer the complainants to our regular channels first.

    I'll not comment too much further, to avoid throwing fuel on the fire (or giving them a pretext to extend the ban). I'll not edit enwiki for the moment either, even when unblocked (thanks for that though), at least until the situation has become a bit clearer. Fram (talk) 11:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

    One more thing, regarding my first post here, and now BU Rob13 claming that it was misleading: they have their facts wrong (e.g. the warning was not from a year ago, but from March 2019), but I noticed on rereading my post that I had one fact wrong as well. I said that I had received an interaction ban, but what I actually had was:

    "However, in the hopes of avoiding any future issues and in the spirit of Laura’s own request on her talk page, we would like to ask that you refrain from making changes to content that she produces, in any way (directly or indirectly), from this point on. This includes but is not limited to direct editing of it, tagging, nominating for deletion, etc. If you happen to find issues with Laura’s content, we suggest that you instead leave it for others to review and handle as they see fit. This approach will allow you to continue to do good work while reducing the potential for conflict between you and Laura.
    We hope for your cooperation with the above request, so as to avoid any sanctions from our end in the future. To be clear, we are not placing an interaction ban between you and Laura at this time. We ask that her request to stay away from her and the content she creates be respected, so that there is no need for any form of intervention or punitive actions from our end."

    To me, a "suggestion" that I stay away from her or I would get sanctioned by them does read like an actual interaction ban, but technically it wasn't. But whether it was an interaction ban or not, former arb BU Rob13 should be aware that mentioning an interaction ban and the editors you are banned from in the course of ban discussions and the like is perfectly acceptable. I did not drop her name just for the fun of it, I raised the issue because it was the only thing I got alerted from by the WMF between their vague first warning in April 2018, and the ban now. I was trying to be complete and open, but apparently that was "misleading"?

    BU Rob13 may think the LauraHale thing was unrelated, but the actual mail by the WMF says otherwise:

    "This decision has come following extensive review of your conduct on that project and is an escalation to the Foundation’s past efforts to encourage course correction, including a conduct warning issued to you on April 2018 and a conduct warning reminder issued to you on March 2019. "

    (note that the "including" may suggest that there is more than these two, but there isn't: the March 2019 reminder is the LauraHale one).

    All of this could be made easier if the WMF posted their full mails of course (although by now large chunks have been reposted here). Doing this the wiki way instead of through mail would have helped a lot. Fram (talk) 13:12, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

    Statement from Jan Eissfeldt, Lead Manager of Trust & Safety

    Dear members of the English Wikipedia community,

    My name is Jan Eissfeldt and I’m commenting in my role as Lead Manager of the Wikimedia Foundation Trust & Safety team about the team’s recent investigation and office actions. In addition to this comment, the Trust & Safety team will be making a statement at Arbitration Committee Requests/WJBscribe tomorrow.

    I want to apologize for the disruption caused by the introduction of new type of sanctions without better communication with this community beforehand. While these changes were the result of the changes to the Trust & Safety team’s processes, and are not an expansion of the team’s scope, I know that these changes to the processes came as a surprise to many people within the community, and that many of you have questions about the changes.

    Responding to community concerns about the office action requires deliberation and takes some time. We have been in active dialogue with staff and others - including the Board - to work on resolutions, but we understand that the time this takes opens the door for speculation and allowed concerns to expand.

    I realize that this situation has been difficult for the English Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee (ArbCom). The Trust & Safety team apologizes for not working more closely with them in the lead-up to this point. We will improve our coordination with community-elected bodies like ArbCom across the movement when carrying out our duties.

    I also want to elaborate on the reasons that Trust & Safety cases will not be discussed in public and often not even privately with members of the Wikimedia movement who sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). When we receive non-public information, the Wikimedia Foundation must handle it in a manner that is both consistent with our Privacy Policy and any other commitments made to the person disclosing their information. When dealing with sensitive allegations of inappropriate behavior, we must ensure that we are upholding a relationship of trust and confidence with people who have entrusted us with personal information about their experiences. This means that even in cases where users have signed a community NDA, our legal obligations may not allow us to share information given to us.

    Additionally, I want to explain the reason for using a role account when performing office actions and during follow up communication. Decisions, statements, and actions regarding things such as Office Actions are not individually-taken; rather, they are a product of collaboration of multiple people at the Foundation, oftentimes up to and including the Executive Director. As a result, we use the WMFOffice account as a “role” account, representing the fact that these are Foundation actions and statements, not a single person’s.

    Some of you may remember that Trust & Safety staff used to sign with their individual accounts when discussing Office Actions. Unfortunately, this is no longer possible due to safety concerns for Foundation employees, as in the past staff have been personally targeted for threats of violence due to their Office Action edits. I am taking the step of making this statement personally in this case due to extraordinary necessity.

    There continue to be questions from some people about the Foundation’s Trust & Safety team doing investigations about incidents occurring on English Wikipedia. I want to clarify the rationale for Trust & Safety doing investigations when requested and they meet the criteria for review.

    Part of the Trust & Safety Team’s responsibility is upholding movement-wide standards based on the Terms of Use. We recognize that each of the hundreds of global communities under the Wikimedia umbrella have their own styles and their own behavioral expectations, but we also believe that there must be a certain minimum standard to those expectations. Sometimes, local communities find it difficult to meet that minimum standard despite their best efforts due to history, habit, dislike by some volunteers of the standard, or wider cultural resistance to these standards. However, it is important to keep in mind that even communities that are resistant to it or are making a good faith effort are expected to meet the minimum standards set in the Terms of Use. In cases where community influences or barriers interfere with the meeting of these minimum standards, the Foundation may step in to enforce the standards - even in situations where the local community dislikes or outright opposes those standards.

    It is important that victims of hostilities like harassment have a safe place to make reports and that we uphold and respect their privacy when they do so. The Foundation is currently working with the community on a User Reporting System that would allow communities and the Foundation to cooperate in handling complaints like harassment, and we have every hope that that system will facilitate local, community handling of these issues. However, at the current time, no such system exists for victims to make reports privately without fear that their “case” will be forced to become public. Indeed, it is often true that a mere rumor that someone was the victim of harassment can lead to harassment of that person. Unfortunately, that has been proven the case here as some individuals have already made assumptions about the identities of the victims involved. Accordingly, the Foundation is currently the venue best equipped to handle these reports, as we are able, often required by laws or global policies, to investigate these situations in confidence and without revealing the identity of the victim. That is why we will not name or disclose the identities of the individuals involved in reporting incidents related to this Office Action.

    There have been some concerns raised about the level of community experience and knowledge involved in Trust & Safety’s work. The Wikimedia Foundation’s Community Engagement Department, of which Trust & Safety is a part, supports contributors and organizations aligned with the Wikimedia Foundation mission. In order to conduct informed and contextualized investigations, safeguard the community at events, and support community governance, Trust & Safety has focused on building a team with a combination of deep Wikimedia movement experience and team members who have experience with Trust & Safety processes with other online communities. To better assess incidents, the team has people from diverse geographic, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. We have former ArbCom members, administrators, and functionaries, from English Wikipedia as well as other language communities, informing our decisions, and expertise from other organisations helping to build compassionate best practices. We have utilized all of this experience and expertise in determining how best to manage the reports of harassment and response from members of the community.

    One of the recent changes to the Trust & Safety policy is the introduction of new options that include time-limited and partial (project-specific) bans to address serious concerns that are considered temporary or project-specific in nature. This change to policy is not a change of the team’s scope of cases taken. However, it does alter the way that sanctions are enforced and unintentionally introduced ambiguity about the ability of local communities to overrule office actions.

    In acknowledgement of the confusion caused by the application of this newer type of ban, we will not be issuing sanctions against or desysopping those who edited the block or the sysop rights of those who edited the block to date. However, despite the ambiguity in its application, the ban continues to stand whether it is being technically enforced by a block or not. Should Fram edit English Wikipedia during the one-year period of their ban, the temporary partial ban of User:Fram will be enforced with a global ban (and accordingly a global lock). We must stress again that Office Actions, whether “technically” reversible or not, are not to be considered reversible by a local, or even the global, community, no matter the circumstances or community sentiment.

    The occurrence of Office Actions at times is unavoidable, but it is not our intention to disrupt local communities any further than necessary. Here we failed on that score, caused disruption to your community, and we welcome feedback about how such disruption could be avoided in the future when the Foundation takes Office Actions, and ask that we all engage in a good faith discussion bearing in mind the legal and ethical restrictions placed on anyone within or outside of the Foundation engaging in reports of this nature.

    In addition to asking for feedback about the trust and safety office actions in this incident, over the next year, the Foundation will be asking members of the Wikimedia movement to work with us on several initiatives that are designed to promote inclusivity by ensuring a healthier culture of discourse, and the safety of Wikimedia spaces. --Jan (WMF) (talk) 20:44, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Further comments from Jan Eissfeldt

    I would like to thank you all for your comments and feedback in regard to my recent post. I will try to reply here some of the main points and questions the community has asked.

    • The changes to our Office Action policy were made publicly on February 19, 2019 as part of the documentation on Meta. It has not been our practice, historically, to report changes to T&S policy to the hundreds of local communities we work with. As I have noted previously, the use of local and time-limited bans is not a change of the team’s scope but was intended to be a less heavy handed option than indefinite global bans for cases that fall within the established scope. Their intention has been to close the gap between conduct warning office actions, which played a role in this case more than once, and indefinite global bans. The community’s reaction here to these more gradual bans has been clear that such less-”nuclear” options are both confusing and not felt to be acceptable and I will consider that carefully (and these two ideas, too).
    • Regarding questions on balancing fairness to the accused party with the safety of the accusing party, this is something we have been working on for quite a long time, and it’s not something we or anyone else has perfected. By default, we reach out to the accused party for information if doing so is possible without violating the privacy of the accusing - or other involved - parties.
    • To address questions about how the T&S investigations procedures work, I have asked my team to put together some public documentation that is easier to digest than the approval path table already available on Meta together early next week.
    • Regarding the desysoping action taken, my team's reasoning was guided by the precedent set in 2016. You can find a bit more on that in my statement to the ArbCom case.

    I am continuing to read this and other related pages, and as noted in my ArbCom statement will continue to engage with the community on several other points next week when the public documentation will be ready. Jan (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Jan Eissfeldt update (06/17/2019)

    • On the question of how many cases reaching T&S result in office actions, the answer is two-fold:
    • Roughly 90% of the outreach to T&S does not result in T&S cases. There are two big reasons for that: community self-governance and the hurdle for opening T&S cases being consequently pretty high. Much of the outreach we receive therefore can be routinely addressed by others and is being redirected - including to OTRS, ArbCom, other community processes. Last quarter, for example, the percent of T&S cases opened relative to outreach received was 8.1%, the quarter before 11%.
    • Within these ~10% that become investigations, T&S cases resulted in actions in 48.18% of all investigations conducted over the last four years. That number includes both types of office actions: secondary like a private conduct warnings, and primary, like Foundation global bans.
    • For historical context: T&S cases historically used to come mainly from the English language projects but that has steadily declined to less than a third of cases (again Q1 and 2 18/19 data). The main cause for the trend has been a consistent rise in requests from other language projects.
    • I know some of you have expressed concerns about the new reporting system and the universal code of conduct here and on ArbCom’s talk page. T&S staffer Sydney Poore, who has been pinged by several editors already, will be engaging directly about these initiatives in the conversations.
    • On questions on better communications of office action procedures: Going forward, news of all substantive changes to the office actions policy will be going out to all communities; just like technical changes already do. T&S will work with ComRel to make sure it follows the usual setup and feedback reviewed on the policy’s talk page on Meta. We are also reviewing, in line with Vermont’s suggestion from last week, whether to include individual public office actions, which is more complicated.
    • We have heard your concerns about fairness to Fram of the case as it proceeded. Balancing fairness to the accused party with the safety of the accusing party is something we have been working on for quite a long time, and it’s not something we’ve perfected. Generally, we will reach out to the accused party for information if doing so is possible without violating the privacy of the accusing - or other involved - parties, but our efforts do remain a work in progress when it comes to finding the right balance in each individual case.
    The process T&S cases go through within the Foundation.
    • As far as the ability for others to avoid making mistakes and finding themselves unexpectedly sanctioned, unfortunately, we cannot publicly disclose details of this or any particular case, for all the reasons previously discussed. This means that, as much as we understand your wanting the information, we cannot tell you what specific behaviors by Fram brought about this action. We can, however, say that abiding by the ToU is required of everyone who edits a Wikimedia site. That includes refraining from behaviors described by the ToU, including “[e]ngaging in harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism”. In cases where we believe a user may not be aware that they are violating expected behavioral standards, even repeatedly, we give conduct warnings prior to any action being taken. In Fram’s case, as noted on Commons, we did send more than one of those warnings/reminders before the most recent step.
    • There have been suggestions that T&S should have piloted the newer office action measures first before proceeding with a potentially controversial case like Fram’s. I don’t agree with that as I think that bending the selection of cases to cherry-pick a good “starter” case endangers the independent investigations approach T&S has to uphold.
    • There have been questions about the investigation process itself. As indicated on Friday above, my team has built a graphic to visualize the overall process to make it easier to navigate. Traditionally, it has been documented as a table on Meta and is always followed. I hope that the graphic puts the number I detail in the first bullet of this edit above into its context. ~10% go through the process visualized here and less than half thereof result in office actions taken. Jan (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Community questions, responses, and comments

    • Question. This all seems pretty par for the course; but to Jan (WMF), you never gave a figure as to describe the quantity of requests (only percentage). If you are authorized to make that statistic public, please do so and be sure to ping me. Either way, thank you for this response and the infographic from the team. Regards, –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 02:48, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually I think it's quite fair to only give percentages, especially over time rather than merely one quarter of results. I found the information quite informative and pretty reassuring and thank Jan for that. It wasn't, however, quite what I had asked for. What I had hoped for was once we entered the approval process grey box, what percentage ultimately end up at all approvals received and what percentage end up with no office action recommended/office action declined. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:42, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • User:X decides to run for a seat on the Arbitration Committee. Just as with most other roles requiring identification, it is possible to run for ArbCom and not identify until after election (steward elections are the only exception I can think of). The WMF T&S team is responsible for updating the noticeboard. Unbeknownst to the community, X has already received two conduct warnings for WMF. How will WMF respond to this? --Rschen7754 03:11, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Interesting, thanks Jan. I was trying to think of what would be comparable numbers for arbcom, but it's hard to compare apples to apples. Looks like case request acceptance has been in the 10-20% range for the last few years, but we don't keep outcomes data like that for private complaints/requests/etc. I see in that chart a lot of stuff about who approves what in which order, but I wonder if the box where the actual investigation happens can be opened up a little more. What does an "investigation" consist of? What would the investigator look at? Assuming we're talking about a harassment case, would it include things like contacting other possible victims if you discover them, or asking the opinion of others who were affected by the problem behavior but who did not get in touch with T&S? Or is the decision about whether a particular behavior is harassing made by the person doing the investigation? Under what circumstances would a particular report be referred back to arbcom (or to community processes) rather than pursued internally? The chart tells us how WMF staff communicate internally about these things, but not about communication with or information-gathering from anyone other than the directly affected parties. (The table has a bit more, but to be honest I can't understand the "Dissemination of information relevant to the office action to specific groups" row at all. That's quite a mouthful, but since it's separate from the reporter and the affected user, I assume that means other interested parties, but "conduct warning" gets a checkmark for that one and "interaction ban" doesn't? Is that right?) Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:52, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's definitely not enough. I am rather disappointed because I saw a certain hope in Jan's last posting. He only gives a diagram of the internal process but nothing, literally nothing, about communication to others and also nothing about the reasonings for any decision at any point. So they seem to simply want to continue as before. Everything relevant remains a secret, regardless whether this is necessary or not. No one, literally no one is able to get insight, not even ArbCom or a trustworthy representative. Even the "accused" remains uninformed. Appeal is impossible. This is unfair trial par excellence. As to fairness, this is a word-by-word repetition of the last statement. What I first saw as an offer for discussion seems to be hollow phrase. I intend to open an RfC at Meta but wanted to wait in the hope that something relevant comes up from the side of T&S. This is not so. Mautpreller (talk) 09:18, 18 June 2019 (UTC) (from German Wikipedia).[reply]
    • This is grossly insufficient. I'd like to call attention to the following statement: Generally, we will reach out to the accused party for information if doing so is possible without violating the privacy of the accusing - or other involved - parties This means that T&S is willing to, in some cases, rule against someone completely in absentia. This is not an acceptable system, and T&S needs to make major modifications to it before accepting new cases. Tazerdadog (talk) 10:21, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I too find this problematic. Being unable to defend yourself effectively puts someone in a kangaroo court with no means of defense. Buffs (talk) 15:49, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks Jan. The questions I have regarding the harassment investigation process are:
    1) Is there a provision for asking the notifier if they wish ArbCom to be involved, or is it assumed that they do not? If it is assumed they do not, what was the data and rationale behind making that decision?
    2) What is the legal distinction for privacy in these investigations between those who can see the report and those who cannot? ArbCom members have signed the Confidentially Agreement [19] in which it is agreed that "The Wikimedia Foundation may pursue available legal remedies, including injunctive relief or, in the case of willful intent, monetary damages." What extra legal powers do the Foundation have over those individuals who are permitted to see the report that they do not have over ArbCom members who have signed that they agree to being legally pursued? If the distinction is a paid contract, then would paying ArbCom members a token amount per year, overcome the legal hurdles to allowing ArbCom to view such material? Or is the reluctance to share harassment complaints with ArbCom more to do with procedural qualms rather than legal ones?
    3) Several members of the T&S Team are experienced and trusted Wikipedians, including two admins from Wikipedia who have been functionaries, one of whom has served on ArbCom, so I have no doubt that investigations were done with some insight and understanding of both sides of the issue (as there are always two sides). However, as with others who have commented, the lack of consultation with the accused person seems odd. How have the legal and moral rights of the accused been balanced against the legal and moral rights of the accuser? We have heard it stressed that the accuser is to be protected, but what consideration has been given to protecting the accused?
    Thanks in advance for considering these questions. SilkTork (talk) 12:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    SilkTork, we know what happens when volunteers cross the line and become salaried employees (or contractors). In 2013 one was desysoped for particularly egregious behaviour, right in the middle of an outgoing ED's valedictory speech at a Wikimania in which she was presenting a prerecorded video that specifically praised the individual's work (the surpressed sniggers in the lecture theatre were audible). Needless to say, although the community called for it, that individual was not sacked from their paid job. I am reminded of this recent comment by Seraphinblade:
    JEissfeldt (WMF), while I appreciate you at least being willing to put your name on this statement, it is still more of the same. I will be posting a response as to why shortly, point by point to what you said, but in short: The WMF is not a "higher authority" than the English Wikipedia community, and may not overrule it, any more than we could walk into the San Francisco offices, point to an employee, say "You're fired", and expect that to have any effect. WMF is a separate body, but it is not "higher" than the English Wikipedia community. We don't can your employees, you don't can our editors or admins. You also do not overrule or bypass our editorial or community processes.
    Oh, the irony. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • We have a long-established principle on WP that blocks and bans are intended to be preventative, not punitive. How is a ban like Fram's supposed to prevent future misconduct after it has expired, if it is not made expressly clear to the banned editor in what areas their actions went over the line? Jheald (talk) 14:41, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I can identify a few things that give me significant concerns, and I urge that these receive attention as WMF continues to work on the procedure.
    1. As already noted by others, there needs to be a clearer and more substantive part of the workflow for responses from the accused editor.
    2. Although it's good to have multiple layers of review, it's not clear from the information here whether all of the layers involve serious and independent evaluation of the complaint. There is a serious risk that some of the later, higher-level review steps may just be something like "Well, it's looks like [name] did a good job of checking all the boxes, so we'll just sign off on it and move on."
    3. It's not spelled out, but there really ought to be a sort of "minutes" or other written record of decisions at each step. I do not mean that this should be public, but it can be important to keep internally in the event of subsequent scrutiny from the WMF Board or others, as is happening here. I think it should memorialize any off-the-cuff discussions, to have a record if someone not officially involved in a particular step of the review has nonetheless commented to an involved staff person about it.
    4. As noted by others, there needs to be evaluation of whether the problem could be referred to the local project (ArbCom etc.).
    And more broadly, it is important that office actions be used only for the kinds of purposes for which they have historically been intended. Office actions, especially those involving the larger projects, should never be an alternative forum for a dispute that could instead have been handled locally. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks Jan. I have a few questions:
    1. m:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation 2019, tells us,

      There are some rare instances when Wikimedia Foundation Trust and Safety will take actions to protect the safety of the community and the public. This happens where actions on local community governance level are either insufficient or not possible. There may be some rare cases where the Wikimedia Foundation must override local policy, such as to protect the safety of the Wikimedia communities or the public. See Trust & Safety Office actions for more details. [20]

      . Furthermore, WP:OFFICE tells us,

      The purpose of this policy is to help improve the actual and perceived safety of Wikimedia community members, the movement itself, and the public in circumstances where actions on local community governance level are either insufficient or not possible. Local policies remain primary on all Wikimedia projects, as explained in the Terms of Use, and office actions are complementary to those local policies. However, there may be some rare cases where the Wikimedia Foundation must override local policy, such as in complying with valid and enforceable court orders to remove content that might otherwise comply with policy or in protecting the safety of the Wikimedia communities or the public.

      If it's within your purview can you tell us whether the OFFICE action and override of local governance was necessary to protect the community? A simple yes of no is fine, or simply indicate if you're unwilling or unable to answer.
      1. In the findings of the report written by Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) on page 23, the failures in our noticeboard practices are noted (findings, which, generally seem spot on). [Reporting systems on English Wikipedia (pdf) explains the function of specialized noticeboards (page 9). In the initial "warnings" to Fram (not sure whether I'm using the correct term), I'm wondering whether anyone on your team considered suggesting s/he report issues with users to relevant noticeboards (i.e, WP:AN/I; WP:RSN; WP:CCI? Regardless of the (HNMCP)'s recommendations and that the community should absolute see to strengthening those boards in-house, noticeboards are generally a good first stop, help to get more eyes on a situation and prevent a single editor who is working unilaterally from becoming overly frustrated and from being subjected to "anecdotal" stories. Again, if the question is not something you're able to answer, I'll understand fully.
    • Finally, I've spent quite a few hours finding documents, reading, checking sourcing, but had RexxS not posted a series of links here there wouldn't have been a starting point. Would it be feasible to have more information available here on en.wp? Links are easy to post and easy to find, and it is, after all, a wiki. Thanks, Victoria (tk) 00:03, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Jan, you have provided some background about the position you hold in the WMF. Basically admitting that you are in charge of T&S but are not aware of what goes on there. Perhaps you could let Arbcom and the community know who your immediate superior is. It might help towards establishing lines of responsibility and communication for the future. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:33, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Response from Fram to Jan

    Jan Eissfeldt said[21]

    "As far as the ability for others to avoid making mistakes and finding themselves unexpectedly sanctioned, unfortunately, we cannot publicly disclose details of this or any particular case, for all the reasons previously discussed. This means that, as much as we understand your wanting the information, we cannot tell you what specific behaviors by Fram brought about this action. We can, however, say that abiding by the ToU is required of everyone who edits a Wikimedia site. That includes refraining from behaviors described by the ToU, including “[e]ngaging in harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism”. In cases where we believe a user may not be aware that they are violating expected behavioral standards, even repeatedly, we give conduct warnings prior to any action being taken. In Fram’s case, as noted on Commons, we did send more than one of those warnings/reminders before the most recent step."

    "we cannot tell you what specific behaviors by Fram brought about this action." understood, but you should at least be able to confirm that it is about on-wiki behaviour only surely?

    "In Fram’s case, as noted on Commons, we did send more than one of those warnings/reminders before the most recent step." Yes, as I noted on Commons but which you (WMF) failed to acknowledge until now, I got two such reminders (one very general, which is now being discussed at enwiki and doesn't seem to be really well recieved as an acceptable warning; and two, about a specific issue where the general opinion at enwiki seems to be that no warning was necessary for these quite normal edits), and then a sudden one-year ban (plus desysop) for quite different behaviour (not the supposed harassment of an individual, but incivility against the Arbcom), which doesn't seem to fit any of the "harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism" category.

    In any case, I guess we can use your note as a rather well hidden acknowledgment that my account of the WMF communications was accurate? That would at least lay to bed some of the more wild speculations made in these discussions. Fram (talk) 08:55, 18 June 2019 (UTC) Copied from Commons Tazerdadog (talk) 12:11, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    "Writing a universal code of conduct, and making a new user reporting system"

    In a few places, eg here, here, people have started wondering about a video "Exploring the gender gap in Wikipedia editors" (YouTube, 3 mins), posted by User:Rosiestep on June 11.

    At 02:32 User:SPoore (WMF) (FloNight) talks of

    "Two of the big initiatives that are going to be happening this next year - one of them is writing a universal code of conduct, and the second one is us making a new reporting system."

    Not clear what the community's role in this will be. Jheald (talk) 12:59, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Response by Sydney Poore

    • (Apologizes for top posting) My name Sydney Poore and I work at Wikimedia Foundation. Some of you may know me as FloNight. I want to address some questions and concerns people have about a comment I made in  the University of Washington video that came out last week. In the video I mentioned the plans for a User reporting system and a Universal Code of Conduct to be developed the next fiscal year. My primary work since I came on staff is to is engage with the Wikimedia communities about initiatives to address harassment, most through tech solutions. On occasion I speak with the media, too. In this instance I responded to a media request for a video interview about this study.
      External videos
      video icon Exploring the gender gap in Wikipedia editors, 3:09, June 11, 2019, University of Washington[1]
    • Among other things, I spoke of the upcoming plans for the development of a User Reporting System and a Universal Code of Conduct because I believe that it is important to share information publicly about the Wikimedia movement's work to address issues. I never intended to blindside anyone or give the impression that the opinion of the community is not important. I want to take this opportunity to invite everyone to participate in the consultations. I'm available to answer questions about the User Reporting System and the Universal Code of Conduct. SPoore (WMF), Strategist, Community health initiative (talk) 02:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    References

    1. ^ "Video: The Wikipedia gender gap". UW News. University of Washington. June 12, 2019. Retrieved June 12, 2019.

    Discussion

    If they intend to ram this through without meaningful input from the community, then this is very scary. Unfortunately, I do not currently doubt that they intend to do exactly that. This has the potential to explain a good deal about the WMF's actions so far in this case - and their initial target. @Doc James:, could you include anything that you know about this in your report to the community? Tazerdadog (talk) 13:09, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Not aware of any specifics User:Tazerdadog. We at Wiki Project Med Foundation and the Wiki Journal of Medicine are working on codes of conduct. IMO such codes need to be developed by the communities (with potentially some support from the foundation) not by the foundation independently. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:04, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    So that the link is on record, the draft CoC that the WikiJournal User Group is working on is here. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Last I checked, the community was still trying to flesh out a broad-brush "strategy for 2030"... wbm1058 (talk) 13:14, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    A universal code of conduct? That is very scary. Raise a hand everybody who believes that will be based on anything other than US corporate English notions of good conduct, narrowly interpreted and with no room for culturally conditioned variation. I doubt there will be any place for people like me here if that happens. And who would enforce it? T&S, who somebody somewhere described as "having our backs", but who will never in a million years "have the back" of most of us? --bonadea contributions talk 13:29, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Even worse, "universal" means it is going to involve all WMF projects, I bet. Oh this is so bad. --bonadea contributions talk 13:33, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Bonadea, be pleased to know that the consultation phase of User-reporting-System is already over and per their timeline, they are either preparing the workflow or designing the final software. I did see no notice over en-wiki, awaring the community of the phase and only 4 admins from en-wiki seem to have participated. ∯WBGconverse 13:37, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I am pretty sure I have seen a notice several times. I believe it was on AN for both consultation rounds, though I might have a memory aberration.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:44, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Ymblanter, possilikely, certainly.
    I, for one, searched for the contributions of the relevant stuff and did not come across any (might have used MMS, though) post for the consultation of User-report-system. A string-search over AN led to a sole hit:- a Tech News report mentioning it ;-)
    I am not doubting any conspiracy or invoking an ulterior motive in the Community Health plans but running non-advertised consultations or learning of the pending development of an universal CoC from an offsite video, is pretty against our values of transparency. ∯WBGconverse 14:08, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • A very controversial new initiative, coming to light the day after the disappearing of one of the community's most vocal critics of controversial new initiatives. There appears to have been very little notification of this on enwiki, as far as I can see. Black Kite (talk) 13:35, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Black Kite, Fram's not banned on meta, where he's free to criticize controversial new initiatives, at least at this time. MLauba (Talk) 18:40, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • As I say above, it may not be fair to read too much into the timing. My take on things so far (though I may have missed bits here and there) is that there will be updates coming down the pipeline (from WMF staff and from Doc James who has said on his talk page that discussions are ongoing) that should make things clearer. Something that is concerning me is that I do think the WMF don't appear to trust the en-wiki ArbCom - might this be related to an earlier (this year or last year) resignation of an arbitrator and whether confidential material was being kept confidential (I may be misremembering)? Finally (apologies for putting it in here but I won't have time this weekend to follow things closely - maybe a really good summary will get written...), could some people keep an eye on Fram's Commons talk page, as that has the potential to blow up if more people start posting over there. I hope people don't lose sight of the fact that there are real people involved here (on all sides), and they need personal resolutions to all this, as well as the big picture, project-wide considerations. Carcharoth (talk) 13:56, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • English-language Wikipedia is a worldwide project with people coming from extremely different cultures and with varying backgrounds, and very often English is not their first language (myself included - I'm from Switzerland, my first language is Swiss German). Introducing some kind of "universal code of conduct" seems very challenging in this environment. A statement that might be perceived as direct and outspoken, but not offensive in culture A might be seen as a frontal attack in culture B. Of course there are some things that would be universally inacceptable (such as direct threats, something like "I will come to your house and beat you up"), but that doesn't necessarily include things such as swearwords (some of which are, for example, much less taboo in German-speaking countries than in America, I think). Gestumblindi (talk) 14:18, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm certainly hoping that either Doc James or SPoore (WMF) can shed some light on this subject, but it is...concerning, to put it mildly. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:56, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I had been saying the methods suggested by others were OTT...but this would be catastrophic. Hell, it'd be terrible even if they did have user participation because a universal code of conduct can't work for 750 different projects! ...And we don't see any sign of significant community involvement. Along with the reporting system it is functionally a disenfranchisement of every community and the enforcement mechanisms that exist in many of them. We don't have the details yet, but if more comes out in this vein, then we're going to have to change from the "keep it in-house" discussion. If it comes - it's a lock-out the site level. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:12, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • By the way, apparently this is being done here on Meta. There's a breathtaking example of doublespeak there: The Wikimedia Foundation’s general approach, as described, in the Terms of Use, section 10, is to respect local self-governance of the volunteer communities it supports where possible....While the Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative will make the final decisions.... Riiiiight. In the same breath, talk about how much you respect local projects' self-governance, and state that you plan not to respect it at all. But, for all the good it'll do, maybe some objections ought to get registered. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:21, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Swearwords are considered vulgar and offending language in the same way in german speaking countries than in englisch speaking, but you must compare the right swearwords (not the direct translations or usage of english loan words which some use to sound less offensive, giving perhaps a wrong impression to english readers who notice this). As to the multi-culture background of the english wikipedia, everyone who learns english as a second language gets warnings of using the four or seven letter words, especially from the very countries of the native speakers. So I simply don´t buy any reassurement of some of the editors here that this is nowadays considered a small thing.--Claude J (talk) 15:45, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Claude J: I think you are oversimplifying. For instance, you are throwing all English-speaking countries together, but there are huge differences when it comes to swearwords e.g. between the UK and the USA. Also, what would be "the right swearwords" to compare? I think that the usual scatological swearwords, for example, such as German "Scheisse", are usually taken very lightly. Also, for example, German television has absolutely no tradition of "bleeping" out swearwords of any kind, English or German (it's only encountered in imported TV shows and sometimes to make fun of this "American thing"). Gestumblindi (talk) 16:05, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Addendum: English-language Wikipedia is not an American, but an international environment. The English language here is only a veneer, not really that unifying as one could believe on the surface. Often, all people involved in an English-language conversation are not native speakers, and native speakers might come from countries so different as Ghana and Scotland. Gestumblindi (talk) 16:53, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see anyone arguing that en.wiki is American. I don't have statistics for this but I'd say the majority of en.wiki users are not American, so it could hardly be referred to as an "American" wiki. The USA's significance is only that I think of any single country, it would have the most editors on en.wiki. Enigmamsg 17:21, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that there is room for a universal code of conduct - just so we don't get things like azwiki. But it needs to come about a different way. Ideally, it would be decided on Meta and focus on the universal Wikimedia principles - universal enough so that the largest 10 WMF wikis should be able to implement it on Day 1 with little to no changes to local policies. --Rschen7754 15:56, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Also, those pages linked to above on Meta are hard to navigate and make me want to cry. --Rschen7754 16:47, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Rschen7754, how does one exactly avoid an az-wiki or Croatian-Wiki rerun with a CoC? ∯WBGconverse 16:49, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      The code of conduct has to encompass more than civility - don't upload copyvios and don't write POV content, for one. --Rschen7754 16:50, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with Rschen7754. There is no reason that a universal code of conduct can't be compatible with local codes of conduct. In the US Army, there is a general code that everyone follows as a soldier. Each individual unit, however, was free to add to this, just not allowed to subtract. We can, as a community decide how much (if anything) we want to add to a universal code of conduct. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:04, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Megalibrarygirl: - it can only be compatible if every local code of conduct either already met it or changed. The WMF, as considered above, is likely to pick "corporate US civility" as the base level, which would require dramatic changes from multiple communities. The fact that local communities could add is somewhat irrelevant to the concerns. If the WMF picks a "bare, required minimum", which would be good, then they could probably go with it. If and only if they demonstrated they could be trusted and that both harassed and accused could be treated fairly. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:39, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm rather annoyed that this didn't get banners but the talk page did. We've only 2 weeks left to comment - I've added it to Cent and VPP (though it might belong in VPR). The timing isn't iffy, but the heavy lack of spreading the word is Nosebagbear (talk) 16:41, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Megalibrarygirl, I think the issue is not in adding, but in interpretation. "Be civil" means different things in different places and different contexts. It may, for example, be perfectly civil and acceptable for me to swear while out for a beer with my friends, but would be unacceptable to do in a job interview. It may be perfectly okay for me to tell someone who I know well that they're a dumbass if they make a mistake, but would not be civil if I saw a stranger make that same error. I do not want those decisions to be made by some faceless, unaccountable, and probably ultimately outsourced "moderation team" like happens on so many websites. Our means may not be perfect, but at the very least, if you get in trouble for something, you know what you did wrong, you know why the community disapproves of it, and you know what you need to do differently going forward. And perhaps most importantly, you can argue in your defense, which is an absolutely indispensable part of any fair process. The Army might court-martial you if you break their rules, but they will not do it in secret with you not allowed to present a defense or even know what you're accused of. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:45, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Beyond them being faceless and unaccountable - their interpretation is based in a completely different community. To continue the analogy - courts martial are tried by individuals in the same communities - understanding expectations and ethoses. T&S (or whoever) have functionally no involvement so they run off their own viewpoints alone. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:50, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Megalibrarygirl I agree with Seraphim's comments, plus I don't trust the WMF, as it currently stands, to write a simple bare-minimum code of conduct that individual projects can add to as needed. As with Nosebagbear, I suspect that "corporate US civility" will be the minimum they will consider putting through; based on past WMF communications, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they end up expecting everyone to talk in exactly the same sort of language they use--the sort of content-free legalese we've been getting in this case that is clearly written by an on-retainer lawyer to ensure that there's no way for it to be held against them from a legal standpoint. Given that most of us are not lawyers and can't afford to keep one on retainer to help us draw up every single statement we make on Wikipedia, I'd say the potential chilling effect is clear--and anyone who believes that "corporate US civility" language requirements would do anything to stop harassment or other abusive acts clearly has never spent any time in an American corporate environment, dealing with the levels of office politics that make enwiki's problems look like a drop in the bucket. (Not to mention how political correctness results in continuous change of what constitutes such civility standards, meaning that what's acceptable today may get you fired six weeks from now...) rdfox 76 (talk) 16:58, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Megalibrarygirl I think the proposed mechanism is understood, what worries at least me is that the defined minimum standard will be, and I have great doubts that it will be in line with current standards onto which community can decide to add some rules, or reverse them in future. EllsworthSK (talk) 17:01, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The military analogy is inapt. WMF is not the commanding officer of English Wikipedia nor is it the WMF's role to instill discipline in their alleged subordinates. The WMF is the *servant* of the Wikipedia movement, not its master. This is more comparable to a military coup, a powerful group that is supposed to be serving the Wikimedia movement that aggressively takes control based on the argument that they have the guns and we do not. All hail Despotpedia. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 17:16, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Don't take the analogy too literally, CoffeeCrumbs. I used it because it was an example that I'd experienced when I was in the military. I agree that the WMF is not a commanding officer. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:01, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • A lot of the problems we are having throughout this dispute have to do with the execution of policies, by fallible human beings, as opposed to what the words on the page are. I think editors who have been around for a while understand what is envisioned in the idea of the kind of harassment that requires an office action. And I think the community has a consensus that the intended meaning of office action is one that we support. Normally, the community would consider a true office action to be something that no admin should revert. But what is happening here is that a rather strange time-delimited and single-project sanction was made as an "office action", but what appears to be the causative conduct does not look like something that would be understood as requiring office action, and the administered remedy does not look like something that is appropriate for the kind of really bad conduct that office actions were intended for. In that sense, nobody reverted an office action, but rather, they reverted something that was mislabeled as an office action. I say that in this talk section because, in principle, the idea of a better WMF structure for dealing with serious bullying, and helping to repair the barriers that women and some other editing populations experience, is actually something with which I agree. In principle. But I think many of us see danger in these new plans about a CoC and reporting system because it looks like they will be subject to the same serious problems in execution that happened with Fram and the subsequent communications. Should there be a safe way for a bullied editor to get help? Yes, I support that concept. But should we have something that looks like a gameable way to disappear someone you don't like? Of course not. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:58, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with a lot of what has been said here (not everything, certainly) and would just like to add a couple of points. Caveat: we can never extrapolate from a population to an individual (this applies equally much to individuals who through birth have been randomly assigned to a gender group, as to individuals who have been randomly assigned to a cultural/language group) and so I'm not making claims about any individuals, just general trends among groups of pople. That being said, "civility" is not merely about appropriate word choice, about not swearing when that would cause offence, using politeness phrases, making sure to pick the appropriate gender pronouns, etc. Those are important things but they are only part of civility/politeness/whatever you want to call it. I'll give two examples, which are perhaps not directly relevant to Wikipedia, but still serve to illustrate the issue. a) In the US, it is acceptable to speak well of onself. (Incidentally, one reason I would never go for a RfA is the mandatory question about what contribution one is most proud of - a typical and fairly neutral kind of question in an American context, perfectly fine for many non-Americans as well, but impossible to address for me.) However, in e.g. Australia, people who do that risk being perceived as tall poppies. This has sometimes caused misunderstandings and friction when American business people have done business with Australian colleagues. Not because Americans are ruder than Australians, or vice versa, but because the same language is used differently, and because of differences in what is appropriate to say. b) In the United States and some other part of the Anglo world, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" is often cited as a useful, civil, and desirable way to interact with others. I have seen it said in discussions on Wikipedia, as a matter of fact. However, in many cultures, that cultural script is completely inappropriate, since it encourages people not to mention other people's flaws - which is dishonest to the point of rudeness. This doesn't make one culture more rude than another, certainly not. It just shows that civility and rudeness are concepts that differ in fundamental ways. (I know that the WMF employs people who understand these issues very well indeed, but they won't be involved if this is a "T&S" thing.) Final point: a couple of editors who are often cited as shining examples of civil behaviour are people whose communication styles come across as very patronising to me. That's my own problem obviously, nobody else's, and it doesn't mean I can't communicate with them - but it illustrates the same thing.
    TLDR: There is no universal concept of civility. Not even in English. And trying to impose such a code will only erect new barriers. --bonadea contributions talk 20:59, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm reasonably sure this is considered uncivil, even in Australia. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:49, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    No. You're dead wrong. the Prime Minister Bob Hawke joshing with Ron Barassi is proverbial in Melbourne at least for illustrating the language governing mateship codes. Gough Whitlam, the most aristocratic yet comradely politician the post-war world ever heard, loved Ciceronian speech-making, but it didn't exclude him from using the word fuck.Paul Keating in the presence of newspaper reporters. I have relatives from downunder who, studying in the US, have endless anecdotes about the misunderstandings arising from using a 'matey' Australian vernacular with Americans who often give the appearance of being much more guarded and socially cautious, at least in public social discourse, as opposed to their government's foreign policy shenanigans. The proposal strikes me as extremely Americanocentric. Has no one ever read Thomas Szasz on the medicalization of social problems, or Michel Foucault on the problems of the carceral mentality behind the medicalization of life itself in modernization. I guess not. Some culturally thin bureaucrats are legislating 'health care' for editors. Jeezus! What a world of wimps. Nishidani (talk) 20:05, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Applying the idea of "mateship" to Wikipedia is treating Wikipedia like a men's space. Some references explaining how "mateship" is a male/masculine concept: [22][23][24] (there are plenty more). Even if one accepts that language that would be considered civil in some contexts might be normal in others, it doesn't follow that we should permit everything in the gray zone here, where we are trying to attract diverse contributors who might be repelled by it. Calliopejen1 (talk) 16:53, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't apply the idea of 'mateship' to wikipedia. I corrected a suggestion about Australian language use. It is not about grey zones either. The assumption in the WMF proposal is that there is a 'universal' code for etiquette, to which they are privy and which they will impose on users from several hundred different cultures. It turns out to be exquisitely americanocentric. A benchmark of honesty in some countries is to look straight into the eyes of the person you're speaking with. In others (Japan) that is taken to be intrusively aggressive. Germaine Greer's contribution to feminism came in good part from her feminist appropriation of the comic, sledging richness of Australian vernacular culture associated till her time with men. The point essentially is, is wiki policy designed to attract people willing to sacrifice their professional time and knowledge to write articles, or is it to prioritize simply recruitment on the basis of sensitivities. In short, are we to mimic the most etiquette-conscious social media so everyone will feel comfortable, whatever they are doing here, or are we to continue in our messy intense passionate individual ways to actually construct something, at some considerable personal cost. Social media may make people 'have a nice day'. They are not known, at the end of the day, for donating to global readers superb articles like Female genital mutilation.Nishidani (talk) 20:52, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    That... has no bearing at all on anything I wrote above. But even so, how would that be usefully dealt with by a new code of conduct? If that is universally uncivil (I am not saying I disagree about that), what use would a "universal" code have that WP:CIVIL doesn't cover? And then there is the question of shades of grey. I would never consider that post a banning offence. A cause for a request to back off and cool down, certainly, but not for blocking or banning, given the full context. You may disagree, perhaps, but the important thing is that it can be a point of contention, it cannot be absolutely codified. (It is past midnight and I hope I make some sense.) --bonadea contributions talk 22:06, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    "it can be a point of contention, it cannot be absolutely codified" and it is not for the WMF various activist-filled teams to codify it in the first place. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:02, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, as an Australian I would interpret that comment as a sign of frustration with the target of the comment, whether warranted or otherwise. Although it may be somewhat abrupt it is not offensive. Anyone taking offense at such a comment in this country is likely to be laughed at. - Nick Thorne talk 00:17, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Nick Throne has clarified the Australian perspective. Same goes for India. ∯WBGconverse 04:29, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    That would be regarded as uncivil in Australia and anywhere else. cygnis insignis 11:56, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Except it would not be. The Fair Work Commission looks very poorly on employers who sack employees for swearing at their bosses: consider this 2012 case where a worker sacked for telling his boss to "get fucked" was found to be unfairly dismissed and ordered to be reinstated. Triptothecottage (talk) 23:49, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    That ruing is this case in miniature Swearing might have been a grounds for dismissal if the company didn't give "mixed messages" about its use. The company also gave no due process nor time to respond to the charges leveled. So uncivil behavior doesn't have to be tolerated, but the response should be proportional, and a fair process followed which considers someone's whole record. Which part(s) of the preceding sentence people latch onto has great bearing, I think, in how they view this incident. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:30, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The fact that the new "Universal code of conduct" and the "New user reporting system" are explicitly mentioned directly in relation to, and only in relation to, gender issues points up the recurring theme that there is a secretive and non-transparent gender-war going on behind the scenes at WMF, T&S, and elsewhere, that has not been either transparent or clear on EN-wiki. Fram appears to have been the first target/victim, via a new power that T&S/WMFOffice gave itself. Fram was given no plausible explanation for the sudden ban/desysop, and the only warning he got was concerning two posts he made in 2018 on the talkpage of someone with serious conflicts of interests with WMF and WMF's Board of Trustees, and who is a gender-warrior. So Fram is the first victim of the secret, non-transparent gender war. Who is next? Softlavender (talk) 23:00, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Softlavender your framing of the situation is very perplexing. First of all, what is a "gender-war" and a "gender-warrior?" Why do you consider efforts to make Wikipedia a better place for women and non-binary people to edit safely and in comfort a problem? Surely framing it this way, and the way that Only in death frames the WMF as "activist-filled teams" does not help to discuss the situation in a calm way. If you assume that the "other side" is full of awful, terrible people out to get you, how can you reach consensus? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:12, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    You seem to be under the misapprehension the WMF wants or seeks consensus for its actions. Wikipedia seeks consensus amongst its community. The various WMF teams (tech, T&S etc) have shown, over a number of years and situations, no interest in doing anything other than imposing their own will on the community. I mean, you can continue to be a Neville Chamberlain if you want to, but there are only so many times editors can AGF before they look like fools. And that point was past ages ago. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:17, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict)If WMF didn't want consensus, they wouldn't seek input--which you can see clearly on the meta front page. And there is no need to call me a "Neville Chamberlain" and practically invoke Godwin's law because I don't agree with you. It just shows that you are arguing from a heated position. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:24, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The WMF has repeatedly sought input then generally ignored it and done what it wants regardless. Tipping the hat at consultation is a standard corporate tactic for doing something you want to do and give the impression you actually care about what other people want. Given that you have basically spent a good amount of text here being an apologist for an organisation that thinks its acceptable to disappear people without given them the courtesy of seeing the evidence against them or the right to defend themselves perhaps you should be less condescending about arguing from a heated position. You should be heated when they come for you in the night. So less of the 'I can see your angry' passive agressive tactics please. If I wanted to be talked to as if I was a woman being told to calm down there are plenty of other misogynistic locations on the internet. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:35, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I never said or implied or assumed anyone or any group is/are "awful, terrible people out to get me", and you failed to address any of my points. Softlavender (talk) 23:22, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    No, you said what I quoted above. What on earth are you talking about with those terms? One of the biggest issues on Wikipedia is the gender gap and the fact that women and nb folks face a good deal of discrimination. Then when they report it, they face additional harassment. This is a pattern I've heard about over and over from people I trust and edit with. So I see good reason to address gender. I've just never met a gender-warrior and if they have a recruiting office, maybe I'll go find out what it's all about. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:26, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Megalibrarygirl: Both things are/can be true here. Women and NB do face additional hurdles and more harassment. At the same time, those additional hurdles and harassment causes a hardening, and a propensity for activism. This activism, is by far, a good thing in most cases. But it also often cause to apply broad generalization that apply in the aggregate to individual cases where nuance is lost.
    I have asked a similar question at Wikimania 2017 in Montreal, about how you could go around telling someone from a minority group you are wrong about something, without causing them to hear I know better because I'm member of the social majority, especially when members of that minority group may not be as versed/skilled in the art of encyclopedia writing due to a difference in background, or want to promote/rectify a situation, when we are required to be neutral. We need to find a way on how to do that, but sadly my question was dismissed as too silly to be worth addressing, and a lot of people in the audience reacted in a sadly predictable 'look at the white man thinking he's better than us' way. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:51, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I totally understand how you felt in that case, Headbomb. My kiddos are biracial. When I was younger and dating, I met my then-boyfriend's sister and boy did I put my foot in it. I thought I could talk about the black experience because I thought I had a "good enough" connection. I could have walked away from the experience thinking that black people didn't want to hear what I had to say and just gotten angry. Instead, I reflected on it. I realized that black people have heard what I, as a white woman, have been saying over and over again. I wasn't adding to the discussion. Now, I listen. That's most often the best thing an ally can do: listen. Minority groups will always tell you when they need your voice. Often, they do. Listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give to one another. I think that's often where minority groups and women are coming from. As to your question: I'd tell a person from a minority group that needs help that you're there for them if they have any questions. You can tell them they are wrong--to not correct mistakes is infantalizing a person, and is patronizing. There's nothing bad about helping others learn to be better editors. It's helpful. Just do it in the way that is respectful. We all want to be treated with respect. That's what I'm advocating. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:34, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Well that's the tricky bit. You can listen all you want, at the end of the day, if the minority group is wrong, you still need to click edit and make changes that don't align with what the minority group wants, and they'll go "there they go again, not listening" or similar. Then they blame their not getting what they want on the person making the changes being part of the patriarchy / white hegemony / whatever. I have no real solution for that, and I don't really know anyone that has. But if someone had at least part of a solution that would be great, both for allies and for the people of minority groups. Because reality being what it is, as an ally, when you get accused of being sexist / anti-trans / anti-whatever, or get dismissed simply for being a white man, it is one of the most infuriating things to happen to you, and a lot of goodwill gets burned. It also sadly (and usually disproportionally) turns people against that minority group, providing the anti-whatever with examples of "SEE THEY'RE ALL NUTS! This guy was perfectly reasonable and they accused him of being an anti-whateverist!" allowing them to dismiss all subsequent claims that someone has some anti-whatever bias as invalid, based on the one claim that was invalid. Causing Jussie Smollett types of damage, even if unintentionally, rather than maliciously. Very few people have the moral backbone to still support a movement that has maligned them, sometimes grossly (I have received harassing calls at work, got stalked at Wikimania 2017, and had my personal appearance mocked as result of it), and overlook the transgression because they know a movement can still be right in the aggregate even if the aren't right 100% of the time, or that some of its members are so deep in the echo chamber that they now resort to the same tactics they claim to oppose, out of a sick sense that any men are "fair targets" because some men behave in less-than-exemplary ways.
    However, I know I don't want HR types to adjudicate these sorts of content disputes as if they were harassment. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:16, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Megalibrarygirl "Gender warrior" is indeed the wrong term here, and as you say is not the best way to be constructive. What did happen, however, is that the editor concerned wrote a huge amount of seriously sub-par content, and when called out on it (by no means only by Fram - one of the relevant ArbCom cases didn't even mention him) somehow the narrative shifted to some sort of gender issue because many of her articles were about women. The problem with the articles wasn't that they were about women - it was that they were riddled with errors. Black Kite (talk) 23:31, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Black Kite Errors need to be corrected always. I agree with that completely. I don't know about the case you're referencing, so I can't speak to it. :( Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:37, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Megalibrarygirl the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sarah Tuttle might also provide context for why some editors are mistrustful of WIR. From my vantage point, the ability to discuss that article on its merits was taken away when numerous WIR editors adopted the mindset that the deletion discussion itself was a moral wrong and an example of gender bias. Unsurprisingly, personal attacks and strawmen were directed at those who did not fall in line with this mindset. Like many, if not most, Wikipedians, I believe we need more articles about women. Yet I don't think we should accomplish this goal by ignoring or downplaying our notability standards in favor of articles on women, nor do I consider it acceptable to assume sexism on the part of editors who are simply trying to enforce GNG. There was a serious lack of AGF in that AfD, yet the editors who needed to assume good faith were unmovable in their unwillingness to do so. At a certain point, one becomes weary of trying to have a reasoned conversation with those who will only resort to ad hominems and strawmen. And Raystorm's own attempt to make this a gender issue helps me to have a much clearer understanding of the reason why Fram was banned. I completely understand Softlavender's attitude. Lepricavark (talk) 02:03, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Lepricavark: Gender bias is a moral wrong--just as any form of prejudice is. Was everyone on that discussion !voting 'Keep' a member of WIR? I don't think so. One important thing about sexism is that it's part of our culture. I, too, have sexist attitudes. I've learned to recognize them and fight them (most of the time I hope!). We all have them. If someone thinks gender bias is involved, we all owe it to ourselves to look inside and make sure that we aren't acting on the biases that society has given us. Based on the fact that WIR is working to fight bias, I'm not surprised editors are mistrustful: it goes against society's narrative. Whether we want to believe it or not, that's the world we live in. Pretending sexism isn't involved in many situations is just putting our heads in the sand. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:43, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Megalibrarygirl: I never said that gender bias was okay. My objection is that some WIR members (including at least one admin) have the capacity to see gender bias in places where it doesn't even exist and also to project gender bias (or outright sexism) onto those who reject their interpretation. That is a backwards way of thinking. And I'm afraid that the WMF, in the name of pursing gender balance, would and does endorse that backwards way of thinking. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if that type of thinking had something to do with Fram's ban. At this point, I'd be surprised if it didn't. Lepricavark (talk) 02:38, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Lepricavark: I don't think you understand what I'm saying here at all. Sorry for not responding right away. I had other issues to deal with. However, I think you are assuming automatically that there is no sexism in situations, when really, quite often there is -- even if you are not aware of it or don't believe it. I do wish that you would AGF in those who are more used to dealing with gender bias, such as WIR members and the at least one admin you speak of. No one is going to wrongfully or flippantly accuse anyone or any situation of gender bias or sexism: that would weaken our position. It's important, however, to call it out where it exists. It's also one of the hardest and scariest things to do: you know that people aren't going to believe you because they don't want to believe there is bias. We want to believe the world is fair and that everything is a meritocracy. It isn't. Bias affects us all. That's why I told you that even I have bias. For example, if someone tells me to imagine a doctor or a scientist, I first think of a man automatically. That's an example of slight, rather benign gender bias. We all have it in our society. Things only become a problem when we can't talk about it. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:59, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Megalibrarygirl: "No one is going to wrongfully or flippantly accuse anyone or any situation of gender bias or sexism: that would weaken our position." Having been on the ass end of such accusations, I can tell you this does indeed happen, and that his does indeed weaken WIR's reputation. I wouldn't necessarily say it's widespread or anywhere near a majority, or anywhere close to the gender bias against women in general, but it's also not non-existent and than there was significant bandwagoning happening. Hence the roundtable idea I brought up on your talk page. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:47, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree, Headbomb. I think that others perceive that gender bias is used flippantly or an a bandwagonesque way. However, I think that false accusations are rare. Instead, it's the fact that we live in a society that's full of gender bias that not everyone gets to see. It reminds me of when I first had a discussion with a black friend in college who told me that he was afraid to run in the city. I was flabbergasted. Why on earth would that be a problem? I'm a white woman, so for me, of course it would never be a problem. But a black, young man would have a different experience. In the same way, many women, nb and even men have experienced gender bias and we call it out. There's a lot of it and it's being reported more and more. So I don't think it's flippant. I just think others don't recognize what we are seeing. I'm really glad you brought up the discussion on my talk page and I do think we need to keep it going. I appreciate your perspective, whether or not I agree fully with your assessment. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:10, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    You can disagree, but you would be materially wrong. I (along other editors) were told point blank that we couldn't possibly have a legitimate interest in a topic because it dealt with feminism , that we didn't know anything about the topic, and that our goals were to willfully 'keep women down', solely based on us not being in agreement with a group of women while happening to be men. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:26, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Although this is going off at something of a tangent, I no longer write on feminist issues after I was told I was in a "privileged position" of being male and therefore "part of the problem". That this was from an Administrator makes it even worse. Perhaps I should have complained to the WMF about such outrageous sexism. - SchroCat (talk) 09:47, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • {ec} I think that there is a universal concept of civility. We all know when we've been treated poorly. We can communicate the issue to those who cause the harm. Many people at that point will say, "I didn't know this caused you harm. I will stop." But members of the community decide that the harm doesn't count because it wouldn't bother them or that the editor should just not feel the feelings they feel and continue to act in ways that hurt that person, that's not civil. What bothers a person will vary by culture, generation and even their emotional state on a particular day. That doesn't mean that I get to decide that what hurt someone is or is not valid. Only they can decide that. And the outcome should clearly be the offending party please back off. I think there are ways to codify this. We do it every day in the real world. On the job, as a manager I constantly hear complaints that would not personally bother me. However, I do find ways to empathize and respond in such a way that the issue is resolved without escalation. Not all issues are resolved the way a person wants, but I do resolve them fairly. We can do that here, too. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:20, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Megalibrarygirl, I think that works to a degree. If someone told me "I'd really prefer if you didn't use the word ________ when you talk to me", sure, I'll try to accommodate that. On the other hand, if it's "It really hurts my feelings when you nominate an article I wrote for deletion", but I believe the articles in question do in fact fail inclusion criteria and need to be deleted, the response is going to be on the order of "I'm sorry you feel that way, but I will continue to do that if the need continues to arise." So, to a degree, such personal requests can be honored, but there will come many occasions when they cannot be. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:50, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think you bring up a good distinction, Seraphimblade. Actions that are part of the process that help us build and edit the encyclopedia can't and shouldn't be circumvented just because someone says their feelings are hurt. I think a code of conduct would focus on the interactions we have while doing the editing. If someone says their feelings are hurt because an article is nominated for deletion, we can still be sympathetic (if you wish) to their feelings, but it's not going to stop the rightful process of editing the encyclopedia. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:52, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    "And the outcome should clearly be the offending party please back off." that is ... very very dangerous to codify, especially when it comes down to tone policing. Should this not have been written because it offended some people? Should its author have been sanctioned? A lot of activism and progress is caused by people who disturb the status quo, and who aren't afraid to speak up with words that would cause Victorian society to implode. Different cultures have different standards, and I'm not ready to have the American HR Culture become the only acceptable culture allowed. This is why Silver Linings Playbook is rated R (under 17 must be accompanied by adults) in the US and Tous public (everyone) in France, instead of having a United Nations rating that has force of law everywhere on the globe. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:00, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I cannot recall an event when this approach ended in anything but a fiasco. It sounds good - lets have a system that has looks at each and every case individually and in the end enforces decision based on the observation of behaviour. But without codified and unified set of rules, it falls apart like a house of cards. One meter shall be applied to one person, another on another one due to subjective nature of such hearing. The rules will not be set up as guideline of what not to do, and what penalty to be had once the line is crossed, but will try to muddle the waters into basically "the judge, jury and prosecution in one will make a decision". Especially if core principle is that offended party gets to decide which action consist of an offence. I mean, is that not what the discussion about Fran v Laura edits has been about?
    Perhaps there indeed is an universal understanding of civility. In that case, you will be able to barely fill up a stub with it. Everything outside of it differs depending on a time, place, culture and many other variable factors. And I very much doubt that what WMF is cooking is unified subset of rules that are already in force. Rather, as is often the case with new CoCs, it will decide to up the ante over the heads of community, quoting imaginery concept of safe spaces or whatnot, thus already appropriating position of moral superiority. Lovely. EllsworthSK (talk) 01:16, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Megalibrarygirl: I often agree with your position, but please believe me when I say - speaking from a position of actual linguistic expertise - that there isn't "a universal concept of civility". I'm not going to post another wall of text to try to prove that, because I already tried to do so above. It doesn't have to be a problem, as long as it is openly acknowledged and accepted that notions of civility vary a lot - isn't that a more likely way to make communications work smoothly, than setting up a set of rules and telling people from dozens of countries, speaking hundreds of languages, that they have to adjust their thinking about what is "civil"? After the 2011 survey, the WMF talked about the need to hire more staff based in different parts of the world to increase diversity, and the need to attract a more globally diverse set of editors to get more voices heard. A universal code of civility could directly counteract that work, unless it is phrased in such general terms so as to be useless - I'd love to be proven wrong here, but unless the point of departure is that there is no universal law of what is and isn't civil, I don't see how it could be helpful rather than harmful.
    As for harassment, it is indeed the person who is being harassed who has the first right of interpretation (the silly English language has no word for that, but there is one in Swedish - tolkningsföreträde), and to deny people the right to have their reports heard and taken seriously is fatal. Of course. But unfortunately, what we very often see is people feeling harassed or insulted by editors who scrupulously stick to the "comment on edits, not on editors" policy, as discussed above. A lot of the flak that en.wiki gets comes from us adhering to notability and verifiability policies, and as long as we are an encyclopedia, that's not going to change.
    Another question: above you talk about efforts to make Wikipedia a better place for women and non-binary people to edit safely and in comfort - which is unambiguously a good thing to do. But how would you address the fact that women have expressed on this very page that what the WMF are proposing make them less safe and less likely to want to participate and make their unique voices (unique because they are individuals, not because they are women) part of the conversation? Who has the first right of interpretation of the collective experience of women, when we don't even know which editors are male, female, nb, genderqueer, or something else? Is it unreasonable for me to assume that again, it is going to be a US-American view of what women want, a view that is often deeply offensive to other people (regardless of gender), and directly excludes a large number of people who identify as women? --bonadea contributions talk 09:10, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I am kind of reminded of another incident (this time on a course) where an immigrant engaged in behavior that was sexual harassment, but not where he came from. Now I do get that we cannot (and should not) impose our values on other countries (the white mans burden all all that). BUt I can see how a corporate entity might want to impose a given set of values on its staff (after all whilst you may not employ child labour in your base nation, the publicity of you doing so in wheerevaistan will still affect your market image in your base nation). Moreover it also would make it easier for those who are not from WASP nations to come here and not fall foul of our standards (such as rules on notability or OR, let alone civility). If we have one set of standards no one can plead "but not from where I come from" as a justification.Slatersteven (talk) 09:27, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    @Slatersteven: I think you bring up some very good points. I'm trying to think of a way that we can all have a universal system of civility, but clearly there will always be situations where we fall short. I don't think that a universal civility process has to be perfect: it just has to work well enough most of the time. For other situations, as you rightly point out, we will have to handle differently somehow. I'm not sure I'm the right person to do that: I'm a librarian and it's not my area of expertise. But I want to start the discussion and not give up on the idea just because it's going to be hard to figure out. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:58, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    As I said rules only work (and are only fair) if they are inflexible. Else you get "well he is my mate I will protect him" mentality. So no I did not say (and do not agree with the idea of) we have to take into account "context", cultural; or otherwise, ("well I can tell him to fuck off, but he cannot tell me to"), quite the opposite. What I said was that any corporate entity has to take into account publicity, and how that impacts on its operations. So ultimately any code of conduct has to be informed by where the company has its biggest operations (or its base). It does not matter if Barry come from foregnistan, it does not give him a right to ignore rules on (for example) personal space, culture be damed.Slatersteven (talk) 08:41, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the candour in the above comments clarifies one view, a sort of undercurrent in the outrage that has been less frankly stated because of its ugliness. cygnis insignis 12:18, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • There are certainly hurdles to trying to produce some kind of universal code of civility, and if we're pedantic about it then a truly universal one can't exist - because civility means different things to different cultures, backgrounds, and even individuals. But we should not be pedantic and should not throw our hands up and say "We can't have any code then, and have accept everything". Similar to the way a lot of this dispute has led to polarizing of positions, this is another issue where the answer is simply not black or white. The choice we face is not between a perfect code and no code at all. If we should come up with one that is not in keeping with the cultural and/or personal values of some individual editors (which is inevitable), then I think it can be entirely reasonable for those individuals to be expected to moderate their civility approach to match the code. I've been in plenty of different cultural environments, and I've adjusted my approach to civility to fit - I certainly don't go to, say, another country and expect its natives to accept my way of doing things (unlike, sadly, a lot of my compatriots). Some of the civility problems to date have surely been due to different individuals approaching the same issue from different cultural and personal directions and finding each other's approaches lacking - and there's been no central reference to direct people in such cross-cultural situations. I confess I have my doubts about how well a universal code of civility can be developed, and I do get twitchy when I hear of such things. But at this stage, I'm withholding my judgment until I see what it looks like - anything else would be unfair. After all, nobody has yet come up with the faintest working idea of how to deal with incivility, and in many cases we're just getting worse at it. And we have to get better. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:58, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wouldn't it be simpler, more effective, and certainly more pertinent to the present case, to develop a code of what is and isn't harassment, rather then attempting to codify "civility", which is not only much more difficult, but is also a much less important issue? It would also be in line with any legal concerns the WMF might have. After all, it seems unlikely that the Foundation would have any reasonable legal exposure for not blocking or banning an editor who was merely impolite, as opposed to one who was actually harassing another editor in the legal sense. Let the WMF define "harassment" as precisely as possible, so that the community and ArbCom have a standard to apply, then T&S can step in if it's not properly enforced at the community level -- but only when it opens the Foundation up to potential legal action. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:45, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    the Issue is not rules, but uneven enforcement I think.Slatersteven (talk) 08:41, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    "A universal code of conduct? That is very scary." Almost as scary as a universal policy on paid editing. Oh, wait, we managed to handle that - including WMF-recognised local exceptions - with zero drama. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:49, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    New "User reporting system"

    For those of us with too much time on our hands, I've put together some links to what I've been able to find out about the background to the initiative to create a new User reporting system. I've added a few quotes to give a flavour of each document.

    Start here
    m:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation 2019 – "The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken."
    Volunteer liaisons
    m:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation/Volunteer sign up page – Twelve volunteers signed up to be liaison for wikis or affiliates.
    Overview of research about English Wikipedia dispute resolution and harassment
    Wikipedia:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/Research on dispute resolution and harassment – "quantitative data analysis of posts to AN/I ... 533 total ANI cases, 315 of which were resolved ... 40 cases included the keyword '3RR', 26 'COI', 18 'harassing', 14 'hounding' and 22 'boomerang'".
    Research about ANI
    Wikipedia:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/Research about Administrators' Noticeboard Incidents – "This survey is intended to understand community sentiments around AN/I, and will not lead to immediate or imposed changes to AN/I from the Foundation. Rather the purpose of the survey is to fill in gaps in data that could lead to on wiki discussions about possible improvements to how AN/I cases are managed. Any changes would need to be backed by the volunteer community on the English Wikipedia."
    Admin confidence
    Wikipedia:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/Administrator confidence survey/Results − "The Anti-Harassment Tools Team is interested in measuring how admins feel about different kinds of conflict specific activities (wikihounding, vandalism, harassment, sockpuppetry), how confident they feel spotting, mitigating, and intervening in these case types, and if they feel supported with tools and other resources from the Wikimedia Foundation." See especially Comments about policy, reporting, harassment, community culture.
    Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program
    Recommendations on the Development of Anti-Harassment Tools and Behavioural Dispute Resolution Systems for Wikimedia (pdf) — "Findings ... Current systems for reporting, managing, and evaluating user incidents do not appear to be effective at preventing harassment. "
    Reporting systems summary
    Reporting systems on English Wikipedia (pdf) – "the Wikimedia community highly prizes transparency. For reporting systems, this is interpreted as publicly-viewable processes, outcomes, and the identities of the involved users. Transparency in this case is not just a design consideration put into place to achieve a certain kind of efficiency or mode of operation, but a value to be strived for in the way the entire system operates. Because the current reporting system aligns with a certain dominant interpretation of transparency, the system engenders a feeling of trust from its users. However, we know that the same commitment to transparency can be harmful and serves to chill the participation of other users who are not properly served by the system as it stands. Our current conundrum is the fact that, whatever changes we recommend, it must adhere to these values even as we change key features, otherwise it will not be trustworthy."

    Hands up everybody who wasn't even aware that we had an"Anti-Harassment Tools Team" [raises hand]. But that last one is the real kicker, isn't it? I hope somebody will ask Jan if he read the report commissioned for his team, and if he did, what he made of "whatever changes we recommend, it must adhere to these values even as we change key features, otherwise it will not be trustworthy." Given that clear warning dated November 2018, you have to wonder why he didn't see the current shitstorm coming. --RexxS (talk) 17:56, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Oh, I'm quite sure he saw it coming. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:03, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    [raises hand]. I hope you're wrong Boing!, because if the WMF knew full-well what the reaction would be, and then did it anyway, that's gross neglect for the relationship between the WMF and the community, and we need to respond with some form of direct protest (Freeze the Main Page?) Tazerdadog (talk) 18:24, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    However the new power structure was introduced, what do you reckon are the chances there wouldn't be a shitstorm reaction? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:50, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The introduction process should have been "Ask first, get a consensus for what editors want to see, and then do that." You'll notice when they followed that process with Visual Editor and MediaViewer, their deployments went very smoothly, whereas when they failed to, it blew up in everyone's face. So, basically, ask us what we want done, don't tell us what will be done. And given those earlier instances, they should already know that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:59, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    They wouldn't have got a consensus for what they want, and they were going to do it anyway, so asking us first and then overriding the objections would have probably made it worse. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:04, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Simple enough solution, then: Don't do it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:15, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    As I say, there were going to do it anyway. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:20, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I write better content today and am a more efficient editor because Visual Editor exists. A consensus based community, like we are, is going to be (notice the lowercase letter here) conservative by its nature. Overall this is good - it's why we get praised for the quality of our coverage of difficult topics. However, there are going to be times when this conservatism is going to harm the project in the long-run. Figuring out how to thread that needle of respecting our norms, traditions, and culture, while opening the door to continued viability as a project is the needle the foundation should be trying to thread. And because it's a challenge they're going to get it wrong a bunch. And when they do we should rightly criticize them for it and they should learn from it. But that doesn't mean they should just stop trying to do the bigger kinds of changes that promote longterm health. In this case they've gotten something very wrong and I worry what, if anything, they're going to take away from all this. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:29, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Barkeep49, IIRC, the core of the problem was not VE itself, but introducing a highly buggy VE, that caused more issues than it solved. There are major differences between today's VE and the one, that was first launched.
    A software product must be stable to minimum extents, before throwing it to the masses -- that (apparently) evaded the WMF developers. ∯WBGconverse 04:36, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Winged Blades of Godric I was indeed not active at that point so I don't know if it was a minimally viable product or not - I am guessing it wasn't just from the animosity that so many feel and you're right it shouldn't have been introduced. But my point was the foundation wasn't wrong to develop it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:44, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Barkeep49: Besides the initial bugs, they tried to enforce it us. VE was at some point plainly enabled for all users and I had to turn it off. Mediaviewer was just enabled. Standard setting for beta-features is, IIRC, to standard enable any beta feature UNLESS you chose not to. Remember SuperPutsch. WMF has been enforcing stuff on us for a long time becuase they think we need it, With VE, in its buggy status, it was not 'hey guys, we have this new gadget, for those interested please try it and tell us what you think. And if you think it is good enough and there is community consensus, you can turn it on <here>.' (personal complaint, they refuse to work on material that is easily 10 years outdated, source of regular complaints, and would not even do it if it would get enough suppert in the annual Community Wishlist).
    Seen its history, I would NOT be surprised that a meta-RfC would gain sufficient traction to throw out WMF or to seriously restrict its powers (though I doubt we are int time for that - they might just block everyone who is against them). --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:54, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    For reference for those wondering what the controversy the thread above is discussing was: WP:VisualEditor/RFC. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 07:05, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess I just don't see how we go from superprotect to this (and I don't like bringing up names here but Jan used superprotect). --Rschen7754 18:27, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Hands down; read about it in the usual places. isaacl (talk) 18:39, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Isaacl, have you read of the User-reporting-system consultation? Please point me to the relevant thread. Reagrds, ∯WBGconverse 19:23, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I recall seeing this announcement of the community health initiative but never watchlisted the corresponding page (and its talk page), so I've not kept abreast of the progress in this area. isaacl (talk) 06:13, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Hands up everybody who wasn't even aware that we had an"Anti-Harassment Tools Team" [raises hand]. As a shameless plug, for things like this I recommend subscribing to Wikipedia:Administrators' newsletter. The efforts of the anti-harassment tools team to improve the blocking interface have been publicized there on several occasions last year: e.g. Jan 2018, Aug 2018, Oct 2018. Mz7 (talk) 19:54, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Doc James: - were you aware of this (or the team in general) WMore importantly, what do you think of the discussion above: Should the WMF have sought (and obeyed) cross-project consensus first, or should they implement changes they feel are necessary even if the community disagrees? Nosebagbear (talk) 19:55, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Was aware of the team. They have been working on tools such as partial blocks for EN WP. Am hoping they would also look at improving the CU interface (but as I am not a CU not sure if they are). User:Nosebagbear been busy at work today and need a bit of time to catch up. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:06, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, no worries - I'm sure you came out of the board meeting to an avalanche of pings - plus everything else that draws your time Nosebagbear (talk) 23:09, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    [Just a small aside...] Gee, all I want to do is edit/create Wikipedia articles. Wasn't aware of the AHT Team or the Community health Initiative either... Shearonink (talk) 18:33, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Does enwiki have/want a "Volunteer to be a liaison to your wiki community or Wikimedia affiliate"?

    See the link mentioned above: m:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation/Volunteer sign up page- I don't see anyone representing us and I'm not sure how they would do it in any case. The job seems immense and pretty important. m:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation 2019 Thanks to User:RexxS for drawing attention to it. I'll admit I knew about it but wasn't about to volunteer! Doug Weller talk 16:04, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I know nothing about this particular task, but I dealt with community liasons on other WMF projects who were trying to facilitate the strategy exercise and get the community input - their activity ranged from trying to be useful and getting desperate because they did not manage to engage the community to being outright hostile and telling the community what they expect, but none of those I would call useful. Whereas the institute of liasons could work in some situations, I do not thin k we are currently at the stage any self-appointed or WMF-appointed person can really have a distinctly positive contribution here.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:31, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    A suggested resolution

    Some thoughts on how we might collectively deescalate the situation. Of course, if there is significant additional information that remains unknown to us, this might not work. But if the facts are basically as the community has come to understand them, how about this plan:

    • The Office terminates Fram's ban. We don't argue any more about whether it was right or wrong, legitimate or outrageous, although everyone can maintain their individual feelings about that. But the ban is just terminated as of now, on the grounds that (1) it seems to remain counterproductive to Foundation-community relations, and (2) one presumes that any "clean up your act" message that was intended for Fram has been received.
    • If there is a specific editor or two with whom the Office believes Fram was interacting problematically, Fram quasi-voluntarily agrees, without admitting any wrongdoing, to stay away from that editor(s). The editor's or editors' name(s) do not need to be disclosed on-wiki.
    • Fram also quasi-voluntarily agrees to improve his decorum a little bit. It may only be a surface issue, but there really are better ways to say "I disagree with ArbCom's action" than "Fuck you, ArbCom" (and I would say that even if I hadn't been a long-time ArbCom member myself).
    • The community hopefully accepts that even if this one was mishandled, Trust and Safety actions are generally taken with good intentions, and that there is a reason many of them can't be publicly discussed. As Opabinia regalis reminded us in her comments on the arbitration request, "T&S is these people." Most of them come from the Wikipedia communities, many from this community. They're not perfect, but they didn't accept jobs at the Foundation for the purpose of perpetrating a hostile takeover.
    • The Office opens, or reopens, or expands a dialog with the community about what it is trying to accomplish and how to get there (assuming it's somewhere it's desirable to be). It's been pointed out that various consultations have been open for awhile, but have flown under the radar of many editors, and certainly were not expected to culminate in this type of action. WMF, if you didn't before, you have our attention now. What are you trying to do, and how do you plan to go about doing it?

    Comments appreciated. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:18, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Endorse

    1. All of that sounds perfectly reasonable to me. 28bytes (talk) 18:28, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    2. Samesies. nableezy - 18:29, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    3. Endorse Sounds good to me. If the Office is acting in good faith, I do not see why they would not accept this. Enigmamsg 18:30, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    4. Endorse as a fair compromise Atlantic306 (talk) 18:41, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    5. Endorse Fair. CoolSkittle (talk) 18:52, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    6. Endorse as a reasonable and good faith way out of this mess.--Mojo Hand (talk) 19:03, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    7. Endorse I like the good faith part and it being reasonable.Yger (talk) 19:11, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    8. Endorse Seems a reasonable way to try to walk back this situation. Jheald (talk) 19:16, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    9. Generally Endorse If behavior is inappropriate, WMFOffice should bring it and evidence to the appropriate board immediately (such as ArbCom). The undoing of the ban need not be instantaneous if exigent circumstances are present (such as a death threat and WMF is working with local authorities). Buffs (talk) 19:20, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Addendum: It would also be acceptable to keep a ban in place on all en.wiki activities until such time as an ArbCom case is resolved (consider this the equivalent of house arrest while the case is heard Buffs (talk) 22:37, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    10. Endorse This feels reasonable and responsive to issues on multiple sides and so I support it. I would hope that this reasonableness would receive a positive response from the foundation rather than it being seen as a negotiating posture (e.g. "well you you asked for immediate reinstatement and we said a year so let's compromise on six months"). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:32, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    11. Endorse Perfect / brilliant. We should mention this in the other places that it is being discussed. North8000 (talk) 19:34, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    12. Reluctant Endorse but pending BoT statement. It might be very plausible that Fram actually did something quite serious enough (in which case, the ban shall stand) or that the staff were plainly incompetent in a bid to discipline and micromanage the community. We need to learn the rough details. Also, echo Headbomb; fuck an institution will be somewhere around 2, on a scale of 10, if we are rating various forms of harassment and bullying. ∯WBGconverse 19:38, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    13. Sounds like a good plan, and much more sensible than the ArbCom case request. Headbomb makes a good point though. —Kusma (t·c) 19:42, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    14. Endorse with changes: I do admit that Headbomb has a point. However, having read through enough AN/I and AN threads with Fram's involvement, I'm sure that Fram can improve somewhat in terms of decorum. At least, I do hope so. Now, setting that point aside: I'd like to amend the proposed resolution to provide for the opening of an Arbitration Committee case, pursuant to Fram's request, as seen here. Of course, I may be able to accept it without this change. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 19:43, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    15. I've got a few issues with a detail or two (for example, if I understand right, WMF would refuse to tell Fram who to avoid, though I imagine he could guess as well as the rest of us by now). The overarching idea of the WMF vacating the ban, leaving any action (if needed) against Fram to en.wiki processes, and then having this much talked-about, calm, no-deadline, respectful discussion seems better than what we have now. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:45, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    16. Endorse with similar qualms and wimpy caveats as Headbomb and Floquenbeam. But peace matters. Thank you, Newyorkbrad! ---Sluzzelin talk 19:50, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    17. Endorse Sounds perfectly reasonable. (if I may, as I'm mainly active in German-language Wikipedia and on Commons, so I don't feel wholly part of English-language Wikipedia's community - although my first edits were made here, back in 2003 :-) ) Gestumblindi (talk) 19:52, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    18. Endorse per Floquenbeam. Haukur (talk) 19:56, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    19. Endorse - with ArbCom case - The main issue here is the question of whether and where our policies are deficient, and that is something the ArbCom is best equipped to figure out (as this may well require assessing past cases where private communications were involved). That said, such an ArbCom case should stick to fact-finding on this subject and interpreting that as much as possible to make recommendations to the community. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:58, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    20. Makes sense to me as a possible option--Ymblanter (talk) 20:01, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    21. Reluctant Endorse I view any action that leads to Fram no longer being office-banned as progress, although much of this proposal accepts a level of office involvement in the community that I, and probably many other users, feel is excessive. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:07, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      A fair assessment, and if they come out of the board meeting with something that throws more fuel on the fire it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect this option to be taken off the table. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 20:27, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    22. Endorse with an additional request: if and when an editor with an instance of problematic editing such as WP:CopyVio is identified, en-WP admins and editors – including Fram – may scrutinize other edits of that editor. WMFOffice accepts that this is neither stalking nor evidence of hostility or harassment, rather such efforts are in good faith and necessary to maintain or improve the "Quality and Reliability" of the en-WP. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:30, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    23. Endorse as a first step. In my opinion, this focusses too much on the individual case, not on the general relationship between the foundation and the communities. But it might rebuild some bridges and de-escalate the situation to allow for a constructive dialogue. Thanks for a useful contribution, Brad! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:31, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    24. Endorse. This seems reasonable. Neutral on ArbCom case. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 20:51, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    25. Endorse as a way forward, not perfect, but hopefully acceptable by all parties. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:54, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    26. +1. Also support the ArbCom case. --GRuban (talk) 21:08, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    27. Endorse - sensible compromise. PhilKnight (talk) 21:25, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    28. Endorse as a positive way forward. However, bullet 4 sticks in my craw. The only insight we have into whether Trust and Safety's actions were taken with good intentions are the actual results of their actions, and their written response. The results are what they are, but the written response and inability to engage in meaningful dialog falls short. Trust and Safety is a very serious role for an organization to undertake. A company with $100+ million in annual revenue has no business staffing such a department with amateurs. Thank you NYB for trying to turn this in a positive direction.- MrX 🖋 21:43, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    29. Endorse noting that Fram suggested a less lenient compromise the better part of a week ago, now. EllenCT (talk) 21:49, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    30. Endorse too many hours have already been spent on this. If WMF wants to destroy Wikipedia, I guess no one can stop them; but we can at least try, Huldra (talk) 22:18, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    31. Endorse, with the disclaimer that I haven't been able to keep up with all the relevant pages. - Dank (push to talk) 22:20, 17 June 2019 (UTC) Clarification: all I'm supporting here is the effort to work out a temporary truce. It's hard to keep up with everything. I'll come back to this after we hear from the Board. - Dank (push to talk) 16:04, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    32. Endorse. In the end, regardless of what Fram has or hasn't done, this has been appallingly badly handled by T&S. Absolutely no-one disagrees with global bans for those editors who have violated certain community norms, especially where that concerns such things child protection or serious off-wiki harassment. And there are plenty of those. But here, we have the WMF granting themselves a new "partial ban" ability, where such issues are not as serious as those I've just mentioned. Who is the first target on enwiki? Someone who has been a serious (and usually accurate) critic of the WMF. Whether or not that is bad, it looks terrible. And especially when the diff given as a main reason for their ban is telling ArbCom to "fuck off". A lot of editors have said that, many times, in many different ways. We don't ban them for it. And we never should. Black Kite (talk) 22:38, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    33. Endorse, per Huldra. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:47, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    34. Endorse A sensible path. I'll resist the temptation to suggest any tweaks but will note that the proposal does not address the issue of Fram's admin-bit and whether the de-sysop should be endorsed, overturned, or decided through a fresh RFA. Abecedare (talk) 22:50, 17 June 2019 (UTC).[reply]
    35. Endorse The base line from which we have to operate is good will and good faith on both sides - because without that, this project is already systemically screwed and will crumble (and it doesn't matter whether that ultimately happens via bottom-up or top-down processes). This suggested bundle provides room for everyone to demonstrate that; roll back the drama; undo a few bad decisions; and allow the community to have a calm go at improving some things. Good effort by Newyorkbrad, and thanks for thinking it through. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:52, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    36. Endorse It's a good way to bring all of this chaos to an end. I don't think telling Fram to be more careful will fix their civility issues, but at least it's progress. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 23:03, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    37. Endorse as a sensible way forward. T. Canens (talk) 23:34, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    38. Endorse in general, and especially the last point. While it will be good if this particular issue gets resolved and we can stop seeing if we can set a page size record, we have to resolve things going forward so that this will not happen again (or, if we decide it should, it happens in a way that will not cause a blowup like this). I don't think anyone, WMF included, wants a repeat here. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:53, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    39. Endorse A sensible compromise. An de facto IBAN against any complainants who felt they've been harassed (the mere existence of which remains unconfirmed), paired with a general civility mandate, which would presumably address the root of the ban. If the Foundation is to take a no-compromise approach even in the most contentious situation, they should be able and willing to justify that decision, which they have refused to do, in spite of the fact that basic transparency and privacy protection are not and have never been mutually exclusive. Either the ban is outright unjust, or it is arguably just but the community disagrees with it. In that case, the Foundation should have no problem accepting a reasonable alternative offered by the community, and that is exactly what this is. ~Swarm~ {sting} 00:14, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    40. Endorse per Swarm and so many above. Miniapolis 00:39, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    41. Endorse At this point, WMF has to make a good faith step forward if they're ever going to start regaining our trust. Platitudes and corporate double-speak aren't it. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 01:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    42. Endorse Also, can we make two subheadings for those who "endorse" vs "oppose"? It's harder to gauge consensus this way. (I'd move all of them but I think that would be too disruptive.) Rockstonetalk to me! 01:59, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    43. Endorse Although I'm not overly optimistic.©Geni (talk) 02:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    44. (edit conflict) Endorse I had little hope any productive change would come out of the discussion, but this is a good start. – Teratix ₵ 02:07, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    45. Reluctant endorse per Black Kite. I considered opposing because I'm not persuaded that Fram has done anything to warrant even an unofficial IBAN, but an oppose would seemingly put me in the same camp as the Fram-bashers, and I'm not interested in that. I'm also amused that some keep bringing up the Terms of Use as if that's some kind of magic bullet. Yeah, we know about the Terms of Use, and we still aren't going to let ham-handed actions from the WMF go unchallenged. That should be obvious by now. Lepricavark (talk) 02:28, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    46. Endorse - Whether Fram's activity on the English Wikipedia warrants action is something that needs to be address by the appropriate channels. WMF overstepped in attempting to circumvent that. - Aoidh (talk) 02:38, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    47. Endorse dot points 4 & 5. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:39, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    48. Endorse - a possible way forward for the community. starship.paint (talk) 04:00, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    49. Endorse. On the point of "these people", I would also request the WMF explain what training/education is given to members of the team. Having former editors among them is a great idea, but what steps have been added to get them to the point from being an ordinary editor to such a crucial and sensitive role. (And globally it's an increasingly high-profile and important one, given the same type of departments popping up in Facebook, Twitter, etc). - SchroCat (talk) 04:21, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    50. Endorse I'd also like to see an assurance from the WMF that they have cleaned their act up to at least our standards, and that the WMF will no longer stand by staff who make personal attacks, on IRC or elsewhere. It would be nice if they also assured us that they had forgotten it was Fram who threatened to block a WMFer for personal attacks and assured us that their block of him was not revenge. As for the interaction ban, yes T&S may not be able to tell Fram who the complainant was, so that bit may not be possible. But if they deemed that the incident only merited a 12 month single project restriction on Fram, T&S presumably did not consider that any harassment merited a longer term interaction ban such as the global, permanent bans that they give harassers. ϢereSpielChequers 04:47, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    51. Endorse - Not as rough-and-tough an outcome as I would prefer, which would involve a unilateral retreat of WMF from matters that are not within their purview followed by some sort of internal penalty against those WMF employees who threw gasoline on the fire in the first place; but, all things considered, probably the best outcome we can hope for at this juncture, given the incredibly weak performance of the WMF Board and Arbcom. Carrite (talk) 05:00, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    52. Endorse. Let me be clear. I am NOT happy if this is the outcome. This leaves unresolved major questions involving COI, the communities trust in the WMF, and how we prevent similar scenarios from re-occuring. I will note that point 5 is insufficient, and also the most important one here. The foundation exists to serve the community, and that relationship must be respected, or we're wasting each others time. That said, this is a compromise negotiation and a good compromise makes everyone unhappy, so even though I'd have liked to see the result include a more major wakeup call to the WMF, I can hold my nose and accept this. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:13, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    53. Endorse - This seems sensible. Killiondude (talk) 05:16, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    54. Endorse AGF --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:40, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    55. Endorse. I am not happy with the communication or action from Trust & Safety so far, and this would restore my willingness to continue to perform administrative work on en Wikipedia.-gadfium 05:46, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    56. Endorse Absconded Northerner (talk) 05:48, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    57. Endorse a sensible compromise if all parties agree. Hut 8.5 06:53, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    58. Endorse Seems sensible. talk to !dave 07:37, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    59. Endorse- A reasonable compromise that will allow everyone to walk away having made their point and learned something: The WMF needs to understand that enforcing smiles and sunshine with an iron fist is not going to work here. We've adopted a culture of communication- and it's served us well- that forthright language, for the sake of the actual article contents, is welcome and expected. Handing out arbitrary and capricious bans to alter that culture ultimately will not work. All you'll accomplish is to lose a lot of good editors and make everyone hate you. At the same time, fixating on certain editors and their (admittedly dubious) edits can border on cruelty even if that's not the intent. Admins and rank-and-file editors can definitely work on our approach there. Reyk YO! 07:45, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    60. Endorse. I guess this is a sensible compromise. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 08:10, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    61. Endorse By no means a fan of thoughtless "fuck you" comments, but this bolt-from-the-blue action leaves us needing reassurance that the staff concerned didn't accept jobs at the Foundation for the purpose of perpetrating a hostile takeover. Without a substantive response from the WMF, they'll be getting no more work out of me: Bhunacat10 (talk), 08:59, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    62. Endorse – A good way to cool down. — JFG talk 09:23, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    63. Endorse - a sensible way forward. GiantSnowman 09:42, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    64. Endorse - Not perfect, but good enough. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:28, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    65. (edit conflict) Conditional support iff the matter is examined by ArbCom. Otherwise, I agree with those in opposition that this basically ignores the real problems that were apparently raised to lead to this action. My problem with the T&S action was never the ban itself but that established community processes were not followed. If ArbCom can independently and impartially review the case against Fram, I think the WMF should allow it to do so. If that fails, T&S can still step in again. Regards SoWhy 10:33, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    66. Endorse - an ArbCom case is probably a good idea but is not a condition on my part (I don't think it's likely that one would not be filed). Encouraging actual communication and actual respect for the people involved on all sides seems like the only way forward. Thank you, Newyorkbrad. --bonadea contributions talk 12:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    67. Endorse - per WereSpielChequers whose institutional memory will recall at least one instance when the community desysoped a foul-mouthed contractor who all but killed off the efforts to improve NPP and introduce ACTRIAL (plenty of diffs available). That said, let's not lose sight of the fact that this this entire debacle is not so much about Fram or other admins who fell on their swords in support, but more about the sleazy hegemony and exploitation by the WMF of the volunteers who provide their raison d'être, salaries, and junkets. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:42, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    68. Endorse as a start. And presuming that arbcom is privy to the basis of T&S's actions and supports this route. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:20, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    69. Endorse as a good-faith start to re-building the bridges summarily destroyed by WMF in their actions. However, what bothers me the most is that the WMF could take this kind of bizarre unilateral action again, at any point, for any reason. The clear questions over some members of WMF and various COI still exist. But given the utter recalcitrance from WMF to show any kind of openness to actually discussing this (no more boilerplate, perhaps they're not aware of {{DTTR}}), that might be an ask too far. So let's at least undo the damage the WMF have done, and then we can move on, but with a much more cautious eye on WMF, their behaviour and the various inter-relations in an attempt to avoid more such community devastation. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:26, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    70. Endorse, not as a satisfactory solution, but as a start. As for the perceived problem of #2, regarding identifying those allegedly aggrieved editors: we can be pretty certain at this point that there aren't any. We know of exactly one case of somebody who complained to the foundation about harassment (no secrecy, because she said so herself); we know that the foundation took that complaint at face value; we know they were wrong in doing so because in fact there was no harassment. Per Occam's razor, there is no reason whatsoever to assume there are any more genuine complainants, at least none whose complaint would be seriously enough to warrant a demand for privacy, or if there are, their complaints are just as wrong as the first. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:12, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    71. Endorse as a way forward from this debacle. Jonathunder (talk) 16:02, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    72. I am not perfectly happy with item 1, but maybe I missed something in the last few days and the WMF has been in contact with ArbCom to let them handle the ban ("take over" if there really is meat on that unidentified bone), and we have to start somewhere. Thank you NYB. Drmies (talk) 18:03, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    73. Endorse - It's a way forward, beyond the "fork off or fuck off" mentality that some other people seem to have.--WaltCip (talk) 18:42, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    74. Endorse - a reasonable suggestion to de-escalate this crisis. GermanJoe (talk) 00:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    75. Endorse. Seems a perfectly reasonable compromise. If the WMF had just said "it's a private matter, we can't talk about it" and issued an indefinite ban, then I would assume something Really Bad happened, but since that isn't what WMF did, their explanation has been highly lacking. WMF should admit that it was an overreach and move on. SnowFire (talk) 05:54, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    76. Endorse. It's refreshing to hear such a calm, reasonable, respectful, and compromising proposal. Benjamin (talk) 06:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    77. Endorse. Get a fresh "re-start". Kante4 (talk) 08:49, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    78. Endorse – seems like a sensible course of action to me. Graham87 09:04, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    79. Endorse as a possible move forward to a more constructive relationship between the projects and WMF. I've some reservations, though. Firstly, this is not just about Fram, it is about our relationship with WMF in regard to the enforcements of the ToU. Most global WMF bans in regard to cases I was familiar with appeared to be justified. Cases like continued harassment of users outside of our projects, huge zoos of sockpuppets across multiple wikis, upload of very problematic material etc. are indeed best handled by T&S. However, usual on-wiki misbehaviour should be still handled through community processes where those responsible to handle it are elected (admins, checkusers, oversighters, and arbcoms). WMF staff should go forward and communicate their concerns if they see shortcomings in our processes. Such an outside view can be helpful and would allow us to develop our processes into a better direction where needed. Secondly, I've some concerns in regard to Jan Eissfeldt, lead manager of T&S. In 2014, he participated in a wheel war including the application of super-protect at de:wp for which his regular account was desysoped: [25], [26]. At that time he was nearly entirely unable to communicate, this was his only comment where he pointed to a statement by someone else. This pattern of a wheel war just re-appeared now again. Like before, this was not an emergency, this could have been resolved through communication. I've absolutely no trust in anyone who resorts to wheel-warring without even attempting to communicate. --AFBorchert (talk) 09:48, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    80. Endorse Maybe it's not perfect, but it's a reasonable start. One aphorism I used to use when teaching Master's degree students about government policy making was "the best is the enemy of the good". I think that applies here. This is a good start. It may have to be tweaked along the way, there may be stumbling blocks, but it's a hell of a lot better than doing nothing and the best proposal we've got. Doug Weller talk 14:51, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    81. Endorse A fair compromise.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 16:36, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    82. Endorse per Doug Weller and many others. We can't force WMF to do anything, but should they decide it's a good idea to start mending some fences, we need to offer them some sort of consensus-based way to move forward. There are some issues with this proposal, but if we assume a assume a modicum of good faith on all sides then I can't see why any of them would be insurmountable. GirthSummit (blether) 18:59, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    83. Endorse as a place to start -- but the T&S committee's unilateral action remains unacceptable, & the WMF needs to acknowledge this. AFBrochert raises the important point that Jan Eissenfeldt was involved in 2 Foundation actions that offended the en.wikipedia community; if he was critically involved in these offensive acts then his dismissal from the Foundation should be added to this resolution. We must be able to reasonably trust all of the employees of the Foundation. -- llywrch (talk) 21:54, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    84. Endorse per proposal. Oshawott 12 ==()== Talk to me! 02:52, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    85. Endorse This is the reasonable action. There is a Wikipedia Justice System and it operates according to a defined process. The WMF actions are the cause of a cascade of transgressions against this process. I am only able to imagine two possibilities: either the WMF power who issued the ban is competent and understanding, and they correctly anticipated this community response; or the WMF power who issued the ban is incompetent, and failed to recognize the great likelihood of the community raising these objections. So far as I know, the wiki community observers who are withholding judgement are waiting in faith for the WMF to explain the extraordinary circumstances which necessitated such an extraordinary action. I have no opinion whatsoever about Fram, their actions, or anything specific to these circumstances. I only endorse this remedy because I want to see due process and rule of law in opposition to opaque authoritarianism. The problem is not that the WMF took an action, but that the WMF took an obviously extraordinary action seemingly unaware of how bizarre it was. At this point my fear is that the people at the WMF who are operating the levers of power are ignorant of what they are doing and outsiders to community values. I could be wrong - the WMF could have had a unique and dramatic reason for extrajudicial action. I hope that as a result of this the WMF increases its collaborative infrastructure. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:55, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    86. Endorse This way forward opens the option of something good coming out of this: a shared view of goals between wikipedia editors and the foundation, a shared array of methods of achieving those goals, and clarity on who fulfils which roles. It also brings back the sense that there are people behind the role-accounts (it's always easier to rant against "WMF" than against the person actually communicating behind the account.). Wikipedia editors (as a group) are right to intervene here, as some of the fundamental principles of wikipedia (I know, we are not a legal system, but we have established principles like to "due process"): possibility of appeal, sufficient clear and to the point warnings and right to a clear explanation, were not applied here. This way forward is creating an ad hoc appeals option, and it shows something more definite needs to be implemented. L.tak (talk) 07:36, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    87. Endorse. With respect to Bluerasberry's two possibilities, I'd guess somewhere in the middle: they cannot have been quite so unaware as to think there would be no response, but obviously they didn't anticipate anything like the extent of it. Myself, I think the extent of it is not just because of the action itself or T&S in general, but the skepticism of all WMF actions focussed on the enWP, such as superprotect, or VE, or Flow--all of which derived from other elements of the Foundation than T&S. This may not have been obvious to T&S, who are devoted to a particular set of problems, not to problems generally. DGG ( talk ) 03:11, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    88. Probably symbolic anyway, but per Doug Weller. --Rschen7754 03:36, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    89. Endorse Obviously that ship has sailed, but I'll add my name to the roll call.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:39, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    90. Partial Endorse: NYB’s proposal sounds perfectly reasonable and shows the level of good faith that will be required to move things forward. However, the information provided by WMBE has left me concerned that there are broader issues with how the T&S team conducts itself that may go unaddressed under the above action plan – Especially if the intended scope of #5 relates solely to the incident that had occurred on en-wiki. The WMBE situation amounts to a plausible accusation that a WMF grants-committee member had weaponised the T&S team to unfairly target the WMBE treasurer with vexatious allegations, that were not adequately investigated, resulting in the treasurer feeling obligated to leave the project. Hence, I can't help but think that these incidents (Whether found to be true or otherwise) must be considered as a whole, and need to be a catalyst for a broader discussion about the T&S team, that encompasses the en-wiki concerns with the concerns relating to how it conducts its business with foundation projects more generally-speaking. Perhaps someone could help me understand how this proposal achieves that discussion?   «l|Promethean|l»  (talk) 17:27, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose

    1. This doesn't sound realistic to me. I'm sure that the Trust and Safety team had good reasons for banning Fram, and I have no reason to think a long, angry discussion between editors who don't know the situation constitutes a reason to overturn that ban. I also don't think it's realistic (or desirable) for the WMF to disclose private information that they're not authorized to disclose. The other suggestions seem like good ones. —Granger (talk · contribs) 21:13, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      To be clear, I do not endorse as I don't see this as a realistic proposal, and I do not support the unauthorized revealing of private information or the reversal of a ban on the basis of objections from people who don't know the reasons for it. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:05, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    2. Oppose Fram’s incivility has been longstanding and has affected multiple people. This summation outlines the problems better than I could here. If the community thinks the existing system should have been allowed to run its course, too late now. Perhaps an alternative would be to allow ArbCom to review evidence “under seal,” at least what they can legally be permitted to access, and then prepare a statement (perhaps with majority and minority opinions) for the community expressing whether they concur with the ban or if they recommend another solution. “Tell Fram to be nicer” is not going to cut it; if it had, he would have toned it down long ago. Montanabw(talk) 21:33, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @Montanabw: I took the liberty of fixing an obvious typo in your link. I think it only fair to point out that the summation was authored by an editor who had been caught in a great many copyright violations by Fram over the years. EllenCT (talk) 23:54, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Ellen, thanks for the tweak. But FYI I worked with Blofeld on some FAC projects ( such as Frank Sinatra. Blofeld was a solid editor. Like most WP editors, his later work was better than his earlier efforts. Fram, however, became obsessed about edits dating back a decade, mostly close paraphrasing more than straight plagiarism, and it perfectly illustrates Fram’s obsession about people who violate his personal guidelines. Just because he may be technically right doesn’t grant him carte blanche to hound people like he did. Montanabw(talk) 03:53, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Then it should have been handled on-wiki through Arbcom. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:28, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    3. Oppose "Fram’s incivility has been longstanding and has affected multiple people" - Fram will be nicer is not really cutting it, they also have not agreed to be nicer anyways Govindaharihari (talk) 21:39, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    4. Oppose "quasi-volunteering to improve decorum" is insufficient. Thank you Montanabw. There seems to be mass amnesia where Fram is concerned, as the focus of their attentions were not simply at newbies, as is clearly shown.[27] While clarification is needed on the roles of enforcing civility, the fact of the matter is that behavior is addressed in the Terms of Use and within the purview of the foundation to step in if the community has failed to address repeated problems. One would hope that clearly defined roles and reporting policies will come of this. SusunW (talk) 21:54, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    5. Oppose. "Undo everything you've done, abdicate your duty/ability to enforce the Terms of Use, and don't do anything we don't like in the future, despite owning the site." This is not a compromise. It is a takeover. Fork the site if you disagree with the WMF enforcing the Terms of Use. That is your recourse. ~ Rob13Talk 22:10, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • That doesn't really sound like a compromise either.... --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:15, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • @BU Rob13: - that is a ridculous all or nothing argument. Firstly, we're not saying revoke the standard areas of WMF ban-control. Secondly, the WMF is free to amend their ToS however they wish, once legal requirements are met. We argue that they have no other ownership than legal - which is not the be all and end all. We have various methods to act against them, and it makes no sense not to at least consider their usage. It's like telling employees at a company who don't like management's actions that their only option is to create a startup. This suggested solution may well be wrong - but it doesn't lead to (all of) your statement's logical conclusions. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:35, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Floquenbeam: The compromise, as I see it, is that you and Bishonen haven't lost your sysop flags, and WJBscribe hasn't lost their bureaucrat flag. And that compromise is quite generous, given your collective actions. ~ Rob13Talk 01:17, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:39, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think that it misses the real point to say that the community should either: (1) say "please sir, can I have some more?" or (2) go fork ourselves. If there's anything that WMF should care about, it's the crowdsourcing framework of all WMF projects. As such, it's entirely appropriate that the "crowd" should speak out about problems that concern us. And then, WMF can, I suppose, tell us that they have laid down the law, and we should go fork ourselves. And how would that affect WMF's projects? Is it really in their best interests to encourage their most productive contributors to go and form a competing website? (Hint: no.) The fact that WMF has the legal right to assert their rights of ownership does not mean that it is sensible, practical, or ethical for them to do so. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:46, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • @BU Rob13: You're suggesting the community is trying to takeover? The community existed before the WMF ever did. There is only one possible direction a takeover could go. Benjamin (talk) 06:48, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    6. Oppose these suggestions are attempting to address two separate issues, the general and the specific, as if the resolution to the former was dependent on the other. That's not a tenable negotiating position and we need to consider the problem of the imposition of a parallel unaccountable dispute resolution procedure on enwiki separately from the appropriateness or otherwise of the punishment meted out on Fram.
      Let me be clear, I've butted heads with Fram probably as many times as anybody in the past, but I still respect and appreciate their work in defending Wikipedia, and acknowledge that they have make efforts to respond to civility criticisms over the last year or so. I'm opposed to seeing punishment imposed by a body that is not accountable to the community in other than the most egregious and exceptional cases, so I won't feel comfortable with any result for Fram that does not involve ArbCom taking over the sanctions, enforcement and appeal in the specific case.
      Secondly, there exists the general problem of the perception among T&S that enwiki has not dealt adequately with civility and harassment issues because complainants fear the transparency of our systems will further disadvantage them. I believe that the only long-term solution to that must lie in using T&S as an alternative means of raising and investigating those issues in a confidential way, but that the final decision on sanctions, enforcement and appeal should remain with ArbCom, apart from those cases which are genuinely exceptional. If that means we have to make ArbCom proceedings somewhat less transparent to preserve the privacy of complainants in some cases, so be it. I'd find that a far less bitter pill to swallow than the present situation, and I'm damned sure that both Fram and the complainant in this specific case would agree, particularly since T&S have failed abjectly to preserve the complainant's anonymity in this test case. --RexxS (talk) 23:24, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    7. Oppose. I really expected a smarter solution from you than "ask people to be nicer". Gamaliel (talk) 00:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Heh. I see you've never met User:Newyorkbrad: this is what he does! And lots of us think it is plenty smart, actually. --GRuban (talk) 16:43, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    8. Oppose It is obvious Fram disagrees with the warnings he was given, rescinding the ban because the community feels it was communicated poorly is just kicking the can down the road. The underlying problem the WMF has raised with Fram in two warnings has not been addressed, and there's no sign that Fram has taken these on board. MLauba (Talk) 00:21, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    9. Oppose I'm pretty confident the Office Action was done with good cause, and on some sort of 'three strikes' basis after off-wiki warnings. WMF clearly believes this community has failed to get to grips with certain behavioural issues amongst certain long-established editors or admins (that possibly we ourselves wouldn't tolerate coming from new editors?). It seems unreasonable to propose complete termination of the ban for this individual editor, but I could endorse the resolution if the following changes (except #1) applied to everyone in future:
      1. a c.75% reduction in the duration of the ban as a sensible compromise to immediate reinstatement;
      2. no disclosure of any other editors' names to anyone, on or off-wiki (victims shouldn't become targets. Limited disclosure to ArbComm a possibility );
      3. removal of the words "hopefully" and "generally" from our community accepting that T&S Office Actions are taken with good intentions;
      4. recognition by any banned editor that their 'decorum' must 'improve' (NYB's words), and that further Office Actions may ensue if they don't;
      5. that T&S inform ArbComm whenever any editor or admin is issued with an off-wiki warning (possibly extending to sanction implementation by ArbComm, not T&S, per RexxS); and
      6. any admin, desysopped by an Office Action, shall be expected to edit normally for a period equivalent to the length of their ban - up to a max of 6 months - before submitting a new RfA (in order to give the broad community time to decide if it now has confidence in that person being handed back the tools, based upon that editing).
      But I do absolutely endorse the need for a better dialog between WMF's T&S Team, ArbComm and the community (so that we can properly appreciate and act on their intended message, especially if they believe we are 'institutionally failing' in some parts of our editing or admin culture). Nick Moyes (talk) 02:03, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    10. Oppose though I am open to the suggestions for modification by Nick Moyes. I also agree that since this was done in such as way that caused a huge problem for relations between en.Wiki and the T&S team that further communication is necessary to repair the rift. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 02:27, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    11. Oppose dot points 1, 2 & 3. The facts underlying the ban may be confidential, although I wish WMF would explicitly that if true. Moving forward from here should not depend on Fram. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:41, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    12. Oppose per BU_Rob13, you wanted compromise, you have a compromise, nobody other than Fram is banned even though they should have as per the original statement of the ban. Sir Joseph (talk) 02:58, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • That makes sense if you operate from the principle that the WMF is the sole authority and that their word is automatically law. But from my vantage point, it is not a compromise for long-term encyclopedia-builders like Bish and Floq to not be banned. It's common sense. Lepricavark (talk) 03:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    13. Oppose as, quoting Mx. Granger, "I don't see this as a realistic proposal". I am also open to considering some of the elements suggested by NickMoyes. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:02, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    14. Oppose T&S make a commitment not to release details to the person accused of harassment. You can't then ask then to tell that person who complained, even if couched in the terms of "stay away from...". - Bilby (talk) 03:13, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    15. Oppose Tony (talk) 04:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    16. Oppose Disappointing proposed resolution. Only the last point is a good idea.--I am One of Many (talk) 04:33, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    17. Oppose expands a dialog is too wooly, an Americanism that just kicks the can down the road. T&S are ungoverned, unaccountable and based on this bizarre case, may well routinely take actions that if assessed in the cold light of day would be found incompetent or perversely unjust. A system with no published procedures, that refuses to answer questions about its procedures or explain basic case evidence that was always public and has no need to be handled like they were the NSA trying to take out terrorists, is wide open for corruption and the deliberate burying of mistakes by banning those that have been treated badly. In comparison, an hour ago I reported a porn revenge Twitter post made by a woman who claimed to be a victim, the process that Twitter follows is open and accountable whilst the cases they remove can remain confidential. Our expectations for T&S should be no less than the incredibly basic and straightforward policies that Twitter follows, just because they are jolly nice people with good intentions who believe they are good at their jobs and protect each other... --Fæ (talk) 08:44, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      case evidence that was always public Was it? Says who? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:23, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      My point was a general one. The Framban case does have public evidence, lots of it actually, including emails the WMF sent to Fram for which there is no NDA in place nor should there be, and folks are still debating whether the claims about secret evidence are credible or represent any significant evidence for the ban action, considering that our elected and trusted Arbcom members do not know of any. --Fæ (talk) 13:09, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    18. Oppose I can't agree with points 1 and 2, which basically gives Fram a slap over the wrist (I'm AGFing here that the T&S team acted on a serious and legitimate concern, as they don't have a history of doing otherwise, and the claims they targeted Fram for being a trouble maker for the WMF lack credibility). Point 3 is also very unsatisfactory: admins are expected to have a high standard of behaviour and encourage constructive discussions - being only a "little bit" better than ranting about ArbCom is not at all the standard admins should set. A better solution would be to refer this matter to ArbCom, which is where it should have gone in the first place. Nick-D (talk) 10:36, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    19. Oppose on two grounds: first, because it's a moot point; T&S has seen what the community has to offer in this regard and has chosen not to blink. Another demand for the same is not going to change things, it'll just draw out the drama. Second, because I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the impassioned defense of an admin who may have crossed a line into harassment. The thing about harassment being that the perpetrator doesn't get to define it. Even if Fram believed sincerely they hadn't crossed a line, they may have. And I find the demands that a volunteer suspension be treated with the same gravity and seriousness as a criminal trial cringe-worthy at best. Perhaps Fram will take the year to reflect on how their actions impacted people and will make a change when they return - that door has certainly been left to them by T&S and it's probably the best course of action at this point. Simonm223 (talk) 12:14, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    20. Oppose per many above, not least Simonm223. Though perhaps after voting to overturn T&S's office action, we could vote for peace in the middle east and a unicorn for everyone? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:23, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    21. Oppose per Mx. Granger. However, I wish to extend appreciation and thanks to Newyorkbrad for his measured and reasonable response to the situation, and his efforts to drive us forwards towards a constructive resolution. I can provide moral support, at least. :-) --Deskana (talk) 13:03, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    22. Oppose because this is not about Fram, it's about the relationship between the Foundation and ArbCom, and the Foundation and enwiki. Fram is one of the symptoms, yes, but we need to be looking at the causes and treating those. I don't think if Fram has been so toxic as the Foundation believe and some here on enwiki believe, that letting him back into the community without investigating those allegations is appropriate. My feeling is that as regards the specific case of Fram in this incident, that ArbCom should take over the ban, and hold a case investigating his behaviour. I said that right at the start to Jan. I would prefer that to shrugging the whole thing off as "he's learnt his lesson" because I'm not sure anyone other than those who complained to the Foundation and those within the Foundation who saw the report knows exactly what that lesson is, particularly not Fram himself. How is Fram to know exactly what he should avoid if he's not aware of it? The only aspect of this that I support is dialogue between the Foundation and enwiki/arbcom, but we have already made that clear. I have suggested that the current ArbCom request be made a focus for that discussion, while OR has suggested a RfC. Dialogue cannot happen until a venue is accepted and agreed. That appears to be the stage we're at. My preference is for the ArbCom case to be the venue because the Clerks have both experience and appropriate authority to maintain decorum, ArbCom are involved (and ArbCom is fairly central to this as the current main point of contact between WMF and enwiki, and the community authorised body to deal with situations like this), and private evidence, if appropriate, can be handled by ArbCom. If the consensus is against that as a venue, then let us do a RfC (and please let us not have any other suggestions for a venue, otherwise time and energy will be dissipated while we argue among ourselves over a venue, thus justifying any concerns the Foundation may have that we are not equipped to deal with serious issues). I think this is a nice gesture NYB, and I appreciate it, but I don't think it addresses the real issues. SilkTork (talk) 13:32, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      The issue is, and has always been, about the relationship between Wikipedia editors' elected governing body, the Arbitration Committee, and the Foundation. I'm glad to see some Committee members rising to that occasion. The position the Committee takes as a whole, however, is indeed what's key to safeguard against questionable overlap. To do that, the Committee is going to need to assert itself. El_C 14:44, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    23. Oppose. I cannot endorse this degree of extension of good faith to Trust and Safety or the WMF as a whole after these events and their statements. Nor can I agree to muzzling anyone's criticism of Arbcom, or to going against an RfC that explicitly recognized our right to say "fuck" on-wiki. There are governance issues here, but also classism issues and an abundant assumption of bad faith on the part of the WMF and some of its defenders. I cannot endorse anything that endangers individual editors by endorsing their treatment as pawns, or as subjects without rights. ArbCom has been bad enough in this respect, but at least we can seek to remedy wrongs done by ArbCom. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:03, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    24. Oppose. Did Fram harass and abuse people? If the T&S thinks so, I trust their judgement. The identities of his victims should be protected, especially considering the utter vitriol that has been on display on this page. AdA&D 18:14, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Then why didn't they allow Arbcom to arbitrate? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:43, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Sounds like a question to ask the WMF... If I were to guess I'd say it's because ARBCOM's civility standards aren't stringent enough to enforce the Terms of Use. AdA&D 01:28, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Actually after rereading this statement it seems it was due to privacy and COI concerns. AdA&D 01:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    25. Oppose The first bullet point itself is ludicrous. There is no real reason why the Office should unban Fram. If Fram were ever to receive the "clean up your act" message, that would have happened years ago. Their statement on Commons, "of course it is rather hard for me to avoid [the involved editors]" doesn't inspire any confidence either. And they still seem to be obsessed about their admin status. SD0001 (talk) 19:37, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Then why didn't they allow Arbcom to arbitrate? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:43, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I think it's fairly obvious at this point. They can't even agree right now to create a case based on the banning of Fram and/or the three uses of tools to overturn Office actions. The ban is complicated. Creating a case and reaching out to the WMF for details in private is the base minimum that they could do to form their own conclusion whether the ban was proper or not (even if they can't enforce the unbanning). The three uses of tools to overturn Office actions is all on-wiki behavior and we don't have a case on it. At this point, I wouldn't trust them to sift through Fram's edits to examine his on-wiki behavior. — Moe Epsilon 23:39, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    26. Oppose This kind of remedy has been floating around Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes since time immemorial, and it's not effective. If this sort of action is what it takes to get the message through, I say do it. Banedon (talk) 02:29, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Also I can imagine the press coverage that could easily happen if Fram is unbanned and the media starts talking to the people he allegedly harassed. Chances are they'll report the allegations, maybe find the diffs (if the victims are willing), and then conclude that on Wikipedia, if the community kicks up enough of a fuss, they can overrule the WMF's actions. Maybe some will like this kind of portrayal, but I find it very unflattering. Banedon (talk) 02:33, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    27. Oppose while I understand Newyorkbrad is trying to do, I am not convinced the proposals will be enough to address whatever concerns there are with Fram's behaviour without knowing more details of that behaviour which I can't and don't know. I am also concerned that for this proposal to work, it may require T&S share info with Fram they feel they cannot disclose. As others have noted, there's nothing nor anything in the proposal stopping Fram disclosing the identity of the person. (See also later.) While Newyorkbrad has acknowledged that what we don't know may mean the proposals don't work, I am concerned from what I've seen that if we come up with a proposal that is not going to work and send it to the WMF and then they reject it because it was never going to work, this will generate way more heat than light and so is not helping anything. Nil Einne (talk) 05:09, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      BTW, an additional problem is that since this is all quasi-voluntary and short on details, it's not clear what happens if everyone agrees to it and then it falls apart. For example, from Fram's reponse they agree to it but have noted they may not notice who's page it is when they edit during routine cleanup. As hopefully most of us know, if this were a formal iban, not noticing is rarely an excuse. When you have an iban you do need to make sure you check stuff before editing. It may impose additional work but that's the nature of the best when the community have decided you need to stay apart. What will happen in this case? And if the identity is secretive, even handling it is fraught. And notably, if a perceived violation of the quasi-voluntary iban results in re-imposition of the WMF site ban, even if the community can't figure out who it is from the timing, if Fram feels they were unfairly treated, there's nothing stopping them revealing the details they know including, as mentioned before, the identity of who the iban was with. And one thing which should have occurred to me with Fram's earlier responses but didn't. For any 2 way iban there are additional complications. Even if the other party involved in the iban wants to respond, there are complications. While the community accepts ibans don't preclude the raising of issues about the iban in appropriate places and within limits; WTF happens if lots of other people are talking about the iban on en.wikipedia, based on details perhaps revealed on other communities or outside the WMF universe, somewhat akin to what has happened in this case with one particular person and their private life? Again if you've been around AN/ANI enough you know the community general rejects anyone with an iban getting too much involved in discussions surrounding the iban relating to the person they were ibanned from. While to some extent this is the case even without an iban, it's much more acute when there is an iban. So assuming there is a 2 way iban, and such details were not mention in the original proposal so I have no idea, the complainant finds themselves in an IMO very bad situation. Nil Einne (talk) 05:43, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    28. Oppose as per Montanabw and endorse proposal by Nick Moyes, especially point 6. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:46, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    29. Oppose: (ristrettomente) #1 is unacceptable. WMF has the right to deny service to anyone, just like any website or 24-hour diner. Parenthetically, while sometimes I do agree with some of the reasoning behind Fram's "campaigns," I have never once agreed with their sharp wording in what I've read from them. Let's imagine:
      • an alternate universe in which the WMF did not have the right to "DO WHAT THEY WANT" with or without reason concerning access to their site
      • Fram was "right" about every case they argued
      • Fram was likewise "right" to use extreem language in every case they ever argued.
      In that case... mistakes happen, get over it. Personally, I have done more than twice the amount of time Fram is being asked to serve for nothing more than posting authorship information and asking if "a bit of today politics" had anything to do with Cirt's extensive contributions to "And you are lynching Negroes" (and by implication Fake news & Fake news website). Sometimes, life just isn't fair.  ;( ^^ 🌿 SashiRolls t · c 06:19, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    30. Oppose: The new information shown by Carcharoth below, about the concerns WM Belgium has had with T&S, is enough that I'd say that anything short of a full audit of the WMF, and T&S in particular, is going to be insufficient. rdfox 76 (talk) 23:48, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    31. Oppose: the proposal is premature, and for the record, it is not about being a FramBasher as some have alleged to be the only motivation to oppose. I am also undecided if it is proper protocol for so many in the community to be WMFBashers. WP isn't the UAW or Teamsters - it's a Foundation with enormous responsibility, and we are simply volunteers doing whatever it is that motivates us to be here. There is nothing I'd like to see more than a harmonious community, but I am simply not convinced that the way we're going about it is the right way, much less the best way. Atsme Talk 📧 04:05, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Other

    • I removed "a little bit" entailing the "improve his decorum" bit as it means nothing additional compared to an arbitrary improvement. --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:05, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Change reverted. "A little bit" is material. Fram is not being asked to promise to be a saint, but he would be being asked to be more careful. Jheald (talk) 19:15, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • See WP:TPO, if youd like NYBrad's comment changed you should ask him to change it instead of changing it yourself. nableezy - 19:15, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • If possible, let's focus on the bigger picture here rather than nuances of the wording. Thanks. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:17, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Please don't chastise me about policy, meaningless wording is concerning in a proposal the community has to endorse and I removed it for that sole reason. I personally don't care about being reverted so, meh. --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:36, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Uncertain I endorse this in spirit, although the specifics make me queasy. The main point I disagree with is saying "I am angry" in a "calm collected manner", can be in many situations, much less effective that showing that you are angry (Whether or not FUCK ARBCOM is the most effective way of showing that, I'll leave up to debate). So I don't think Fram should be required (based on what I know of the publicly available evidence, at least) to self impose an interaction ban / clean up his act, especially if that interaction ban leads to the other editor(s) resuming their poor encyclopedic behaviour or Wikipedia institutions failing to hear that something is unacceptable when it is unacceptable. That said, that doesn't mean I'm not in favour of Fram generally improving their behavior (if indeed poor behaviour has occurred), or that I don't acknowledged that it is unpleasant to be on the ass end of a "FUCK <INSTITUTION>" comment. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:26, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - it sounds like this plan entails the WMF disclosing to Fram the names of those who reported him. I highly doubt they'll ever do that, unless the reporters themselves agree to it... whatever else may come out of this, the foundation's privacy policy for people who contact them will remain sacrosanct, and I would have thought rightly so. Other than that this may be a reasonable way forward if the WMF and Fram both buy into it, but let's not forget there are other avenues already being explored through Jimbo, DocJames and the board. As for Headbomb's point, I disagree. I've never really got into the discussions over language and tone before, and it offends me not at all, but we should be mindful that Wikipedia has a diverse range of ages, genders, races, creeds and cultures, and if WMF enforce a stricter guideline on the tone we use then I for one won't be complaining. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 19:49, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's hard to find fault with the overall thrust of this proposal, but I think a bit of skepticism needs to be added. Yes, it would undoubtedly be helpful if WMF drops the stick over the ban. Yes, it would unquestionably be a good idea for Fram to be more empathetic in his interactions with others. But are we just kicking the can down the road in the event that, a little later, someone secretly contacts T&S asserting that a recent comment by Fram violates his "quasi" commitment? Yes, the community should be cooperative with WMF staff, rather than adversarial. But I actually think the overwhelming majority of us have been willing to do that all along, and no amount of consensus will dissuade those who really want to be adversarial. And the problem arose from T&S not being willing to cooperate with us, not the other way around. Yes, there needs to be dialog between the community and T&S, as well as between ArbCom and T&S. But a lot of that is already being initiated, and the proof will be in the proverbial pudding. WMF does need to communicate with the community about what they intend, but we need to expect that the community response will be complex, and WMF needs to expect that, if they express it as a top-down take-it-or-leave-it kind of thing, it won't work. I'd actually prefer to decide on all of this only after we find out what the outcome of the Board meeting Friday was, and what the upcoming WMF-ArbCom meeting leads to. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • A fair assessment, and if they come out of the board meeting with something that throws more fuel on the fire it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect this option to be taken off the table. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 20:27, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unrealistic - The WMF has already claimed ownership of bat, ball, and the field - they aren't going to give any of it back. I'm sorry - really I am - but that's just the way it is. — Ched :  ?  — 22:36, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Moot unless your final bullet point "the Office opens, or reopens, or expands a dialog with the community about what it is trying to accomplish and how to get there" happens first. Like I said in my statement at the pending ArbCom request, it's the Foundation who has the ball in their court to act. You can have "consensus" to do anything here like unblocking Fram's account (even though he still can't edit en.wiki) but it's still the Foundation who gets to decide because they hold the technical access to enforce their decisions at the end of the day. Unless you can actually enforce anything, then this entire discussion is for nothing. If they read this and reach this conclusion themselves and start engaging, then that's the starting point. With as many suggestions that have been thrown about though, it's unlikely this one is going to stand out though anymore than the others. At any rate, the rest of it reads as "everyone gets a slap on the wrist and let's discuss terms of use more", which isn't the problem. Civility is the problem on this website, which is why T&S stepped in. If you don't handle civility on the website, then they will again. — Moe Epsilon 00:12, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't understand why is it important to terminate Fram's ban. It is not the ban per se, it is the lack of explanation. Give a proper explanation. Details need not be given. If the details of the reason are out of scope for ArbCom and the community, then say so, otherwise refer it back to the community (which includes ArbCom). Fram's possible negotiations to end the ban should be completely separate from resolving issues of WMF heavy-handedness and non-transparency. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:47, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • According to Fram, he received a one year ban for saying "fuck Arbcom", and that the Foundation likely employed this draconian move because a grudging complainant against him has connections to the WMF and the Chair herself. This is an oddly specific, extremely outrageous narrative. And, yet, the Foundation will not deny it, nor will they even suggest that there's more to the story. If they will not even try to defend the ban against alleged blatant corruption, then why should we assume that it is legitimate? I would much rather have them simply explain that the ban is for legitimate reasons. But it's highly suspect that they will not do so. It goes beyond simple refusal to explain a ban when the ban is alleged to be unjust. ~Swarm~ {sting} 01:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @SmokeyJoe: The WMF has already said Fram violated the Terms of Use section that prohibits "harassing and/or abusing others". What more do you want than that, if you're not looking for details? ~ Rob13Talk 01:18, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi BU Rob13. You're tempting me to argue the other side to my intended thrust, that the way forward should not require a resolution of the Fram question. I think the resoltuion need only deal with the process of WMF bans, the scope of WMF-only decisions, Community (inc. ArbCom) only decisions, and where there may be overlap. I think User:Newyorkbrad's dot points 4 & 5 should be the focus. But your question is fair:
      A. The assertion "violated the ToS" is sufficient justification for the WMF to act. I am asking for an explanation for why, without details, the ban, ongoing, can't be referred to ArbCom or the community generally. I think it would be very reasonable for WMF to declare a ban, and then refer to ArbCom to review or modify. Surely, ArbCom should have the option to extend the 1 year ban? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:35, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @SmokeyJoe: Lengthen? ArbCom can already do that, if they receive reports related to harassment. Otherwise alter/shorten? That would now put the WMF in very sketchy territory. If they have become aware of an editor harassing others on this site, taken action they felt necessary to enforce the Terms of Use, and then allow another body to overturn that action without having the full evidence, I think that may open them up to liability. (It's worth noting that the WMF's existing procedures/policies prevent them from disclosing the reporter even to ArbCom. That confidentiality may have been the only reason a reporter came forward, because Fram's influence - see this entire page - has a chilling effect on those he chooses to harass and abuse.) ~ Rob13Talk 02:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Confidentially prevents WMF from sharing details with ArbCom", if true, with "violated the ToS", is the minimal sufficient statement I would ask them to give. Have they said that? If they say that, then the Fram ban comes of the table for the purpose of this discussion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:36, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • What kind of liability? Assuming that Fram is truthful that there was no off-wiki harassment, there isn't really anything in his on-wiki activity that would be enough to involve the law. On the other hand, copyvios can get the project in legal trouble; Fram has been doing the dirty work of cleaning it up (it's a fight no one else wants to fight), so preventing a major liability mitigator from doing their work is ironically exposing the project to liability. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:14, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • BU Rob13 The ToU clause that you're referring to prohibits harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism. According to Fram, the offending comment that triggered his ban was this, which was certainly uncivil, but not "harassment or abuse" as is defined by the ToU clause that is supposedly being enforced. So, yes, additional explanation beyond "see the ToU" is quite obviously needed, as it doesn't even seem applicable. ~Swarm~ {sting} 03:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Swarm: I encourage you to read. Fram has posted the email he received, and it contained that diff as an example, with the email explicitly noting that it was part of a repeated pattern continued after the past warning. One example diff - likely the least relevant example diff, even, since the worst diffs likely had to be hidden to protect the reporter - does not mean that's "the offending comment that triggered his ban". You are trying to apply the ToU and determine whether it applies to evidence you have not seen. Do you understand how that is an exercise in futility? ~ Rob13Talk 03:56, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @BU Rob13: Okay. I read it all. It doesn't claim or imply that that clause of the ToU was actually breached. Go back and look, it literally doesn't even imply that Fram was outside the ToU. Actually, no where, from what I see, and no one, has tried to argue that point. The Foundation cited "abusive communications such as X". X is a problem, but it's not a breach of the ToU. There's no mention of anything beyond such "abusive communications". You're just assuming there is. They simply did not cite to Fram or even claim in any of their explanations that he breached the ToU. They cited petty incivility towards Arbcom. So, that gives the impression that Fram was banned for his pattern of petty incivility, rather than breach of the ToU. You trust that that's not true, and that there's a higher level of offense, but it's clear that both Fram's and the community's impression that this is civility policing and nothing more has disrupted the project, demonized the complainant, demonized the Chair, vilified the T&S team, resulted in admins resigning, and harmed community relations. Why, if there was more to the story than "civility policing", has the Foundation simply not said so? All we want is for the Foundation to confirm that Fram actually breached the ToU. I have no personal affinity towards Fram, but this harms my perception of the WMF. Why would they not simply confirm that Fram breached the ToU, unless it would be a lie? Like I said, there's no privacy considerations in simply saying "there was harassment" or "there was stalking". But instead they said "there was abusive communication", which is no different except for the fact that it does not invoke the ToU. That's the only issue here. If there's evidence they can't disclose that's in breach of the ToU, I don't need to see it. I don't need to know about it. I just need to know that it exists. ~Swarm~ {sting} 06:36, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Swarm: Cool, because they already have. The original email to Fram did not cite ToU violations. The WMF basically never cites ToU violations for office actions, because such statements could open them up to defamation lawsuits, theoretically. I know of one that is making its way through federal district court now, and it will probably be dismissed with prejudice because the WMF so clearly did not make any statements of fact that even have the potential to be false.

      But the WMF, in their statement to the community on this page, said this particular office action was made pursuant to the "Harassment and/or abusing others" section of the ToU. Their exact wording was thus: "What we can say in this case is that the issues reported to us fell under section 4 of the terms of use, as noted above, specifically under the first provision entitled 'harassing and abusing others.'" This is an extraordinary level of openness, given that it could theoretically get them sued. It is a shame that there are Wikipedians that have just failed to read it, apparently. ~ Rob13Talk 13:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • Okay, so you believe the WMF without any question, evidence, or explanation. I really don't believe the same thing. You resigned from Arbcom in the face of overwhelming community condemnation. I don't believe blame [sorry, legitimate typo] you for sympathizing with the WMF in a similar situation. However, I'm just asking for a cursory acknowledgment of my concern, which the WMF refuses to provide. You are unable to provide that beyond blind trust, and while I don't hold your position against you, I don't think it's necessarily the truth. ~Swarm~ {sting} 13:17, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Especially because the terms are somewhat subjective. Let's take "stalking," for example. At RFA voters routinely go check through a candidates past contributions, sometimes in great detail, to find edits that reveal a mindset not suitable for the tools. Rob himself, at RFA not too long ago, had this to say about candidates with a somewhat low edit count - Trust me, in the future, I'll go through every single edit and highlight every potentially objectionable one when an editor has less than 4,000 edits. One could consider that stalking, a violation of ToU Section 4, and worthy of a WMF ban. Mr Ernie (talk) 13:35, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Umm.... This seems like textbook stalking; our self-proclaimed-retired friend might have something to state ..... ∯WBGconverse 15:14, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Vetting an RfA candidate is stalking? Get real. ~ Rob13Talk 21:58, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Correcting an error prone editor's mistakes is harassment? Mr Ernie (talk) 06:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Swarm: "Overwhelming community condemnation"? This is just false, and a personal attack. Nice. I resigned from the Arbitration Committee for a variety of reasons, none of which included pressure from the community. Moreover, you are demonstrating plainly that you fail to assume good faith in anyone on the project, apparently. Again, fork the project if you don't like the fact that the WMF has legal obligations. Or, better yet, approach the Foundation and offer to take on all legal liability that Fram's future actions may bring them in exchange for his unban. If you are so certain that the Foundation is acting with sinister intentions and that Fram has done nothing wrong, that should be no problem, no? ~ Rob13Talk 15:05, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wait, what? "I don't believe you" was a typo, I meant "I don't blame you". But that said, "overwhelming community condemnation" was quite obviously and unequivocally the response to wording of the Arbcom circular. I don't recall a single person speaking up in favor of it. Virtually 100% of the community response was negative. So I'm not sure why you'd call "community condemnation" a "personal attack". Why would I personally attack you? As I said at the time, I think you're one of our best administrators. I'm not sure why you're being so hostile and defensive. You resigned, citing an essay that the community does not treat Arbcom with the same assumption of good faith that is the standard. Not sure how all of a sudden the community had nothing to do with your resignation. ~Swarm~ {sting} 08:34, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neutral I don't mind the proposal, but it's not our position to compromise. I hate to say it, but unless all of us stop contributing to the project, we really don't have control over this. SportingFlyer T·C 01:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Even if, if we're being honest with ourselves. nableezy - 01:14, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • "Control" is irrelevant, moral influence is. Gandhi had no control over the British in India, M. L. King had no control over Jim Crow laws in the South or the Federal government, what they both had, and built up more of as time went on, was moral influence. That is our lever, not whether we "own" the website or who can turn it off if they want to. People really don't appear to be understanding this, which is as much a part of the real worl as who possesses the keys to the place. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:02, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • An issue with this is that you lose moral influence by condoning wrongdoing. Acting as if nothing has happened is a form of condoning. In other words, the guilt of the WMF rests on us all if we know what is going on and yet act as if things are normal. Reflected in the comments above are radically different conceptions of authority. In Hegelian-derived philosophy, authority belongs at the collective-subjective level, as the final judgment of history at the end of time is unavailable. Authority bleeds in at many levels, wherever people act rationally and in good faith. In Kantian thought, authority derives from the chief executive down through subordinates. Both concepts are used today--for example, in science, an authority is someone who is has established themselves as knowledgeable through hard work, study, and a good track record. Their authority is channeled down through to TAs, teachers, journalists to the public. On wikipedia, we call them "reliable sources." On the other hand, appeals to "the community" to enforce something is an example of the collective-subjective form of authority. Appeals towards passive aggression are consistent with Hegelian thought, as in Hegelianism an irrational governance can be legitimately subverted (think Red-Scare style infiltration). In contrast, in Kantian governance the resistance must be allowable in a constitutional sense where opposing parties can act against each other in an orderly fashion (e.g. Kant's "nation of devils" quote), or the resisting parties may be Lesser magistrates (in this case, Floquenbeam and Bishonen are acting as resisting lesser magistrates). Subversion is not allowable because honesty and truth are too valuable and lying is extremely wrong. In contrast, Hegelians tend to be more relativist and see honesty and truth as being at least somewhat compromised in the dialectic process, which will not resolve as long as history endures. One Kantian approach would be to let some of the other higher-ups deal with it, and to not take a position one way or another, or to just leave wikipedia and not think about it to maintain moral purity, maybe to go to a rival wikipedia website instead. Because in Hegelianism, "whatever is, is right," there can be a tremendous need to win, while in Kantianism maintaining your individual moral purity and establishing the truth is more important because what is right is determined through careful ethical analysis.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 03:31, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • In Hegelianism, the broader levels of authority encompass the lower levels. For example, the state is expected to have an antithetical relationship to the authority of the family, and this is expected to be a good thing. Fran's request that the ArbCom "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." does not reflect this understanding with reflect to the ArbCom. ArbCom, due to both the democratic character of its selection and the rationality of its actions, could be considered a broader level of synthesis than the ordinary English Wikipedia community. Fran rejects this completely on the basis of past experience with ArbCom. This form of argument is an Existentialist critique of Hegelianism. His appeal to an impartial jury is compatible with both Existentialist and Kantian forms of authority, but should ArbCom grant it, they are admitting that they are not the broadest and most supreme level of collective-subjective authority.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 04:12, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • It isnt about owning the website that makes whether or not we all stop editing irrelevant. Its the tiny proportion to the wider community that is present here. Yeah, a lot of us are active in the WP namespace and a ton of the admins here do a huge amount of work in the day to day functioning of this website, and yes there are a number of content creators here that have helped make this place something that the WMF can say hey give us millions of dollars to keep running. But as of this writing there have been 365 editors to this page. I posit that if every single one of these people, and every single person who has edited the AC case request page, including the arbitrators, suddenly stopped editing Wikipedia tomorrow the effect would be negligible, at least as far as WMF is concerned. There will be articles that get either vandalized, or skewed to a POV, BLP violations will be undealt with. But for the most part Wikipedia will continue on. Im not trying to be Debbie Downer, just a realist on the limits of my own power here. nableezy - 05:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • In politics, decisions are strongly influenced by a numbers game: in ethics, calculations of numbers are ignored. General human behavior tends to think and act politically, 'can I get away with this,'; 'they are wrong, but if I protest, and no one else does, I'll cop it too.' etc. Ethics, as opposed to morality and politics, is not 'realist' - proceeding only after carefully assaying whether one has sufficient support or not. The crux was illustrated by Antigones' clash with Creon,-her stance is echoed in Luther's Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders,- a tragedy given a famous reading by Hegel. I remember taking a train in the city, sitting down to read in anticipation of an hour-long trip, noting with a smile a young couple of kids smooching opposite, and burying myself in my book. Three stops down, the train pulled up at a station opposite a football ground - and the compartment was filled with drunken fans disappointed in their side losing that day. One of the group of 6, full as a bull's bum from an afternoon of beers but built like a brick shithouse, eyed enviously the boy smooching with his girlfriend, and without much ado, went over, grabbed him in a headlock and began punching him in the head. The girl screamed, the kid wept - and I, opposite, made the natural rapid calculation. If I intervene, there are five of his mates who will join and and beat the shit out of me. But one had no option - you can't watch passively as someone is mercilessly beaten or ill-treated. With a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, I reached out and caught his wrist as it drew back to land another punch. I won't recount the following 25 minutes,-a stand-off with me holding my grip while palavering to stop the other five from doing anything other than menacing me, but no other person of the 20 or so male adults in the carriage looked up from their newspapers. It's not that folks are generally unethical - it's that before acting according to their inner lights, they tend instinctively from a self-survival biological reflex to calculate their own interests. The banning of Fram in obscure circumstances created, for some, an ethical dilemma, and Floqueanbeam, Bishonen and WJBScribe essentially said that the high risk of silent complicity in the exercise of blind power gave them little option but to do what they did, challenge the higher body by overruling it. I expect that the assertion of secretive powers will automatically translate into a very small minority being compelled in conscience to desist from donating (I'm not a tenant on this property) their labour to a charitable institution. I know that a bureaucracy doesn't worry about marginal attrition, a number of analyses like your's will tell them it will have a negligible impact. That others see no problem, and just move on with their hobby is the normal reaction one would expect. And all this crisis of conscience because? because somewhere across the world a small board is obsessed by legislating to objectify what is a cultural variable, good manners, and enforce an Americanocentric code globally regardless of what communities elsewhere may, if they ever do, think. It is unlikely to step back because there is a question of face that, as usual, rules out creative conflict resolution. Nishidani (talk) 09:10, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • What's not clear from above is what happens to Fram's status as an editor, and as an admin? I was recently reminded of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1001#Block of Martinevans123 and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive991#Personal attacks, a block and an unblock: review requested where Fram was strongly criticised (if not actually admonished as such) for controversially blocking two longstanding editors. Combined with "fuck the Arbcom", incivil edit summaries and picking a fight with BU Rob13, and that many people have criticised the WMF getting involved and overriding the community / Arbcom with no possible appeal, rather than Fram's actual conduct, I would like to see a guarantee of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram before I can support this. It would allow everyone to have their say and if the consensus is that Fram hasn't done anything terrible enough to take any long term action, then at least everyone will have had their say. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:58, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Assuming Fram gets unbanned there seem to be three options: 1) he gets the sysop bit back automatically 2) we have an RfA to decide, or 3) ArbCom case decides. I don't see much wrong with any of these options, a nice change from the lose-lose scenarios surrounding pretty much everything else in this drama. Reyk YO! 11:19, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Over the particular discussion about Security-Circular, nearly everyone was at their non optimal behaviours. And, tone-deafness from a few arbs compounded it. Given that Fram's conduct definitely improved throughout the year, it's unfortunate that he be put to an ArbCom case because of this mess. Obviously, anybody might propose a case but I will urge for a decline. ∯WBGconverse 11:26, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unfortunately I disagree with 3/5's of the proposal - however since the oppose section above appears to be made of people who are opposing any resolution because they have issues with Fram I am sticking my response here instead.
      Point 1 - should be a demand regardless. The WMF should not be banning people from the ENWP community unless there is an actual safety issue or child protection issue. That is it.
      Point 2 - this sets a dangerous precedent in that it both encourages and enables problem editors (who are pulled up on their actions) to go running to the WMF. It rewards them for not following dispute resolution and chills future discussion - what admin or editor is going to risk dealing with them if it risks being muzzled. "Without admitting any wrong-doing" - quasi legalistic reference to WoP - which while in a technical legal sense is no admission of liability, it is *always* taken as such by everyone - "I'm not admitting anything but im doing what you say anyway" just instantly means everyone goes "Oh hes totally guilty". If there is an editor that Fram needs to be interaction banned with, then Frams interactions in relation to that editor need to be scrutinised by either the community or arbcom. The stealth interaction ban-but-not-ban by the WMF in communication with Fram is one of the more disturbing things to come to light as a result of this. Its saying the WMF is ready to prevent scrutiny of editors on the encyclopedia - directly interfering with editorial control.
      Point 3 - Completely pointless and appears to just be a sop to the 'Fram is awful' crowd with past axes to grind. Fram's editing record is already out there. Take a look at the last's years interactions with other editors and compare it to say the previous 2 or 3. Its effectively holding Fram to an unrealistic and intangible standard given he has already improved beyond which many respected editors already operate.
      Point 4 - Evidence not provided that T&S are there with good intentions. While I agree that its unlikely any of them joined the WMF specifically to take over ENWP - that doesnt mean they wont take the chance to do so given the opportunity. And given who they are is public knowledge, so is their history. Jan certainly has zero credibility after the superprotect fiasco, and the place-that-shall-not-be-named has links about other members of the staff involved in this situation that are extremely problematic for what are supposed to be employees engaged in ensuring the safety of wikipedians. Their actions so far lead me to conclude that they are there to protect wikipedians they approve of.
      Point 5 - About the only point I agree with in its entirety. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:42, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unclear difference between what this says and what people have been proposing/demanding throughout this page. First of all, the last bulletpoint should happen regardless. But as for the rest, it's perhaps more diplomatically worded to allow a little bit of face-saving with ~"everyone admit they can do a little better" but still boils down to T&S backing down and Fram making non-binding assurances that he'll take [the mostly unspecified] criticism on board. If everything else wasn't persuasive, I don't see why one more !vote would be.
      Advice for T&S: There are a lot of users that WMF will never convince -- people who has a strong distrust for the WMF in general, people who don't think the WMF should ever supersede community process, people who don't think there's any reason to ever keep things private, people who worry about themselves if WMF is starting to issue blocks for long-term behavioral problems, etc. But there are also a lot of people you can convince: people who do think that there is a role to play for T&S to address intractable long-term behavioral problems that the community has failed to address -- people who support the concept, but who are confused or bothered or concerned about what has happened in this particular case. "Severe enough to keep everything a secret and take office action without involving the community" is difficult to reconcile with "you can still use all the other projects and you can come back to this one after a year." If this were a global ban I dare say it would be less controversial in that way (which is not to say uncontroversial, obviously). The other problem is that diffs were provided, but only a handful, and they came from Fram, not from T&S. Those diffs shaped the narrative, and makes the conversation about whether those diffs merited action. That's not a good place to be.
      The approach I think would be most effective -- which would've been best at the outset of this case -- is premised on the idea that this isn't actually just about the LH diffs and the diff directed at arbcom that Fram supplied (that those were tipping points but it was more about a longer-term pattern). Assuming that's the case, and that T&S was stepping in to address something which, in their judgment, was severe enough and which the community failed to address, then they should release a big data dump showing (a) a long-term pattern of behavior and (b) community efforts failing to address it sufficiently. I suspect you already have that data. Releasing it would at least would shift the discussion of evidence from what Fram provided to a bigger picture that's harder to point to and say "that's it?" By casting a wide net as such, it's possible you'd actually be better protecting complainants than by forcing speculation through Fram's diffs. It would take time to compile, but I suspect you're already spending quite a lot of time on this.
      The other way forward, which isn't very likely but about the only compromise I can see being at all possible, is through a hand-off to ArbCom with conditions, including the understanding that some of the material will still be private and the understanding that it's about a long-term pattern (it's not atypical to see older diffs dismissed or limited consideration to particular types of behavior). ArbCom cases are reasonably well equipped to handle lots of diffs and lots of evidence, on-wiki and off. This has been articulated better by others already, of course. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:34, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    This whole story has nothing to do with Fram. (a)A principle is at stake, (b) massive open discussion by one affected party has been met with oracular comuniqués by the other.(c) in conflict theory this disparity is something everyone here and at the WMF office would deplore were the face-off with this communicative dissonance to occur with a real state. The outcome is usually brinksmanship to see who is bluffing. We huff here, and have no means to bluff. I'm sure that was not the WMF's intention, but their failure to perceive the obvious implications of their communication 'strategy' is deeply disturbing.
    Emotionally, I would endorse. But I see strong sense also in SilkTork's oppose, but disagree strongly with most other comments and editors in that section. Only in death does duty end has summed up concisely what I also think are the basic reservations about an otherwise sensible attempt at compromise. I have no problem with leadership, but in critical times, leaders who have made a mark do so for the fact that, if they err, they made a difficult gesture, symbolic or otherwise, of stepping back. They drop the issue of face-saving. Do that, and you will find people far more accommodating than otherwise seems the case.Nishidani (talk) 17:00, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I appreciate the thought that went into this proposal, but it goes a touch too far for me. Obviously, a large number of people here believe Fram to be completely innocent, but the fact is that the community does not have the ability to make that judgement, and given the presence of private information, is never going to have that ability. I don't see a way out of this that does not involve a community-appointed body (ideally, ARBCOM; but it could be someone else) investigating the situation in full, including the private evidence, and determining whether the ban is necessary. Also, Fram should be unbanned while such a determination is made. Obviously, the nature of the complaint process means that the identity of the complainant cannot be revealed to Fram; but anything claiming that it cannot be revealed to ARBCOM is legalistic nonsense. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion

    The problem with this resolution (as several people have pointed out) is that - irrespective of whether it is endorsed or not - it cannot be accepted in full by T&S. They make a very clear statement that when you report harassment to them "[y]our contact to Trust and Safety is kept confidential, so no details about your experience will be shared publicly or with the person you are reporting".[28] They cannot change this after the fact, as they can't promise to maintain confidentially in an existing case and then change their mind to pass their names to the person accused of harassing them just because a few dozen people on Wikipedia tell them to. Whoever raised concerns with T&S has every right to expect T&S to maintain their promise of condifentially, and therefore cannot both unblock Fram and then tell Fram who complained in order to ask Fram to stay away. In the end, it doesn't matter whether we oppose or endorse this, as it is doomed to failure. Therefore, how would it look if it was rewitten in a way that could be accepted by T&S if it was endorsed? - Bilby (talk) 06:48, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't believe Laura Hale has had anything directly to do with this and the vitriol directed at her is quite unpleasant. If a bunch of people shouted at you, "your work sucks, don't let the door hit you on the way out", would you ever want to contribute again? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:04, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree on the first aspect. But, to be mild, d/dt(Laura's learning curve) was too negligible. Mis-use of sources, incoherent paragraphs, weird synthesis, writing unsourced stuff ..... And I went through only a few of his crrations. Sometimes, we need to realise that Everyone can Edit ought not be taken in a very-literal sense. ∯WBGconverse 11:21, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Winged Blades of Godric, The way I would put it is that "everyone can edit" doesn't necessarily mean that "Everyone should edit"S Philbrick(Talk) 15:23, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    "I don't believe Laura Hale has had anything directly to do with this" and pigs might fly. Given the only evidence given to Fram so far by the T&S team points to his interactions with her previously as a causitive factor for the ban. We all know the reason why T&S have no wish for Arbcom to get involved, it is because arbcom (despite its many flaws) will take a look at all editors in a dispute/complaint and judge actions by their context. And that basic principle of fairness is directly at odds to T&S and certain editors ideological totalitarian approach to dealing with those not of the body. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:16, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean that I don't believe Laura Hale has directly complained to T&S about Fram, or at least not recently enough in the last 18 months which is the timeframe that seems to be under discussion. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:52, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Given their history I just dont agree with you on that one. T&S however wont reveal that information so its a pointless dispute. What is relevant is that editors above are trying to claim that this is a result of long terms actions on the part of Fram. And arguing on the one hand that its a result of long term interaction issues onwiki while trying to exclude editors involved in that time period, despite that they are the cause of one of the few direct interactions between Fram and the T&S team, is being deliberately deceptive. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:00, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm almost certain I know who triggered the recent T&S involvement (95%+ if I was a betting man), and if I'm correct, it's not Laura. I won't share how I was able to put the puzzle together because I could well be wrong, and if I'm right, well, I'm not going to reveal their identity either for more or less the same reasons T&S won't. I'll say that the complainer wasn't necessarily wrong to contact T&S if they are who I think they are, and T&S certainly made the right call in withholding who made the complaint. I'm still really not sure T&S had the moral authority to make that call over the community, and I'm still not sure it doesn't involve putting feeling harassed over being harassed. But if the complainer was who I think they are, it at least makes me believe that T&S acted in good faith. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:47, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    So it's a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a vest. El_C 17:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I wouldn't expect T&S to expose their identities regardless of who filed the complaint, and, speaking as someone who has pushed the Laura theory, you're right about not revealing your sources or who the putative suspect is. But you being able to do so is still an indictment of T&S here because all they have done here is ban a user in (presumably) good standing with little warning, no explanation of anything, and limited to one wiki for a year. If a T&S member (using the WMFOffice account) had done the outrageous and unthinkable step of explaining just why Fram was banned at the time of the block and the unusual limits on the block we wouldn't be speculating as much as to whose cereal Fram pissed in. Their secrecy in this case resulted in a Streisand effect which has the potential to (if it hasn't already here or on off-wiki fora) out the complainant. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 09:23, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Headbomb: I can also guess my way to a story where what happened (including the secrecy) makes sense to the complainant and to T&S, without involving any long-term conspiracies, gender wars or gamergate relations. But I still wouldn't agree with the outcome, nor that this issue was worth damaging the WMF-Community relations even further. Unappealable secret bans have no appeal to me whatsoever. —Kusma (t·c) 19:22, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ritchie333: the vitriol directed at Laura is not only "quite unpleasant", it is also exactly the sort of thing WMF are talking about when they made their decision to repatriate some powers to block users for abuse. There should be action taken against people who have hounded her during this saga, based on unproven allegations that she was involved in the banning of Fram, because by no stretch of the imagination is it acceptable. You and I, and the majority of Wikipedians don't act this way, and it's expressly against policy, so why should we tolerate those who do?  — Amakuru (talk) 11:20, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Are people going to her talk page or emailing her to harass her, or abusing her because of this as she edits? That would be wrong.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:09, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Wehwalt: I don't know exactly where it's been, to be honest. I gather that there has been a huge amount of negative coverage and digging into her personal life off-Wiki somewhere, probably some of it by people who also edit here, some of which has spilled into accusations and undue pressure on-Wiki. I don't have the time to keep up with all that drama though. BU Rob13 knows more of the details, I believe. Apologies for being vague, but I'm not accusing any specific individuals it's just based on what I've heard. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 20:39, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Response from Fram to Newyorkbrad

    Hi Newyorkbrad, thank you for this. I agree with your first point (though some clarification about my admin status should be included as well probably). For the second point, I understand that the WMF is not willing to tell me who are the editors involved, but then of course it is rather hard for me to avoid them as well. For the one editor already mentioned here: I already tend to avoid their articles and will let others deal with them. I can't guarantee that I won't edit their articles in routine cleanup runs (e.g. when I am adding short descriptions to categories of articles, I don't first check who created each article).

    Your third point, the decorum; as some editors already indicated, I already did this in general the past year, but I'll strive to improve even further.

    I had already indicated some possible methods to resolve this higher on this page, this is one fine by me as well. Fram (talk) 09:02, 18 June 2019 (UTC) Copied from Commons Tazerdadog (talk) 12:07, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Is there any reason the WMF or Arbcom can't ask the complainant(s) whether they object to a confidential disclosure of their identities to Fram in order to effect an interaction ban? EllenCT (talk) 03:15, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    This would be self-defeating - Not only would this expose them to Fram, but Fram isn't gagged (per T&S' own actions) so this would end up blowing up in their faces. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 05:17, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I asked about this, and Fram agreed to keep the names of such subjects of an interaction ban confidential and take additional steps to avoid them which would not ordinarily be part of Fram's new page patrolling, if the WMF were to accept this compromise. EllenCT (talk) 21:22, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    It would still require the WMF to disclose those names to Fram, which they explicitly state they will not do, and doing so - after informing those who complained that they won't - would be highly unethical. And to ask those who believe that they've been harassed by Fram to trust that Fram would never reveal who that are seems foolish. - Bilby (talk) 21:25, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Nobody seems to have suggested that Fram has ever betrayed anyone's trust, so perhaps the Foundation would be willing to ask them if they would consent to letting Fram know who they are to effect an interaction ban. Frankly though, this is silly. Fram's original compromise proposal for an independent binding evidence review is less lenient, so the Foundation should go with that. EllenCT (talk) 05:27, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem is that Fram is accused of harassing one or more editors to the point that those editors lodged a complaint with the WMF under the guarantee that their details would not be provided to Fram. Obviously, the WMF can't then release those details. I agree that the WMF could ask them, but as they raised their concerns with the WMF, possibly in order to avoid being revealed as the ones raising the complaint, I can't see that they would want this shared with Fram. And if, as we have every reason to assume, they believe that Fram has been harassing them, how can we ask them to trust that Fram will never tell anyone else who they are? You say that Fram has never betrayed anyone's trust, but I imagine to them Fram has betrayed theirs (especially if Fram had previously been warned), so I can't see how we can expect them to trust Fram in this way. I don't know what the solution is, but saying to Fram that "these are the people who complained about you - don't interact with them and don't tell anyone who they are" seems very unlikely to be happen if it depends on getting the permission of the people Fram is accused of harassing, and unethical if it doesn't.
    The WMF don't need to compromise at all, so choosing between revealing who the people are to Fram, and revealing who the people are to Fram and others, isn't a choice that they need to make. They can work out their own solution, or enforce this one, or walk away. - Bilby (talk) 06:14, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    You know, I really don't like the idea of harassment going one way like this. People accusing others of harassment should be forced to reveal themselves, or otherwise both the accused and accuser should be secret. That's the only fair way, otherwise the accused loses any degree of anonymity while the accuser is protected. As much as I hate the way Universities define harassment (like I said earlier), at least they keep the names of both individuals secret. I don't know why Wikimedia couldn't have come up with something less arduous than a yearly ban, anyway. Fram, I'm rooting for you. Rockstonetalk to me! 19:56, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I've seen enough situations where people are scared to complain due to the fear of retaliation, and live with harassment rather than face something worse. I've also seen enough situations where that fear was realised. Having some channel that allows people to confidentially raise their concerns is important. - Bilby (talk) 21:28, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    And like it or not, T&S is going to be that outlet - but the way they handled this is completely counterproductive to this, in that they banned them without giving any real notice beforehand (it was mentioned in minutes in a conference call OR took), nor giving a justification as to why the ban is project- and time-limited as opposed to a global ban. It should come as no surprise that the extremely unusual circumstances caused a Streisand effect that they should have seen coming. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 04:14, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    You assume they care. They plainly believe that imposing this on the community is worth whatever heat it generates. I doubt the metrics we saw cited in the Board minutes have shifted much if at all. The rest is words.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:24, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments to keep this proposal from being archived on the talk page

    From admin to one-year block, in a blink of an eye

    Can I just clarify, and I know we've had 100KB of chatter, so forgive me once again... Fram went from being an admin, to being banned with no right to appeal, on en.wiki only, in one instant? Was he issued with on-wiki warnings? Was he subject to a series of increasing blocks as a result of bad behaviour (sic)? Was his behaviour damaging to Wikipedia, in a sense that needed a ban, on this Wikipedia only? I'm tired out by the MB of blather, but is WMF looking at this as a precedent now, that any editor can be summarily banned for a year without appeal without any definition of their wrongdoing? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:52, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, that is exactly my concern. I have no idea whether Frsm's behaviour warranted sanction and I'm not inclined to go and look through mountains of edits on en.wiki to find out. However, taking precipitate action based on secret allegations presented in secret by a secret accuser to a secret panel is simply a total abrogation of natural justice. As far as I am concerned the WMF should refuse to accept secret accusations and expecially should refuse to act on them. This stinks to high heaven. - Nick Thorne talk 22:14, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Seems like the answer is yes, it was in one instant, with no on-wiki warnings. Several off-wiki messages were sent, snippets of which can be seen at #An interesting paragraph and #Fram's response on Commons. --Yair rand (talk) 22:31, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Apparently, any of us could be banned out of the blue if we were to write "f*** the WMF." Jonathunder (talk) 22:38, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    As I understand it, the basis of the block and desysop was harassment and the evidence is private so as not to subject the accuser to further harassment. If this is indeed the truth, I can understand shielding him/her because it often feels like a mob here. Liz Read! Talk! 01:41, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    If it was harassment, then why did they not escalate Fram's block to global in responce to his Commons reply? Anyone with any sense can make a very compelling argument that they're technically furthering the harassment. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 01:47, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Harassment of whom? AFAIK, there are only two parties who've been named in this whole mess as possible victims. Arbcom and an editor who's wikipedia name begins L. While some here have gone to the extent of looking in to the personal life of the latter editor, we have no real evidence that any of the recent stuff has anything to do with this editor. I'm doubtful it's just the arbcom stuff either which suggests it could very well be some other party.

    WMF have explained why they feel they cannot reveal any details which may lead to the identity of who is being harassed or other details over this while mess, whether or not people agree with these views I see no reason to think they aren't sincerely held. As someone who lives in NZ where name suppression of criminal defendants and especially convicts is often a big deal, I can say that while plenty of people feel that it creates problems for others who aren't the defendant or convict given the risk people may think it is them (as some details are still revealed like 'prominent entertainer'), there are also plenty of people who feel it's not a compelling reason to end the practice. (Which doesn't mean they must agree with the practice or feel that it should continue.)

    Likewise, I can perfectly understand that the WMF may feel it is inappropriate for them to comment on the identity in any way, even simply saying it it is not the person a lot of people are assuming it is. How they handle the problems this creates for the person who may have been unfairly affected I don't know, but there are no easy solutions.

    And getting back to the earlier point, assuming that what Fram has told us is mostly or completely correct, I'm not sure they can really be blamed for the fact that people here are continually assuming it involves someone who who it may not be because they've made assumptions with very little evidence to the extent these people are analysing said person's private life. If anything it's the people here who are guilty of harassment, not Fram or what they said on Commons. But of course, with the way this blew up, banning more people for harassment was may not be a good idea.

    Oh and of course what has happened here has pretty much ensured that if it is someone else who was affected (who let's remember may or may not even be the complainant, here they may not even be aware of the complaint), as much sympathy as the person may have for the editor L and how they've been affected by this all, there is no way in hell they will ever agree to their identity being revealed. Frankly I suspect probably not even to Fram even if Fram signs an NDA. Heck given the history, probably not even to arbcom. No matter what the situation was and even if in the end it means nothing happens to Fram. The WMF needs to consider whether this is an acceptable outcome based on what they know. If they do not, I really have no idea how they should proceed from here, that's one of the reasons why I'd probably never work in any role remotely like that. (To be clear, as I've said in previous discussions, I do think they handled this poorly especially early on which hasn't helped the situation any.)

    Nil Einne (talk) 06:32, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Okay, let's try it. Fuck the WMF! Nope, not banned yet. Gamaliel (talk) 01:50, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Not so soon. Remember it takes about a month of internal meetings and quite a lot of expensive staff time to then issue a punishment so long after the event that it only serves to confuse the situation and increase the nameless dread aspect of editing. Of course this may actually be the WMF's intention. The occasional random block of an established editor for unspecified but slightly creepy sounding reasons could be just the thing to boost their metrics for site activity and bond the community against the common enemy. By contrast if they wanted to change behaviour on the site they would have made sure that the first few times they applied a 12 month ban it was very clear what sort of behaviour they wanted to stop happening. ϢereSpielChequers 11:08, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    If an IP editor attempted to insert this kind of conspiracy theory in an article they'd get blocked. But we have dozens of long-time veteran editors indulging in them in this matter. It makes me fear for the quality of the content that they have been producing here over the years. Gamaliel (talk) 12:51, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    From what I've seen, much better than an admonished administrator who seems to have a general proficiency at casting aspersions. ∯WBGconverse 13:50, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    You seem to be developing quite an obsession with me. Want to come edit my userpage again? Gamaliel (talk) 13:06, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Nah; these days folks retire to participate in more dramas -- give them an edge. I ought to have known that. And most certainly, less than your obsession of using the wrong tools at the wrong place. ∯WBGconverse 15:40, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I fail to see a parallel between an unknown IP posting conspiracy theories in mainspace and numerous respected, well-established members of the community sharing their concerns on a Wikipedia-space page. Lepricavark (talk) 21:47, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    When the "concerns" stray into manufacturing motives and actions out of pure conjecture, that's conspiracy theory territory. Gamaliel (talk) 13:11, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    See appeal to the stone.--WaltCip (talk) 12:17, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Frankly, the reaction on this page, with theories proposed about the potential harassed parties and quite a bit of scrutiny placed upon them and their edit histories demonstrates clearly why it's good that WMF won't reveal the names of the offended parties. I am also somewhat confused that Fram was given only a year-long suspension, as I do fully support throwing the book at harassers, but frankly the complaint from the community has not generally been, "Fram was not penalized severely enough for what they were accused of," but rather, "how dare the WMF suspend one of the WP:UNBLOCKABLES!" Simonm223 (talk) 12:56, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean, come on, people have been digging into the personal lives, up to, and including living arrangements, of hypothesized accusers on the basis of Fram's account. That's kind of disturbing to say the least. Far more disturbing, tbh, than what may constitute minor overreach from WMF. Simonm223 (talk) 13:17, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Dear Simonm223 One thing we know about this case is that T&S do permanently site ban people for harassment, but whatever they consider that Fram has done, they don't consider he merited the punishment that they give out to harassers. Whatever else has been said, I'm not seeing people say that T&S should stop "throwing the book at harassers". As for unblockables, yes there are people suggesting that WP:UNBLOCKABLES be redefined to include Fram. But there are also people reminding us that Fram has in the past been the brave admin threatening to block an unblockable if that person continued to make personal attacks. As for "people have been digging into the personal lives, up to, and including living arrangements, of hypothesized accusers on the basis of Fram's account" that does sound like the sort of doxxing that does get people banned. I'd hope if people have evidence of that they would take it to ArbCom who have banned and desysopped people for that sort of thing. ϢereSpielChequers 18:19, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Well it's all over this page, which I'm sure Arbcom is watching, so... Simonm223 (talk) 18:43, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The Rambling Man:
    • in one instant?
    Yes
    Was he issued with on-wiki warnings?
    No
    Was he subject to a series of increasing blocks as a result of bad behaviour (sic)?
    No
    Was his behaviour damaging to Wikipedia, in a sense that needed a ban
    No
    on this Wikipedia only?
    Yes
    is WMF looking at this as a precedent now, that any editor can be summarily banned for a year without appeal without any definition of their wrongdoing?
    Ostensibly yes.
    Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:07, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    More troubling is the explicit lying from WMF employees.
    The (uncontested) WMF email sent to Fram states "With those actions in mind, this ban has been triggered following your recent abusive communications on the project..." followed by the "fuck Arbcom" diff, but later this has been retrospectively reframed (firstly anonymously by "WMF Office" on this page, then by statements from Jan Eissfeldt) as all being about harassment complaints sent to WMF T&S. Nobody can find any smoking gun that demonstrates harassment and folks have jumped to the conclusion that there must be some terrible off-wiki harassment going on. If that was the case, then why would not the WMF email state clearly and honestly that you are banned because of complaints received of serious harassment, rather than lie about it? Not only do the responses from WMF T&S make no sense, they appear to be deliberately designed to be misleading and misinformation. Consequently the unelected WMF T&S employees with access to the WMF Office account are reserving the authority to ban without appeal, without a fair right to see and respond to evidence, in cases which appear entirely suitable to leave it to Arbcom or Stewards to make proper decisions about sanctions, but also to explicitly lie to everyone before and after about why they are blocking editors, even well established Wikipedians.
    Separately others are acting as creative apologists, explaining that the WMF cannot say anything about harassment because of the legal exposure. Fine, that still does not explain the lying. There is zero legal exposure from honestly stating to Fram that there is both on-wiki behaviour and off-wiki behaviour that has contributed to "abusing communications", or that complaints about targeted harassment have been received, then point to the process for handing T&S harassment complaints. In the struggle to have their cake and eat it, the WMF appears to both want to pretend to be well governed and transparent, while behaving like self appointed sheriffs in the Wild West of San Fran, who are taking pot shots at perps using international modern drone strikes, because they can, rather than bothering with the flimflam of justice and juries. --Fæ (talk) 03:38, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    This. The only thing they have bothered to claim when pressed is the nonsensical "everything about this mmatter is privileged", a claim which is belied by T&S' own actions in not sanctioning Fram for their Commons edit and by longstanding precedent with regard to Office bans, which at least explains the reason for doing so at time of blocking (none was forthcoming until after Fram's Commons post). Not only did they not provide a reason until much later, after everything blew up in their face, but they have not provided a satisfactory explanation as to why the ban is limited as it is. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 05:12, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    My hypothesis that someone originally issued the ban for less than adequate reasons. It might be simple inexperience or error of judgement, but there are speculations that it might be due to a personal request or as a favour. Now that the issue has exploded, the WMF has circled the wagons and tries to come up with retroactive justifications. This happens more easily than one might think, and sometimes for the best of reasons (a manager sticking up for an employee on his or her team, then getting ego-bound to that initial reaction is quite normal). I hope they have the institutional integrity to extract themselves from this mess. Errors are unavoidable, but they should be corrected, not extended. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:29, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Table of relevant locations

    –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 13:39, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikimedia Belgium concerns about WMF

    --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:11, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Not strictly related, but worth pointing out as it also concerns Trust and Safety actions. See this wikimedia-l post and thread: New board for Wikimedia Belgium + evaluation behaviour WMF. Long, but worth at least skim reading. Ends with: "At the General Assembly it was requested to request an internal audit in WMF to bring all the problems there to the light.". Carcharoth (talk) 16:51, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    This is probably one of the most scathing things that I've come across about the Trust & Safety team, and this is much, much worse than anything I've heard anywhere else. I'm moving this to the main page for further discussion with a set locus, I'll provide a summary explanation right after. --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:10, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I have no words. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:13, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think this recent revelation deserves more discussion here, primarily because a lot of the community has operated under the conclusion that T&S has operated in an demonstrably bad, and probably accidental manner. But, reading the email thread above proves the fact that is behaviour that T&S has engaged in before, which makes it so much rarer that this was an incident gone bad, and not WMF overreaching their authority because they feel they have a right to. Keeping in mind, that multiple editors, some involved with the WMF stated that this should have been done better, if it was so, why is there no proper outcome yet? If T&S can bully entire organizations, I'm sure Fram is pebble lying by and it's even more worrying that this is the same Trust & Safety team that chose, and this is me paraphrasing, took a decision which went across desks and various levels of staff. I'm sorry but this just sounds like an echo room to me, where someone from the team just decides what to do and everyone goes with it. Is this team even capable of handling the other situations we entrust to them? I'm not so sure. But if I'm sure of anything, it is that our approach to this particular group of people (and the WMF as a whole) needs to change, including how we are choosing to respond as a community. --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:19, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I recall the Wikimania incident, it stuck with me because as a partially deaf person I also get the too loud and too close comments occasionally, I didn't realise (I don't think it was public previously) all the rest of it, only what was released on the mailing list. This is frankly evidence of an ongoing professional negligence issue within the WMF T&S team. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:17, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wait, they signed off on using T&S to harass a disabled guy? Why the fuck do any of you let these people tell you what to do? They clearly are not worthy of your trust. If this incident had happened in the US, that guy could have sued for discrimination against him due to his disability and had a pretty good chance of winning. Jtrainor (talk) 19:00, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      TLDR for people reading the above comment: Someone at Grants worked in cohort with T&S to harass the treasurer of WMBE at a public conference, who btw was also disabled. Let that sink in. --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:13, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      If you read the responses in the thread, a sizable share of the responses attack the credibility of the person who wrote this email, despite that at least one person has stepped up to confirm at least part of the story. -- llywrch (talk) 20:05, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      The person who alleged they were harassed, confirmed the story and stated that they didn't want to be mentioned like this, but you're forgetting the context in which the email was written and the fact that they weren't asked to disclose their identity, nor was it disclosed (it is written as "anonymous complaints"). They made the assertion in the public forum, is that somehow the fault of the person? I really don't understand. As for the credibility of the person, it did eventually turn out to be a WMBE statement, which was written by a different person, so, again, I do not get your point. --qedk (t 桜 c) 20:15, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Sorry, I didn't think my comment was vague. I simply pointed out that a number of people attacked the person who wrote the email, undermining the writer's credibility, instead of discussing what was contained in the email: ad hominem attacks. Which I hope it's clear I don't endorse. FWIW, a surprising share of the emails in the foundation mailing list were dismissive of our concerns in this matter, evidently believing the Foundation can do no wrong. -- llywrch (talk) 21:15, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      "...evidently believing the Foundation can do no wrong." Sadly, we've had a number of such comments on this very page. Enigmamsg 21:20, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks for clarifying. I get your point now, I took you in the manner exactly opposite and replied in that regard, apologies for that. --qedk (t 桜 c) 21:26, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • As someone who has a spectrum disorder this is absolutely appalling for me, and demonstrates that T&S aren't trustworthy for their role. Being able to separate a legitimate complaint from a spurious one should be a requirement for that position. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:57, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • As someone who has both hearing loss *and* an autism spectrum disorder, I share your feelings. That's really gross on behalf of the WMF if true. Rockstonetalk to me! 20:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    •  Note: One of my personal concerns is the bigotry displayed in someone related to WMF making a comment ...suggesting that Belgium has no culture... (per the email). This could have easily been rectified by WMF doing an internal investigation, but according to the email this was never done. Seriously, that is not okay. >:/ (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 20:02, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm striking my statement until we know more. mailarchive:wikimedia-l/2019-June/092829.html gives me pause. (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 20:33, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Also this and this. @Pundit: Can you please set this conversation straight when you get the chance. It can probably use your personal insight before it gets too off-the-rails. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 20:48, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      The person in question stated in a later email that the way they were forced to step up is that the incident was being discussed, not that anyone actually forced the person, but that they felt like they were forced. They state that they had to step up to correct the wrong details when T&S had resolved the situation, which is questionable in its own right for two reasons: 1) the fact that they consider it harassment in bad faith when the person in question apologized for the behaviour which they stated was unintentional and might have been a product of their disability 2) there was never any proper investigation into the alleged harassment, simply that T&S took action. How in the hell is that permissible? --qedk (t 桜 c) 20:53, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Bluntly put: it's not. If T&S is going to be acting on harassment claims it behooves them to investigate these claims as discreetly as possible. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 21:16, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      My understanding is that at Wikimania T&S team acts when someone reports to them harassment or discomfort. Given the fact that there definitely are misunderstandings (relating from different cultures, possible disabilities, and many other factors) they are mainly focused on minimizing risks, e.g. by asking an involved party to not engage any more, without passing a judgment if they were intentionally harassing anyone. I would definitely find it upsetting to learn that I made someone uncomfortable to the level that they reported me and I understand why the person involved felt this way, too. However, I think that the thing is blown out of proportion right now. AFAIK nobody was banned from an event. The only consequences were common sense - somebody got upset by you for whatever reason? Try to avoid them. Of course, the problem is that the person contacted by T&S will often feel hurt, too - and we need to care about their well-being as well. Unless there is something I don't know about this case, I don't think there is anything clearly easily improvable in the procedures though. Of course we can always improve them, and cases like this definitely should be reflected upon. This is my personal view - I basically don't have a better idea how T&S could operate better without risking a situation in which harassment reports are ignored because they may be misunderstandings. There is no need for intentionality or bad will - in fact, I think that we probably should clarify that T&S team intervenes not only in the cases of harassment (which to many may be immediately associated with crimes). Pundit|utter 05:36, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I would absolutely say that's related. I think it goes very much toward showing that this is not an isolated mistake, but rather may be indicative of a substantially deeper problem within T&S and perhaps the entire WMF. Especially serious are the allegations that the WMF sanctioned someone at least in part because he stood close to people to compensate for a hearing impairment, and mistreated people who had autism. (The latter especially hits home; I'm autistic myself.) If those things are true, they violate not only the WMF's own stated policy of nondiscrimination, but very possibly the law. In the US, that would be the Americans with Disabilities Act and many concurrent state regulations, and I'm sure European countries have analogous regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability. The fact that Trust & Safety did not apparently see fit to investigate and follow up on these very serious concerns show that this may not be an isolated instance of misjudgment, but rather point to a serious problem with the leadership and culture of that team (and makes a mockery out of any idea of them attempting to mitigate potential legal problems). Anyone who has been in management anywhere knows very, very well that when someone claims discrimination, you damn well better take that seriously. Blowing off discrimination complaints can be a very, very costly mistake, and does not uphold the WMF's fiduciary duties to those who donate to it. Paying for a preventable discrimination lawsuit would not be a good use of donor funds, to say nothing of the PR. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:29, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm as disturbed as anyone by the WMF banning an editor without any attempt at using the existing community based dispute mechanisms. However, I see this Belgium issue as so completely different in character that I think it's a potential distraction from the main issue at hand. Hopefully we will hear something soon from Doc James or Jimbo Wales as to whether there is any progress coming from recent the board meeting. Of course, it's better to do it right than to do it quickly.--Mojo Hand (talk) 22:37, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • It may be different in character, but the basic gist of it is not too dissimilar to leading theories about their behaviour here - T&S gets a report from someone who is feeling harassed, takes them at face value with little to no investigation, warns the person in as vague of terms as possible (thus making a course-correction impossible to do intentionally), and then sanctions them for not course-correcting. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 22:41, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This response from a sitting trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation does not exactly inspire confidence. Beyond simply taking reports seriously, it strikes me as an implicit endorsement of confirmation bias a la irrational primacy. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:39, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Holy shit, that's frightening. First we have the WMF enabling harassment of a disabled officer of one of its constituent regional... uh... actually, I'm not sure exactly how to describe the relationship between WMF and WM Belgium. But WMF enabling harassment there, then blowing off concerns about it from all quarters, then having Trustees making excuses for T&S not doing their jobs. At a minimum, this demands an external audit of the WMF from top to bottom; it seems to indicate that T&S is running amok, and nobody else in the OFFICE is willing to try and stop it. rdfox 76 (talk) 23:45, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      "Wikimedia movement affiliates" is the official term. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 01:14, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am not endorsing confirmation bias. My understanding of events is that a person got reported as "harassing" someone. This person was not banned from the event, but requested to avoid the person who felt uncomfortable. Given the nature of large events, and also the fact that the reported incident was not major, I basically do not know how the T&S procedure could be improved. I personally know the person who was reported and I genuinely believe he was acting in good faith and in an amicable way. It is absolutely possible to cause distress unintentionally. My understanding is that there were no longterm repercussions, and that the case is taken out now without good reason, while adding to the stress of the person who felt harassed now. Pundit|utter 06:07, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I too am concerned that a mere accusation of "that makes me feel uncomfortable" would be taken as harassment with enforceable warnings issued. In contentious issues, this is a recipe for abuse:
      Person A: "That's an absurd conclusion based on the available reliable sources"
      Person B: "I'm being persecuted! Make it stop, Mr Admin X!"
      Admin X: "Person A, your actions are clearly being perceived negatively and you should back off"
      Person A: "My conclusions are based on the available reliable resources. I'm open to other sources too"
      Person B: <makes another change to an article based on a highly biased, personal blog>
      Person A: "This is an example of what I'm talking about. Please stop" <reverts change>
      Person B: <private message> "Person A continues to repress the opinions of a notable minority. Make it stop, T&S!"
      T&S: "Person A has been previously warned for such behavior. Person A's actions are causing stress in the community. Person A is banned for 1 year"
    • I'd like to see clearer guidance on the subject before we all go around claiming we're offended. Buffs (talk) 17:03, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • "I'm offended when I see boy bands. They're corporate shills posing as musicians to further a modeling career." Enigmamsg 20:29, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The good news about this is that WMBE should be in an excellent position to begin forking the project. They represent Belgian editors for a Belgian edition, and could probably win their independence quickly. A set of independent national Wikipedias probably is probably a good way to reduce the bureaucratic abuses and create redundancy against national censorship. The bad news is that the rest of us have a malfunctional T&S team trying to destroy our project. Anyone knowledgeable of COINTELPRO should be asking, who is trying to destroy WMF with moles? Is it a company, or a government? Wnt (talk) 23:45, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I sincerely suspect it's just the same sort of bureaucratic incompetence you see in any organization as it matures, and all of which can be driven entirely by cognitive biases rather than malice: Middle managers are more interested in keeping their job than doing their job and work hard to create the appearance that their team is not only worth keeping, but must be expanded; higher ups have little to no idea what actually goes on lower down, especially if there is no bad press and money is rolling in; everyone pretends to be an expert in whatever they are doing; growth is considered a good thing without exception; and it is more important to appear to solve a problem than to even identify the problem, let alone actually solve it. In my opinion, a major cultural advantage of Wikipedia's local administration and ArbCom over T&S is that we don't pretend to be the perfect, unimpeachable experts on conflict resolution, but instead consent to having our actions reviewed, as most of us admit to just being amateurs trying our best. "I am better off than he is,—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know." I will admit the possibility that I am completely wrong about everything here, but the deliberate opacity we've been met with makes it impossible to tell the difference. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:29, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Someguy1221, I think you've hit upon a possible part of the issue. We see all these levels of review on the charts Jan and Sydney have posted above—but all those reviews are internal to WMF. And if someone says "no" to one, they still have to come to work with the people they just snubbed the next day. On-wiki, we know what we don't know, so to speak, so we've built in checks and balances. Admins have special permissions, but taking an action with one of those tools always generates a publicly-viewable log, and those actions are subject to review at Deletion Review, by posting an {{unblock}} request or contacting UTRS, objecting to the action at ANI, or any number of other means, and admins can always be held to account by ArbCom. For functionaries (checkuser/oversight), those things can't be reviewable publicly for obvious reasons, but the functionaries are reviewed by one another. (And having been on those teams, I can tell you that those peer reviews do in fact happen with some frequency; they're not just a hypothetical possibility). And of course, they can also be reviewed and held to account by ArbCom. ArbCom itself does indeed handle some matters that can't be disclosed to others, but ArbCom itself is reviewable by the community every year at election time. So, yes, that kind of stuff can happen. And that's not even necessarily to assert malice. It just may very well be that someone who's reviewing the decision might know that Joe generally knows his stuff, and dammit I've got five thousand things to catch up on, so, sure, I'll take a quick look at his ban proposal, looks fine, sign off, move on to the next thing I need to do today, failing to catch the crucial piece of context that Joe also missed. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Seraphimblade: you know I hadn't even considered groupthink, which you seem to be suggesting as playing a part. This is also in line with Llywrch's observation about the general dismissiveness in the email thread. It makes sense. Create for yourself a system where you are accountable to no one outside your little group, and you can choose to side with that little group, or with what is essentially a bunch of randos. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:44, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    ‘The rule of law ..degenerates to rigidity and inertia in procedures and over-regulation, specialization of bureaucrats leads to civil servants who perform acts without understanding their consequences, and personal stability and arcane internal rules create a closed system out of touch with its environment. One possible consequence of the latter is groupthink. Groupthink means the unconscious minimizing of intra-organizational conflict in making decisions at the price of their quality, which can lead to disaster.'Wolfgang C. Müller, 'Governments and Bureaucracies,' in Daniele Caramani(ed.),Comparative Politics, Oxford University Press, 2017 pp.136-154 p.149

    ‘In too many corporations, . the incentive system was (and is) skewed against dissent and independent analysis. A 1962 study of young executives, for instance, found that the more anxious they were about moving up the job ladder, “the less accurately they communicate(d) problem-related information.” They were smart to do so. Another study of fifty-two middle managers found that there was a correlation between upward mobility and not telling the boss about things that had gone wrong. The most successful executives tended not to disclose information about fights, budget problems, and so on.’ James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds, Knopf Doubleday 2005 p.205

    These two are just an extremely small excerpt from a vast literature on bureaucracies and their problems, and what is disconcerting for many editors is that, in the massive bungling evident here, internally and at a communicative level, the body asserting this innovative power over an encyclopedic experiment seems totally unaware of the academic literature bearing on its own liabilities to error, groupthink, and the internal dynamics of closed organisations.Nishidani (talk) 09:05, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    There is no opposition in a echo chamber, effectively cultivating the "righteousness" of a certain action. The WMF T&S team seems to have a history of zero transparency and accountability, and acting on mere suppositions. Given the fact that we have observed this behaviour in the past and now, it is obvious that no one within the WMF has red-flagged their actions (which led me to conclude T&S is an echo chamber) otherwise, actions like this would not be met with increased stonewalling and lack of responses, when let's keep it mind, their main job is to enforce trust and safety. Gotta give it to them for being so ironic. --qedk (t 桜 c) 09:38, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Romaine now stated on the same mailing list that he will never attend any WMF-funded event as he does not feel safe to do so.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    For reference, the mailing list post is here. Carcharoth (talk) 14:51, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Jesus that's terrifying - at the top of any meta discussion page, we need a combined list of T&S-caused incidents. The issue with Fram could be viewed as a good-faith epic cock-up and abysmal communication. The Belgium issue warrants disciplinary actions to be taken against the T&S staff. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:44, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I concur Buffs (talk) 18:46, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I know you're following @Doc James: (and heavily pinged) but I just wanted to make absolutely sure you were aware of this issue. No immediate outburst of anger but a well-thought through concern by an entire chapter. Depending on if the ZH-wiki issues are included we now have at least 3/4 major T&S issues, at least 1 of which is definitely not a good-faith incident. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The initial message, triggering this discussion, was a private message from Romaine (WMBE Board member) on his own initiative; not verified, nor approved by (the Board of) Wikimedia Belgium. Please read this reply carefully in order to try to bring more clarity.
    I have immediately notified Romaine that he abused his function in the WMBE Board to communicate private matters on the general mailinglist.
    Since Monday I am in private contact, both with T&S and the management of Wikimedia Nederland to follow-up this dispute. This caused delay in replying to this message. The Wikimedia Belgium Board will continue to evaluate the situation and take further measures.
    Wikimedia Belgium wants to apologize for any moral damage that the initial message provoked.
    What one member of the general assembly did propose is that an internal audit could be requested to investigate the general behavior, the working, the completeness of procedures, and the treatment of cases by the Trust and Safety (T&S), and the grants team.
    Specifically, we have encountered as a chapter repeatedly during the last several years a lack of appeal, both in the T&S complaints handling, and in the grants team handling sAPG requests.
    Specifically in the T&S handling procedures, the rights of the alleged offender are not sufficiently guaranteed. There is a possibility that rumors are invoking a punishment without careful verification of the facts, without the defendants being sanctioned in a neutral way, and without taking into account certain handicaps like hard-hearing, or autism.
    That being said, please stop discussing this specific conflict publicly, because a lot of important details are missing, are single-sided interpretations, or even completely wrong.
    -- Geertivp (talk) 22:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC) Geert Van Pamel, chair of Wikimedia Belgium.[reply]
    Genuinely more impressive than anything we've had from WMF relating to the Fram case. Geert, I applaud you. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:18, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    OTOH, from my POV, this discussion highlights once again how we've failed as a community in our response. People have taken the private view of one individual as representing the whole organisation for no good reason. Further the incident which seems to be of most concern is not something new. I recall reading about a while ago, from somewhere. (I have little interest in wikimania or such things so not sure how I came across it. I think maybe it was from a signpost news report.) It's been extensively discussed and even before Geert Van Pamel's comments, I'm not sure there was any reason for us to discuss that specific case publicly here, especially without looking into the details which to be blunt I'm not sure how many here have. It would be rather sad if what I read a few months ago means I'm better informed than even 20% of the people commenting here. Nil Einne (talk) 00:35, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    P.S. A quick search found that the incident itself was about 11 months ago, or at least discussion of it I found was. As per above, I'm not sure if this is when I read about it. Also I probably should mention my reading at the time was it was quite difficult to get a balanced assessment of precisely what happened between the parties because at least some of them weren't interested in talking about it publicly in detail. While there could still be reasonable criticisms of various aspects of how the WMF handled the incident from a transparency, communication, investigation, appeals and rights of the offender stand point; coming to the conclusion that the WMF's actions were unjustified is difficult without knowing both sides of the story and even if I had looked in depth I don't think I could have known back then. It seems perhaps more has been said now that it's come up again although still probably not enough. Yet it seems people here are quite willing to do so. Funnily enough one of the reasonable concerns over the WMF's actions both in that case and in this case, is whether the WMF themselves made enough efforts to understand both sides of the story. Yet from what I see here, people here are quite willing to do the same. (I would note there is one particularly important aspect of this issue. This was established very early on in the email thread and even clearer now we have confirmation that the message was a private email and not sent on behalf of the Wikimedia Belgium. Yet I'm not sure whether all commentators here appreciate even though they probably should. I'm not going to say exactly what it is since I do agree that there is no need for more public discussion of the issue. I'm hesitant to even post this, but feel it's perhaps the best balance of appealing to those here to investigate if they are going to comment.) I do praise those who have withdrawn their comments when realising perhaps there is more here than meets the eye, although note any investigation probably should have happened before commenting. Of course by no means is this unique to one side, in fact my vague memory of the specific case is there appeared to be examples of it on both sides in the email and discussions over the case back then. But given the current feelings against the WMF, the discussion here does seem to have been mostly in one direction. Nil Einne (talk) 01:10, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Nil Einne: Thanks for posting this: it needed to be said, and a few trivial quibbles aside, I agree with all that you write here. However, let me also add that this exemplifies perfectly why "Framgate" is so egregious: it has destroyed so much of the community's trust in T&S (and by extension the WMF as a whole), and that trust is critical for the long term health of the project (and, quite possibly, the movement as a whole).
    The mailinglist messages also demonstrate aptly that—completely regardless of what the intent was—T&S's handling of issues in effect pits different vulnerable groups up against one another, and making the community take sides: which vulnerable group is most deserving of our support and protection? Which group gets to have unconditional respect for their experience of a situation, and which group has their views dismissed as simply self-serving? We need to find ways of handling such issues with individuals that supports and protects all vulnerable groups equally. And that includes preserving some dignity and possibility of redemption even for those individuals who have ojectively and demonstrably acted in a way that hurt others (which may or may not have been the case here). Whatever else is the truth of what happened, T&S have not managed to achieve that here.
    Perhaps that was always impossible in this specific situation, but the observable results are in themselves grounds for introspection and looking for lessons to learn. The sentiment expressed (by someone who shall remain nameless: several people have expressed similar sentiments) that How can we feel safe … if the decisions of T&S are questionned … is precisely the worst possible response. When there are negative effects of T&S's actions (and losing a long term prolific volunteer that was clearly seen as a positive force by many is a negative effect) the first people to question the decision should be T&S; and the community should absolutely question their actions and hold them to account. The conclusion may well be that there was no better way to handle that particular situation, and that it was necessary to prevent even greater negative effects, but there is no entity in this entire movement that should not be exempt from having their acts and decisions questioned! Politely and constructively, preferably, but definitely questioned.--Xover (talk) 07:17, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • T&S seems to operate under a presumption of guilt until innocence is proven beyond even a slightly unreasonable doubt, using their own undisclosed criteria for the determination thereof. At best, this would seem to indicate carelessness on their part; at worst, it's a willful abuse of power. Either way, it's going to do a lot of damage to the WMF's credibility for a long time to come.Kurtis (talk) 10:20, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree that there is an oppressive stench that is originating from the conduct of WMF's T&S team that needs to be answered for by way of a complete review of process and audit of adherence to process. What can be safely said is that the T&S teams' processes appear to be highly prejudicial to the subject of complaints, such that the entire ‘Trust and Safety’ mechanism is vulnerable to abuse by vexatious complainants, internal or otherwise. Dariusz’s assertion that it is the job of the T&S’ team to ‘react’ to reports is absent-minded logic that I fear best describes WMF’s overall attitude to the T&S team. Obviously, it is the job of the T&S team to INVESTIGATE reports it receives with the aim of determining the truth prior to taking any action. The investigation part appears to be lacking, as does the community consultation, and the 'reacting' part is overzealous at best.   «l|Promethean|l»  (talk) 17:00, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Jimbo's authority

    At the top of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/History

    Until the beginning of 2004, Jimbo Wales dealt with all serious disputes other than simple vandalism (straightforward vandals could be blocked by any administrator). He was also the only person with the authority to ban users. In December 2003 he delegated[1] that role in dispute handling to an Arbitration Committee, with initial membership of volunteer experienced users. Wales wrote in January 2004:[2]

    The Arbitration Committee [...] can impose a solution that I'll consider to be binding, with of course the exception that I reserve the right of executive clemency and indeed even to dissolve the whole thing if it turns out to be a disaster. But I regard that as unlikely, and I plan to do it about as often as the Queen of England dissolves Parliament against their wishes, i.e., basically never, but it is one last safety valve for our values.


    In April 2007,[3] Wales confirmed that the Committee could overturn any decision he makes in his traditional capacity within Wikipedia.

    Maybe the above will help. Atsme Talk 📧 21:54, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Sources

    1. ^ "[WikiEN-l] Wikiquette committee appointments". Lists.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2014-06-14.
    2. ^ "[WikiEN-l] Mediation, arbitration". Mail.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2014-06-14.
    3. ^ "[WikiEN-l] Brandt unblocked by Jimbo – community support?". Lists.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2014-06-14.
    • Rather interesting. Thank you for this reminder. I gather that the community was meant to have the final say if there was a dissent between the community and Jimbo, or the Foundation. This makes case law.--Aschmidt (talk) 22:55, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    And a week ago:

    I'd like to remind everyone that it is my long established view that all bans are appealable to me. I seldom intervene, even if I have some minor disagreement with a ban, because no major constitutional issues or errors are at stake.... If an error has been made, I'm sure they will revert and work out procedures to make sure it didn't happen again. If the ban was justified, I'm sure they will find a way to make it clear to - at a minimum, if privacy issues play a role, to me, to the board, and to the Arbitration Committee.... --Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I asked the WMFOffice account whether they agree with Jimbo here, and asked the same of Jan here and on his staff talk page without any reply. I also asked Arbcom and on Meta, at the User Reporting System Consultation and the Roles & Responsibilities and Community Health strategy working groups. There has been no answer to the question anywhere yet. EllenCT (talk) 22:59, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, we speak about a binding pledge upon myself, so it is an irrevocable move. I remember this period in the founding of Wikipedia because when I was a member of the German ArbCom I researched the history of the ArbComs, how they came into being and how they developed up to then. Jimbo was quite keen to get rid of his role as a benevolent dictator at the time. This was not just for fun, and it cannot later be undone.--Aschmidt (talk) 00:00, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This discussion is largely moot. Wiki(m|p)edia has no legal system, no case law. We have a set of community and Foundation policies and governance structures. Jimbo has exactly as much authority as the community and Foundation say he has: at the Foundation, he has no authority beyond his board seat, and within the community, he only has the technical ability to perform actions on the English Wikipedia. Functions previously held by him are now held by elected and accountable members of the community. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 00:20, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    As I recall, when Jimbo has a COI, no appeal is possible. Given the conflict between them, Jimbo likely does. Possibly explains the offer.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:47, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Wehwalt: - did Fram also stridently criticize WMF? Then WMF has a possible COI also? (WMF noted that ArbCom was one primary target of Fram's harrassment and/or abuse, which could create the appearance of a conflict of interest) starship.paint (talk) 04:35, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The owner doesn't get disqualified for COI.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:30, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I know we're arguing for the sake of argument, but that just means all this time we've been enforcing our COI policies over those innocent article subjects, alas! --qedk (t 桜 c) 11:01, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:BAN#Appeal to Jimbo Wales (along with WP:ARBPOL#Appeal of decisions) recognizes Jimbo as the final avenue of appeal for the banned. If the Foundation thinks an unnanounced edit to WP:OFFICE can contravene Section 10 of the Terms of Use ("In contrast to ... these Terms of Use, policies established by the community ... may cover a single Project") then how can they claim that their bans are unappealable? EllenCT (talk) 04:43, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The scope of the WMF to sanction users is not limited in section 10 of the ToU. T&S bans are unappealable regardless of what local policies may exist. And even if ambiguous wording in the ToU might imply that T&S is bound by local policies in this regard, it would be an issue of clarifying the wording rather than T&S acting outside of their scope. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 04:51, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Where do you draw the line? If you don't take it to mean what it says about local control, what's to stop the Foundation from re-imposing superprotect? What's to stop them from sanctioning contributors who criticize fundraising operations? In your view, if the T&S team decides that homeopathy is reasonable, could they sanction editors who prevent homeopathy advocates from adding their material to medical articles? EllenCT (talk) 07:10, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ajraddatz: That's way too obsequious for my liking. Are the ToU community-approved? No. Is the very existence of T&S (or WMF for that matter) community-approved? No. Is there anything about English Wikipedia that is beyond the remit of its contributors? No. I think it is about time to draw a line of what is out of scope for WMF. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 07:31, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with both of your normative arguments: we should work with the WMF to create a system that is as transparent and accountable as possible. But we aren't going to accomplish that through pointing out potential loopholes in the WMF's policies, because their stated policy intent is that the bans be unappealable. And a side note about the Jimbo of it all: I'd prefer that any sort of community oversight of the process or results come from the community or ArbCom, not him. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 15:58, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The owner doesn't get disqualified for COI. In all our discussions, we need to (a) distinguish between WMF, the entity, Katherine Maher, the ED, the line employees (e.g., T&S) and, ultimately, the Board. Only (a) is the "owner" here, and everyone else has roles and responsibilities that are contractually or legally specified.
    Policies can be changed. Guettarda (talk) 16:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Plan D

    Maybe a bit of discussion about plan D would shake the ivory tower up enough to get some progress on Plan A or Plan B. Plan D would be if it if it turns out that WMF is too arrogant, incompetent, un-transparent and too much of an ivory tower to lord over enwiki, for enwiki to leave. The content is public, the main people could all leave for the new separate enwiki. North8000 (talk) 16:06, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    This has been discussed at this page at some point. I personally think this is a complete non-starter. To maintain the project, one needs community of the size comparable with the current English Wikipedia community, which is totally unrealistic.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:07, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    More to the point, one would also need servers the size of a small city—as of a couple of months ago English Wikipedia came to 18,880,938,139,465 bytes, and an independent en-wiki would no longer be part of the WMF ecosystem so we'd need to mirror Commons as well which would be another 40TB or so. Since Equinix would presumably continue to host the remaining WMF wikis they wouldn't be able to host us due to the COI, which would leave us reliant on either Amazon Web Services, Microsoft or IBM; they in turn would either want substantial payment, or would demand a degree of editorial control, and good luck with your "give us your money so we can pass it straight on to Jeff Bezos" fundraising appeal. For better or worse, we're stuck with the WMF. ‑ Iridescent 16:33, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. And, well, we will need a legal team. And - surprise, surprise - a T&S team to deal with pedophiles.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:36, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to give a sense of the scale of what we're talking about, this is the server load Wikipedia puts on the eqiad server. While we're not quite at the scale of Netflix, we're still talking a huge data flow; IIRC the physical infrastructure of Wikipedia (i.e. excluding all the staff salaries, travel etc) costs $4/minute to run, and unless a fork can persuade some donors to defect, or is willing to run adverts, that adds up. ‑ Iridescent 17:42, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    That's about the same as Wikia/Fandom, because they serve far more media on each pageview. If Jimbo could get behind it, I'm sure Wikia would be glad to temporarily host while an alternative Foundation is established. EllenCT (talk) 18:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not meaning to sound condescending, but how many of you have read Office actions? I just read it for the first time and it actually shed quite a bit of light on this situation. I was just wondering...would the reaction to Fram's block been different had we known about this policy beforehand? Would Fram have acted differently as an admin/editor? Atsme Talk 📧 16:31, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      We're well aware of it and it's been discussed at length here; one of the primary causes of this dispute is the WMF rewriting it a couple of months ago to grant themselves authority to do what they've done without any discussion. (This was what the policy looked like at the time of Fram's alleged offences.) ‑ Iridescent 16:35, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      They already had that authority; they don't need to re-write wiki pages to change that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:02, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      In 2016 the Board gave the Foundation management the authority to change the Terms of Use, which still says to this day that only community processes can impose a project-specific ban. But they never bothered to change the ToU to allow for their undiscussed, unannounced February 2019 office actions policy change, so unless you believe their ability to change the ToU allows them to waive doing so, then they did not in fact have the necessary authority. EllenCT (talk) 18:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Really? Where do they say "only community processes can impose a project-specific ban"? And What part of we reserve the right [...] to [...] Refuse, disable, or restrict access to the contribution of any user who violates these Terms of Use [...] [or to] Ban a user from editing or contributing or block a user's account or access for actions violating these Terms of Use" [or to] Manage otherwise the Project websites in a manner designed to facilitate their proper functioning and protect the rights, property, and safety of ourselves and our users (section: #10. Management of Websites ) do you think does not apply, and why? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:35, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • We could leave easily. There are already many mirrors. But where would we go? And would anyone notice?
      Server farms don't grow on trees. Also such an exodus would leave WMF with the upper hand and the strong brand, and they could continue in a way that the editor community couldn't. Just not viable. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:43, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is it possible to do anything to make forking more viable in the future? It has been pointed out that it is more viable to fork smaller wikis (those in a different language). If enough publicity came of that, it might slowly start to make a difference. But the past examples don't inspire confidence that it could happen. The best route appears to be to establish strong checks and balances in the existing systems. Carcharoth (talk) 16:47, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Plan Y tho: If the server farm issue can be resolved, somebody just needs to make a bot that redirects every page on Wikipedia to the same page on the new mirror, with explanatory banners. That'll partially solve the issues of traffic and moving the community to a new domain. The WMF will try to stop it, but would that really be within their rights? They own the URL, the community owns the content. This is the content the community wants, and it still fulfills the mission of delivering a free encyclopedia, just not one the WMF can control. Attempting to stop it would be counter to their stated goals, the goals for which they accepted donations, which might even land them in legal hot water. This will also allow a nearly-seamless transition for our readers, which should be a top concern. Wikipedia isn't one of the most-trafficked websites for nothing!
    As for staffing the mirror, we can start with long-term volunteers with lots of free time and who've served in trusted community positions. We've got hundreds of those, including people with formal training in law and business.
    Remember, Wikipedia itself is the project that works in practice, but not in theory. It only stopped working because the WMF strayed from their roots. We did it once, we can do it again. Mysterious Whisper (talk) 15:54, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • A server farm "the size of a small city" is exactly right, and the key point when discussing forking the 5th-most-visited website on the internet. Websites run on computers; computers cost money; whoever is paying for the computers will always have the final say over who can and who cannot use the computers. Hence, there will always be "office actions" that cannot be overturned by "the community", and "the community" will always be subordinate to whoever pays for the computers that "the community" uses. Those editors who have expressed the opinion that the community is sovereign over the WMF are just ignoring the basic fact that we're all using computers that someone else is paying for. The only way around this is to set up something like a co-op where editors are owners of the legal entity that pays for the computers, and that would require the editor-owners to give up anonymity (at least to each other). Bottom line: whoever pays the bills makes the rules. Period, end of story. If editors want to make the rules, they need to pay the bills. – Levivich 17:20, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Levivich, I don't think that means what you think it means. The WMF does not "pay the bills", any more than my bank pays my bills when I write a check for them. I paid the bill, the bank just acted as a repository for the money, just like the WMF acts as a repository for money donated. The donors paid the bills. But in a very real sense, our editors pay the bills. If you were to total up the value of volunteer labor put into Wikipedia by its editors, I suspect the sum would be staggering and probably substantially more than the WMF puts toward hosting it. WMF does not "pay the bills", even if it signs the checks. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:31, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      It's not at all like a bank. When a bank takes your money, it's still your money and they're holding it for you. They won't give it to anyone unless you tell them to. When a nonprofit takes a donation, it becomes the nonprofit's money. Neither the donors nor the editors get to tell the WMF how to spend the money, nor are they accountable for how it's spent. The editors and the donors don't pick the web host, or the office space, or set the salaries. If the money is mis-spent, for example if laws are broken, it's not the editors or the donors who are held accountable, it's the WMF–specifically, its trustees and officers. If the web host bill isn't paid, it's not the editors or the donors who will be sued by the web hosting company, it's the WMF. Because they are held accountable, they get to set the rules. If the community wants to set the rules, it will need to take over the functions of raising and spending the money directly, and it will need to also take on the accountability for it. – Levivich 18:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Just a minor quibble about branding / donor earmarking, but I keep running into Craig_Newmark#Philanthropy when reading about Wikipedia harassment. I'm not sure Alphabet has donated much towards policing the letterbox yet. I gather their subsidiary (google) donated at least a couple million, but that may have been more related to Project Tiger than harassment, I don't know. (The initiative seems unrelated to Rory (WMF) or to WP:TIGER, but rather towards the Indian market.) Amazon & wa Wapo should have to pay a tithe for all the free links to their products/paywall and use on Siri, but I've never heard exactly what their recent donation was earmarked for. Phonetics? Deck-chairs? a Randian data center straight outta' Boise? 🌿 SashiRolls t · c 21:31, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Uh the donors pay the bills. And the donors donate largely because of the English Wikipedia. We are the product that generates revenue. Now we dont have much of a say in this because that product has been freely given away under a CC license so even if we all up and leave they still have a decent sized "encyclopedia", but lets not pretend that the WMF is anything other than a body that exists to solicit and then spend donations off the efforts of a small army of volunteers. nableezy - 17:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      It's true, the WMF wouldn't have donations if it wasn't for the efforts of editors, but it's also true that the WMF wouldn't need to raise donations except to pay for the computers, etc., that editors use. Right now, editors provide the content, but they have no responsibility for the $2 million in web hosting fees (or anything else). We outsource raising and spending that $2 million (and the many other costs associated with it) to someone else. That someone else is legally accountable for raising and spending the money, and thus gets to make the decisions like which web host to pick and who does and doesn't get to edit. If the community wrote to the web hosting company and told them we want them to remove the WMF's access and turn it over to a new organization that "the community of editors" is establishing, do you think the web host would listen? What if the donors made the request, would the web host listen? Nope, they're going to take their orders from the WMF, their customer, the people who actually pay the bills. As long as we leave it to someone else to pay the $2 million, we are going to be subject to their rules. If the community wants to change that, it needs to raise and spend the money for web hosting itself, directly, instead of outsourcing it. – Levivich 18:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Nab. The outcome of arguments often depends on the metaphors employed. We had the owner-tenant trope, which automatically wins the discursive battle for the WMF. Here we have a charity metaphor. There are two donors here (a) Those with money to back the project, and (b) those who donate their unpaid time and write the 5,800,000 articles. (c)The intermediary between the two neither donates money nor is actively engaged in actual article drafting, since its bureaucratic work takes priority. (a) pays (b) is unpaid (c) is paid. The only practical beneficiary of the charity is (c), one gets a highly paid, high-flying job with powerful authority. A lot of things can be imagined or inferred from this. One last point, I don't know how things have changed since the University of Minnesota 2007 study, which concluded that 44% of wikipedia content was created by 0.1% of editors, while 10% created 86% of edits (Daniel Tammet, Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind, Simon and Schuster, 2009 p.205 ). (c) is selecting for recruitment and retention on the basis of emotional sensitivities. The percentages of (b) suggest this profile is marginal to actual encyclopedic production.Nishidani (talk) 19:50, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Or, we discuss starting a worldwide Wiki referendum to write a constitution, dissolve the current WMF (except for those maintaining the code and servers), and build a new top level Wikipedia according to the constitution. Even the mere prospect of one of these might be enough to start evolving towards a fix. North8000 (talk) 17:27, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not seeing much wrong with the "constitution" we have. The problems lie below that level. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:30, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes - they pay the bills. But the only reason they have any money to pay the bills is thanks to the endless hours of volunteer time that has created the product they are making money from. Unfortunately, the absence of viable alternatives has created a monopolistic attitude by the WMF - they can essentially do what they want given the absence of competition. Forking is a weak option, but something live a 3-5 day work stoppage could be effective. We wouldn't be disrupting the encyclopedia to make a point, as we all have every right to leave are not participate as we see fit. However, it's only effective if enough editors do it at the same time. Of course, the down side is that if the effect is negligible, we simply confirm the WMF's view that we are all easily replaceable cogs.--Mojo Hand (talk) 17:32, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I encourage a work stoppage because I think every editor who participates will learn something. – Levivich 18:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    IMHO the most likely path to a fork of Wikipedia would be as follows:

    • Due to the Foundation's incompetence, the stream of outgoing volunteers exceeds the number of incoming ones, resulting in a steady decline.
    • Eventually the number of volunteers on Wikipedia is so small that they cannot keep up with all of the maintenance tasks, as well as with updating articles let alone writing new ones. Wikpedia acquires an outdated status similar to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, suffers from link rot, poorly-checked vandalism & is far more an embarrassment than an asset.
    • To halt this decay, the Foundation puts Wikipedia into read-only mode. Maybe articles are reviewed for obvious vandalism & other detrimental information, maybe not. (Or maybe it is decided to delete all Biographies of Living People to avoid possible lawsuits for defamation.) In short, Wikipedia stops growing.
    • Some time after this someone is dissatisfied with one or more articles on Wikipedia, writes his or her own version of these articles, & puts them up on the web. They are good enough &/or popular enough that others add their own revised articles.
    • What began as a collection of pages on the web grows into its own organized web encyclopedia. A new community-based project. And one of the sub-projects of this new encyclopedia is to adapt from the moribund Wikipedia all of the articles with useful content -- just as Wikipedia adapted articles from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.

    And hopefully this new encyclopedia learns from our mistakes, thus not only offering a better reference source for all, but also engendering a less dysfunctional community. I won't make any predictions when this new encyclopedia will come into existence & replace Wikipedia. Though I hope it is soon enough that some who helped with Wikipedia can participate in the creation of this new encyclopedia. -- llywrch (talk) 18:08, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    If we are into apocalyptic scenarios, I would rather bet on changing the platform and text encyclopedia becoming outdated. Search inside video formats will be implemented within a couple of years, and I do not see us responding to that in any wat. I discussed this a while ago on wikimedia-l mailing list.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:57, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Search inside videos sounds like hell. I hate videos. Rockstonetalk to me! 19:43, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ymblanter:, I'm sorry you see this as an apocalyptic scenario; it is based on my observations during my lengthy tenure here. One dynamic that will be pushing to this result is that -- & I assume I am preaching to the choir here -- contributing substantially & positively to Wikipedia is hard work. One measure of this is that the labor required to write a reasonably useful article is roughly equivalent to writing a college undergraduate term paper; I say this, having done both. (By "reasonably useful article", I mean what would be graded as a solid "C" quality article; articles that deserve GA or FA ratings require far more work.) In other words, the days when someone could just stop by & spend an odd hour or two contributing with no preparation has long passed. Even constructive maintenance work -- reviewing new articles, participating in AfD, commenting at WP:AN, etc. -- can take hours in order to make one informed decision.

    The other dynamic is that people at the Foundation haven't realized this. They still think some average person can drop by, spend that mythical hour or two typing (assuming this contributor types 65 wpm; twice as long if this person types only 35 wpm as I do), & has produced a Featured article in one draft. As the saying goes, work you don't understand always looks easier than it is; the WMF either doesn't understand how much work we spend here, or has forgotten how much it is. Their chronic acts that offend & alienate the various projects only prove they don't understand. The combination of these two dynamics -- the challenge of making positive & lasting contributions, & the lack of understanding of what we do by the Foundation -- results in a steady exodus of veteran editors. Since, as it has been noted, writing an encyclopedia is an unusual hobby to pursue, the potential pool of contributors is very small. Thus the likelihood that the Foundation will dry up this pool by alienating all potential contributors is very high, & the only question isn't will the Foundation destroy its resource of volunteers, but how soon. (And IMHO a successful fork will only happen once Wikipedia is no longer a viable outlet for us wannabe encyclopedia writers.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:15, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Plan E

    • Now, leaving is indeed a rather difficult exercise ('Plan D'), and WMF would just run on with the remainers (just like Brexit, the EU will get a hit but still be fine). However, large editorial strikes (of increasing length), in the spirit of 'now we do not harass anyone who adds rubbish', would at a decent pace turn this decent amount of information turn into a decent heap of vandalised, BLP- violating, spammy crap. First 24 hours .. then 3 days .. a week? Imagine no-one harassing those spammers, editors who inappropriately attribute or those who feel offended if their article gets speedied. Any takers? --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:18, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Participants 'strike'

    • As proposer. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:36, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Turn the anti-vandal bots off for a week, see how Jimmy's friends start to complain when their BLP's go unreverted within seconds. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:29, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sign me up for that; I stand by everything I said there. If you really want to annoy the WMF, couple it with "everyone write to T&S every time you ever see anyone do anything that violates the Terms of Use". ‑ Iridescent 18:29, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Seems like a lot of work. One to figure out exactly what violates the ToU and then two, writing the e-mails. I don't even know if they'll get read. You probably need to be friends with someone in the WMF to get your complaints heard. Enigmamsg 18:32, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I actually have templates for this at work. I am pretty sure we can knock up a 'insert name here, tick box for your flavour of harrassment* quick enough. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • This prompted me to actually look more closely at T&S's homepage which actually contains no contact information of any kind (other than the Emergency@Wikimedia address used for reporting genuine crisis issues like credible suicide threats). Which in turn begs the question of just how this supposed stream of reports ever reached T&S in the first place, unless they were coming from insiders who knew the personal contact information of members of T&S. With every rock that gets overturned here, it starts to look more and more like the conspiracy theorists are right. ‑ Iridescent 18:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Ha, I didnt believe you and went to check for myself. Thats... special. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:42, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, if you were a proper insider, you'd just text them. You need backchannels or you're a mere peon. They stopped being "conspiracy theories" to me when I read Raystorm's response on this page. Enigmamsg 18:46, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Mayhaps T&S handles whatever comes through the emergency address? —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 18:44, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm sure they do, but per the massive warning at emergency@wikimedia.org that's only for genuine life-or-death situations; if someone is using it to snitch on editors they don't like, that's a breach right there. ‑ Iridescent 18:50, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      The WMF isn't exactly readily available for editor enquiries. A couple of years ago I wanted to contact the WMF in order to ask them what their civility policy actually was. My remembrance of trying to do that is that I would have had to send a physical letter to an address in San Francisco, which meant I would have had to reveal my own address for a reply, which I wasn't happy about. The closest I could get was to contact OTRS. So, when this recent situation arose, I wondered, 'how has someone managed to contact the WMF like that, unless....?' PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 18:58, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      When I was on Arbcom (and consequently better connected than most), when I genuinely did need to contact the WMF they were so resolutely uncommunicative I quite literally ended up needing to contact Jimmy Wales directly and have him relay the message. ‑ Iridescent 19:07, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      From my awareness, emails at the emergency address are continously monitored (and they have done a good job with it), and it sends out instant notifications to the entire team, so anyone misusing those channels will end up banned if they do it in bad-faith or just be a nuisance. Emails to T&S take a few days to get answered, depending on the severity. --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      You know of an email address for T&S? I don't, and nor does their own homepage. ‑ Iridescent 19:08, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      It is ca@wikimedia.org. It's not present where it should be but I probably picked it up somewhere (tags on office-locked accounts methinks). --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:14, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, it's ca@. It's on that page (which I now can't find) that lists who has to sign off on a particular office action. Black Kite (talk) 19:38, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      {{WMF-legal banned user}} says it's trustandsafety@. —Cryptic 19:24, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • The contact details for each member of T&S are connected from their short bios on the "Team" tab from the homepage. For anyone specifically raising harassment concerns, the Harassment page lists steps they can take, including the email to contact T&S. - Bilby (talk) 03:54, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • ...and then it turns out that the whole point of this mess was to get a larger number of reports to T&S, so that T&S can justify a bigger budget with more staff. Or something. Anyway, we don't need to strike or fork or anything like that, because the WMF is still more or less under community control, if very indirectly. Community-elected members of the board are looking into this. If they come back here and say, "turns out the WMF is a hopeless mess, we've hired a new ED to fire everybody except the ops team and rebuild everything from the ground up", well, then we don't need to do anything. If they come back and say, "we've ordered the WMF to have T&S not interfere in matters outside their jurisdiction and set up new rules so that nothing like this happens again", or "turns out this whole mess was caused by someone acting alone who has since been fired", we're also fine. Patience would be helpful now. --Yair rand (talk) 18:50, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • How's that? The Board has ten members: three elected by the community, six corporate types appointed with no community input, and one Jimmy. Unless the six unelected members are already split on an issue, the community electees have no control whatsoever. ‑ Iridescent 19:02, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • To clarify there are 3 community selected, 2 affiliate selected, 4 appointed by the board itself, and one Jimmy. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:00, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Patience? NO statement in ... how long? 10 days, two weeks? They just hope this will blow over and that people lose interest. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:04, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse general strike. Jimmy and Doc haven't reported back to us yet. T&S looks rotten from the inside. Since banning office accounts isn't feasible (and at this point would be meaningless) completely withdrawing from Wikipedia for however long it takes is necessary. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:49, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support in principle, but with extreme caution, and not so 'general'. Please see my 3-point comment in the discussion section below. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:22, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support, since it's become apparent that the WMF has adopted a wait-'em-out strategy. The scales have fallen from my eyes, FWIW, and I don't see myself ever feeling the same about this place again. It's just another fucking corporation. Miniapolis 22:40, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose per the discussion about a sitenotice below. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:47, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think this needs to be a bit more clearly defined. If someone leaves death threats for a user or tries to dox a user onwiki, I'm going to act, strike or no. --Rschen7754 00:20, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose I'm not sitting around and watching BLP violations, including potential defamation, get dropped into Wikipedia simply to make a poorly-defined point to the WMF. - Bilby (talk) 03:49, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Bilby: so, you prefer now to defend the removal of such blp violations and defamations, spammy pages and all until you gather enough people who feel offended by your actions that some contact WMF and get you banned without appeal? Because that is the path WMF seems to have started here. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, that is the path that you imagine the WMF have started here. I have no idea what path has been started, as I have no idea what led to Fram's ban.However, if I was concerned about being stopped from removing BLP violations, I'd prefer to address that by a method that doesn't involve stopping the removal of BLP violations. - Bilby (talk) 06:33, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • Imagine, maybe, but barring any explanation .. Bilby, don't get me wrong, I prefer also not to have BLP violations stand (pile up), but in the end it is not your (our) responsibility, it is the reponsibility of the WMF to make sure that you can remove those BLP violations without running the risk that WMF accusing you (banning you for) 'harassing' the editor who introduces them (and I am seeing cases of people who are here spamming, socking, etc. for 8+ years, I cannot imagine how 'harassed' they must feel - maybe I should stop reporting the next socks to SPI so I do not harass them and leave possible copyvio material they introduce alone?). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:58, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • If ultimately it was shown that Fram was banned simply for performing standard actions as you describe, then I'd certainly support something. However, while I understand why some might support this, personally I can't reconcile the idea of standing by while BLP violations are added in order to make a statement. It just doesn't work for me. - Bilby (talk) 12:19, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Nobody ever asked me to join a trade union for Wikipedia editors. (As an administrator, am I management?) But this idea will either fizzle, or if it is moderately effective, would bring widespread public support to the WMF and opprobrium to the "striking" editors. Wow, these elitist nerds are striking in defense of their right to be obnoxious jerks who harass people and throw F-bombs around. That would be the narrative. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 04:05, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose as stated. A strike needs a purpose. What are your demands? What would be the conditions for ending the strike? (I'm not watchlisting this monstrously long page, so please ping me if you reply.) —Granger (talk · contribs) 05:51, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Mx. Granger: I mention that in green below (this evolved differently), WMF rescinds all current actions and finds a path to have (members of) the community handle harassment. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • No offense, but based on this thread, I don't see how you think the people here could handle harassment complaints if they can't handle the WMF not responding for 24 hours. It's unrealistic for you to handle them yourself. — Moe Epsilon 07:24, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • 24 hours? It is 2 weeks. And I agree that we need harassment control (see my green statement below), but what the WMF did here is NOT the way. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:41, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Sorry Beetstra, I should have been more clear. It took 24 hours for the community to agree to overturn the original block on Fram's account. — Moe Epsilon 18:49, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        Thank you for the clarification. I don't think this is a realistic or even a desirable proposal. The relevant team at the WMF has made clear they are not willing to consider rescinding Fram's ban, and as I've argued above, not enough information is public for us to evaluate Fram's ban for ourselves. I'm not sure I fully understand the other part of the proposal – the T&S team is partly composed of longstanding community members, so if I'm not mistaken (which I may be, this is a complicated situation) in some sense it is already true that members of the community are handling harassment. At best, if you're proposing a different way to handle harassment, that's something that should be discussed in a calm, coolheaded manner that carefully weighs the pros and cons, not fought for with a strike. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:34, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • There is nouse in doing this differently ... WMF will just ignore and do their own plan. See the stonewalling in Jan's last statement. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:42, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion strike

    • Shouldn't we try an all-editor petition before striking? The proposal to petition the Board, CEO, and Community Engagement Chief (T&S's C-level manager) by putting such a request with their contact information in MediaWiki:Editpage-head-copy-warn got archived before even ten people had !voted on it. EllenCT (talk) 18:48, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm concerned that if the community does this, and lets the BLP and copyright violations take over the site, the WMF will interpret it as a reason to grab more supreme executive power from the community. Really, I preferred the idea of grinding the main page to a halt, even if it is a bit WP:POINTy. We did more than that for SOPA, we can do it for this. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 18:49, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • What are they going to do? Clean up the BLPs themselves and harass the editors that created them? --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:00, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I am trying to write a bit of a statement to put here to more clarify:

    --- Statement to WMF --- Harassment is a real problem. But, so much more than child pornography or copyright violations or legal threats, harassment is a two way street.
    Any cleanup action that is performed by one of our volunteers, it being reverting vandalism, blocking socks, cleaning up spam, protecting pages to stop edit wars, tagging or removing COI edits, revdel of copyright violations, tagging of inappropriate or insufficient or lack of attribution, rejection of unsuitable drafts or requesting deletion of new articles, &c. can be interpreted by the volunteer who made the original edit as harassment.
    Generally, these forms of 'harassment' are not systemic, but if the community (or, as it happens, individual members of the community) feel the need to constantly follow up on the edits of certain other volunteers because they are, consistently, not (properly) following our community standards (remember, competency IS required) then that is (even if just perceived) harassing the volunteer that has performed the original edit. In that way, some of us are, consistently or systemic, but in most of the cases not intentionally, 'harassing' copyright violators, spammers, vandals, volunteers who do not properly attribute, sock masters ...
    This encyclopedia is nothing without volunteers cleaning up behind other editors. Problems are not solved by leaving problematic edits alone because the volunteer who made the problematic edit does not like it being handled as such.
    Harassment being a two way street, 'convictions' based on harassment can, never, be executed without looking at both sides. It may be that one volunteer is consistently making inappropriate edits, it may be that the other volunteer is appropriately or inappropriately marking the edits of another party, it may be that both parties are 'in the wrong'. That can NOT be determined without proper, independent and neutral, investigation on both the edits of one volunteer that resulted in the actions performed by another volunteer. That needs to be done by trusted volunteers on wiki, who weigh the edits on both sides.
    The way this has been handled by WMF, makes it for volunteers impossible to work without running the risk of being summarily banned without appeal while trying to keep material in Wikipedia line with our policies and guidelines.
    We, the undersigned volunteers, will go on strikes of increasing length, starting with a full 1 day strike, until the WMF completely rescinds the current actions. During this day, we, the undersigned volunteers, will NOT revert vandalism, spam, etc., will not tag any material that is found which is insufficiently, wrongly or not attributed, not remove material that is violating our non-free content criteria, correct obviously wrong statements, request deletions of any kind, etc. Moreover, participating admins will not perform any actions to stop vandalism, promotion, delete material, block editors, etc. In short, no actions that could possibly be perceived as 'harassment' to anyone editing Wikipedia.

    Thoughts (please, DO harass me over incorrect work, feel free to tag, correct or, even, enhance). --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:00, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Lots of good ideas above. How about a high profile meta poll with instant runoff voting to decide between them? When it hits the newspapers that enwiki is trying to decided what to do next amongst the above options, including a worlwide poll to dissolce WMF, seperation of enwiki, the shit will really hiot the fan. The likely decision for "next step" will probably be a strike. North8000 (talk) 19:14, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    @North8000: and you think that having a significant part of en.wikipedia striking will not be in the news soon enough? --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:21, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Beetstra: Maybe, but a meta choice with instant runoff structure would move it decisively forward instead of the usual 10 ideas and each of their sub-variants all discussed separately and then nothing moves forward. And having a few extreme measures on there would shift the psychological ground. A milder choice (like a strike) would certainly win as step 1. North8000 (talk) 20:53, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm doubtful it would be. But it has been damn near a week. Jimmy and Doc have not come back to us. My patience has run out; it's time to force the issue. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:26, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • 1. The text is far too long. KISS it - short, sharp, and to the point. Avoid aping the WMP's tedious and empty statements. Contrary to their claims, they are not reading everything that is being posted over the FRAMBAN - they are just not bothered.
    2. A strike would only be effective if done specifically by admins (and bureaucrats), and perhaps also by other special rights holders. One must not ignore that after a strike someone will still need to do the clean up and address the backlogs. A few years ago I spearheaded a huge campaign to clean up after a massive and costly blunder by the WMF, and some of us are still smarting from it. The WMF is a bull in a chinashop, they don't really care at all what damage is done through their poor judgment because they always know that the volunteers will sweep up the dirt.
    3. A strike should be the absolute last resort (barring a mass hand-in of admin tools), but one should not have to wait much longer for a reaction from the WMF, the Board, and Arbcom. Something must be forthcoming soon.
    Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:16, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    It doesn't seem to me that a strike would be effective given the number of editors who will assemble to oppose or endlessly delay any action, including admins and I suspect arbs. Let's face it, some people think this is great.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:23, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kudpung: I wrote it in a bit of a hurry, it should probably be a statement with a possible hatted clarification regarding scope). I agree that you need a solid number of admins participating, but also editors should follow. I expect that after a 24 hour strike quite some material will be in a dire state. But, to me, that is the message WMF just gave (barring better explanation): stop harassing good faith editors and leave the mediocre or bad material of them standing and let the general content quality go down. The main intent of this strike is that those actions, which to some are (perceived as) harassing, are needed to improve general content. Slow that down and your encyclopedia becomes worthless.
    If the community has over and over to block a reincarnation of a sock, spend 8+ years against one specific spam-company, or months cleaning up after an editor then it is NOT strange that you, even publicly, send such an editor to fuck off (I am not writing it, but some of them I would like to ...). If even higher mechanisms fail (WMF, now even turning against us), then I am not surprised that now some of us will stop 'harassing' editors voluntarily giving the same effect as a strike.
    I hope that 24 hours (or less) will get the message through. I can't imagine what this encyclopedia will look like after a 1 week strike. This place will be FUBAR if we do not 'harass' spammers, vandals, socks, and mediocre editors alike. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:50, 21 Juse 2019 (UTC)
    Beetstra, As I said before, the WMF doesn't care. They know that there will always be enough admind and editors to clear up the mess after a strike. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:29, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I believe a volunteer strike would only work if we organize a publicity committee, who will (1) commission essays explaining the reason for the strike (& which will be posted to non-WMF sites such as Medium); & (2) provide spokespeople to talk to the media.

    The essays need to be posted not only to non-WMF sites because it will otherwise be too easy for them to either be ignored, or obviously suppressed by the WMF. We need to have spokespeople because otherwise reporters will simply contact the usual people (e.g. Jimmy Wales, Katherine Maher, etc.) who can not be trusted to explain the true reason for the strike. In short, a successful strike will require more effort than people simply logging out of their Wikipedia accounts until further notice. (It would also help if we had someone who has been involved in a similar work action to provide advice.) -- llywrch (talk) 15:01, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Sitenotice

    Setting up a sitenotice urging all editors to directly petition the WMF is the best idea I have. I'm sure this had been said before but I'm not sure why it can't be done. It's noticeable and minimally invasive, except to the image of the WMF ofc. It's a pretty simple community response and should be "that's that" from our side. --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:55, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Support

    • Yes, let's ask for endorsements to a Board petition to rescind foundation:Resolution:Delegation of policy-making authority. That would require any ToU-level changes to be made by the Board, which was the status quo until 2016. The Foundation has shown by their actions that they are insufficiently mature to be trusted with the delegated authority, so the delegation should be rescinded. EllenCT (talk) 18:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with EllenCT's proposal that we should petition the WMF for the complete removal of the delegation, with a new agreeable solution being set into place at their next meeting. Ofcourse, the specifics cannot be determined by us, but individual petitioning is still individual petitioning. --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:05, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This does not conflict in any form with other ideas and might increase the pressure further. Obviously waiting for the next WMF action/statement does not seem to help ... --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree with the message and further agree that this is not mutually-exclusive with a general editor strike. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:28, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree and would like for it to replace the "pride" message that keeps popping up on every page. That is unnecessary. Enigmamsg 19:30, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @Enigmaman: FYI, that was put up without consensus. See m:CentralNotice/Request/Wiki Loves Pride 2019. I've asked the responsible CN-admin to revert the addition. --Yair rand (talk) 20:00, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Good to hear. I had no idea who approved putting that up, yet it was popping up on every page last night when I was navigating Wikipedia. Just inappropriate. If there is to be a sitenotice, it should be related to this. Enigmamsg 20:03, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree - this is an excellent idea, and is not something that could be said to cause any collateral damage, so is a suitable addition to any other action undertaken. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:33, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree per all above. CoolSkittle (talk) 19:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This I can get behind. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 19:46, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, we should do this, whether or not accompanied by any other action(s). I should note that I've been on strike already since this dropped, and I don't plan to stop. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 19:48, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Likewise. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:50, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support as a less-nuclear option. Miniapolis 22:42, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support I think the best way to do this is to set a deadline a week out for the WMF board to respond and then put it up if they don't respond by then. --Rschen7754 00:18, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support Most practical option.©Geni (talk) 16:55, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose

    • Oppose. Wait for the board to finish looking into the mess. --Yair rand (talk) 19:58, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • We're not going to move at the speed of the Board. We've been waiting with bated breath for a week. How much longer do you expect us to wait, a year? —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      It's been six days since the meeting, and the board members don't all have that much free time. Give it at least a couple weeks before requiring something. --Yair rand (talk) 20:04, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Mu.--WaltCip (talk) 20:21, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fuck your Kau. This affects us to a grave extent, and all you can muster is "this isn't our problem"? —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 20:39, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't see how this is Mu-able. This is clearly within the technical capability of the community to do. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:46, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose. The whole dispute here boils down to that the WMF is perceived as having communicated this ban poorly, which is at least arguable. (Some seem to think the action itself was inappropriate, but that can't be determined except by the WMF, as the decision relies on private information, so that argument is a non-starter.) All the sky-is-falling drama over it is a ridiculous over-reaction to the perceived problem of 'they didn't tell us what they were doing well enough!'. The merits of it aren't cut and dried for people who are following it, never mind for random people being petitioned. (The community isn't particularly united against the WMF, as far as I see, only a rather vocal subset of it.) There's no need to drag readers into the dispute as well. Leave up the Pride central notice instead, and let's step back from this and breathe a bit. It's not the end of the world. —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/their)｜😹｜✝️｜John 15:12｜☮️｜🍂｜T/C 20:36, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just a question: Did you read anything about T&S's interactions with the Belgian branch yet? —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 20:41, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Jéské Couriano: Yes, I read the thread on the mailing list and some of the comments here yesterday. It's not clear to me which party to that dispute is correct. In my view, that issue should be discussed between WMBE, WMF, and the participants of the dispute, perhaps with lawyers; adjudication by a pitchfork-wielding mob seems inappropriate. I would not be opposed to the creation of an ombuds commission to arbitrate appeals to WMF's decisions. —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/their)｜😹｜✝️｜John 15:12｜☮️｜🍂｜T/C 21:02, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose this, and D and E and probably more of the alphabet as well. I'm as disappointed as anyone with the slowness of a response, but I truly believe that Doc James would not go along with hoodwinking the community. Also, ArbCom is having a separate meeting with WMF (today, I think), and they would be very likely to tell us something when they are ready to do so (even if they tell us that they got stonewalled – and that, not what we have now, is what could reasonably trigger a strong community response). I think it's rather probable that the internal investigations have revealed a very serious screw-up, and they are being very careful to get their ducks in a row before they go public. That's an unfortunate situation, but it doesn't mean that we are being ignored. Grown-up people don't keep asking "are we there yet?" We have not yet reached a deadline. And I don't like making the encyclopedia less useful for our readers, either. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:38, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose for now, but not in principle. I said earlier in this discussion that we ought to wait at least until after this week to hear a substantive response. We are, after all, asking the leadership and Board of Directors of a pretty major organization for their responses, and that's not going to happen in a day or two—but it better not happen in a year or two, either. And such leaders are expected to deliver more than carefully crafted obfuscation when that's needed. At the very least, let's await hearing the outcome of the ArbCom call today before we do anything drastic. But I will be clear that if we keep getting stonewalling and thousand-words-to-say-nothing responses, further action, and possibly substantially more drastic action, may be required. Or in short, let's be reasonably patient, but let's also be very clear that this is not an "Ignore them and they'll go away" situation. Much as some people at WMF may like it to, this situation is not going to vanish on its own. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:43, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Well said. --Yair rand (talk) 20:48, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose per Goldenshimmer. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:53, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just a question: Did you read anything about T&S's interactions with the Belgian branch yet? (Same rationale, same reply.) —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 20:56, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I did, and I can't say I'm as worked up about it as anyone else. It seems like a he said, she said case, and I can't uncritically accept the alleged facts of either the incident or the investigation from the he-said side. I'm not sure what the correct resolution there should have been (and I don't think any of us here could be sure) but I what I read did not leave me up in arms. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:47, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I just saw what Goldenshimmer wrote, and I agree with them entirely. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:50, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • What would be in this sitenotice? "Wikipedia community angry after WMF tries to enforce a basic level of behavioural standards without getting a vote first"? "Wikipedia community bullies off at least one supportive admin after user with a long-term history of incivility is banned"? "Wikipedia community exposes all sorts of conspiracy theories and attempts to out harassment victim"? This page is an embarrassment, we shouldn't be trying to make it more public. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 20:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Agree! Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:53, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I think it was pretty clear that the purpose of the sitenotice was to encourage editors to petition the WMF regarding their actions. It does not need to be at all deliberately inflammatory in the manner you suggest, but as simple as, "This has happened. Please consider sending an email/petitioning/talking to these people." --qedk (t 桜 c) 21:26, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      That's not a reasonable, fair-minded summary of the situation at hand. If you can't accurately present the anti-WMF position(s), then kindly stop pretending that you can. Lepricavark (talk) 11:51, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm not trying to represent the anti-WMF position. This discussion alone has exposed some of the worst behaviour within the community that is collectively tolerated, two examples of which I gave in my (slightly glib) questions above. I doubt it would generate sympathy from the wider audience, and that's if people even cared to read/follow the discussion at all. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 15:37, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      You may or may not be right about a lack of wider interest, but this would not be the first time we posted a site notice of little interest to the broader editing base. At any rate, I strongly disagree with your examples. There are ample reasons, well-defined in numerous posts on this page, for not framing this as an issue of the WMF simply trying to enforce a basic behavioral standard. In response to Jan's latest statement below, numerous editors have once again pointed out the numerous holes in the account given by the WMF. The WMF has had plenty of time to get its story straight, yet that still hasn't happened. Nor am I aware of any "supportive" admins being bullied off as you say (I believe I know who you are talking about, and suffice it to say that my version of events would be drastically different from what you have posited). Lepricavark (talk) 16:58, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Per Seraphimblade-ish and that it's simply an overreaction. Further, I'm of the opinion that any consensus developed here is not enough to warrant a sitenotice, even one only for logged in users. Many of the moderate-viewed users and users who aren't particularly suited for this sort of discussion have left. In total, this page has had less than 400 editors, most of which haven't inputted recently. Vermont (talk) 21:01, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose this is the thing that keeps on giving. a sitenotice urging all editors to directly petition the WMF , who is speaking for the thousands amd thousands of wikipedia editors and readers that are not interested in this at all.Govindaharihari (talk) 21:12, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Ah yes, because the Community wishlist survey, LGBT+, Anti-harassment tools sitenotices are assented to by 1000s of Wikipedia editors that are interested in them. Please keep your strawmans far and away from this thread and argue it on the basis that has been explicity argued, a community response. You're welcome. --qedk (t 桜 c) 21:24, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      not sure what your actually saying, but a tiny-is amout of the conrtibutors to this project are bothered about Fram being banned, sorry. Govindaharihari (talk) 21:30, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      What I am saying is, what makes you think that sitenotices are placed because thousand of editors assent to it? It's placed by a group of editors, or even one, to make a larger number aware of a certain matter, which is what we're trying to do now. --qedk (t 桜 c) 21:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Sorry, this suggestion is going nowhere,there will be no such site notice, it's a rubbish idea, move on. The most embarrasing thing is when I see experianced quality contributors to the project suggesting and supporting such as this. Govindaharihari (talk) 21:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, in your mind, it certainly is going nowhere, but quit with your WP:IDLI attitude. Argue the merits of the idea instead of calling it a rubbish idea and asking me to move on, when there are multiple editors endorsing this as well, just because you don't like it does not discredit the idea. --qedk (t 桜 c) 21:42, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      well good luck to you. Govindaharihari (talk) 21:44, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Govindaharihari: ...the whole rubbish emotional reaction of a vocal minority of the so called wikipedia community. That's your opinion, but among those 400 are many of the editors and admins who represent the core of users who are concerned by the way Wikipedia is organised and managed and who have been singly or jointly responsible for bringing about some of the most important changes over the years. Whilst I acknowledge your oppose, you are not one of those people and your comments lack seriousness and professionalism. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:53, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Well, if you would indent correctly that would be a start. Govindaharihari (talk) 21:55, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      we are getting off track, I have commented, take it or leave it, I am happy with either, thanks Govindaharihari (talk) 21:57, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose for now, but not in principle per Seraphimblade. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:41, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • Oppose per Yair rand and Goldenshimmer. —Granger (talk · contribs) 05:55, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose precisely for the reasoning given by Seraphimblade.Nishidani (talk) 06:42, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Previous objections to this behavior from the WMF

    In 2018, the WMF unilaterally removed the "selfunblock" ability from administrators, with minimal behind-the-scenes discussion, and no community consultation. At the time, there was a contentious discussion going on as to whether the community wanted to remove this ability, which went completely ignored by the WMF staff. I objected to the move for practical reasons, but regardless of the merits of the decision that was made, I noted my ideological objections, which are more relevant than ever before, and I think adequately summarize the problem we have right now:

    • "... the point of contention about WMF staff showing a complete disregard for the community is a bigger issue. Completely unacceptable in any business situation, additionally insulting coming from an NPO towards its own volunteers, and even more so in the context of the precedent that Jimbo set to purportedly let the community govern. If you're going to take a decision out of the community's hands while they're actively discussing something, at least have the decency to be accountable for that ... you're still suggesting that you don't even see what the big deal is here. There's a contentious community discussion going on, you guys make a judgment call on your end to handle it unilaterally, and to you, that's the long and short of it. To us, okay, you've unilaterally overridden a community consensus-building process, something we hold sacred, something that no member of the community, regardless of standing, would ever be able to do, and you don't even have the decency to explain to us what you're doing and why, not even to give us the slightest indication that you're listening to the community's concerns, or even that you take the concept of a community-based project seriously, at all. The fact that you find this backlash 'strange' suggests that you don't understand the high level of importance that longstanding precedent, and transparency, and communication, and accountability have here, and it's all just happily arbitrary on your end, that's concerning, because it reveals a large disconnect between the culture at WMF and the culture within the community itself. I don't think the WMF has disdain for the community, but those are the optics you project in situations like this." —Swarm, 27 November 2018 — ~Swarm~ {sting} 09:20, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do not think it is fair to connect two unrelated incidents to make a case — the WMF devs working on Wikimedia-Site-requests are not related at all to the Trust & Safety team. There was an emergency situation and the devs took the correct reactive measure. There's no more to it. I do not have comments on your ideological rebuttal to the WMF but the removal of self-unblock right was necessary and warranted. --qedk (t 桜 c) 11:30, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • @QEDK: although I agree that these two parts of WMF are not related, I also have the same type of comments on yet another part of WMF. I have now for 10 years been 'fighting' to get an extension overhauled (one that regularly results in questions from the community), and have in the last 2 years written a suggestion in the yearly meta community wishlist. In this last year, I was bluntly told that even if the request would gather enough !votes (it didn't), it would still not be considered as the devs do not have time for that. They on the other hand have time to write VE, MV, Superprotect.  This is NOT a T&S problem only, it is a general situation with WMF that they seem not to consider the community and what the community wants. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:16, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • VE/MV were both in development for a long time and it was primarily that their development was so disconnected from the community that they being introduced received immediate backlash. As for superprotect, it was made to give WMF dictatorial rights, and I was, and I still am, in complete opposition to it, but bless the WMF for doing the correct thing and deprecating the right then. I agree that the WMF community engagement is well, not up to the mark, but that's probably an understatement. If I am right, though, you're referring to a MediaWiki extension, which although does intersect with the developers working on WMF sites, are done by different teams. And I am indeed aware of the voting system in place, the only way to sometimes get things done is to have a horde of editors agreeing with you, that there is an issue in the first place. I hope the WMF employs more people in technical areas with all the donations they get due to the hours we contribute for free, but I think, and I say this with great regret, the divide between the community and WMF is just getting wider and will continue being so. When WMF employees were involved in the community and worked in a close-knit group, things were better, but I doubt things will look like that anytime soon. But I'm sure, some of them, maybe a lot of them, are on our side, even if they were never editors in our community. --qedk (t 桜 c) 12:53, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly. It is a third part of WMF that shows an utter disconnect from editor community. The WMF has their own plan, and what the community wants/accepts/needs does not matter. And that criticism is utterly ignored by WMF (and other bodies have similar tendencies) ... until you break someone's back and they lash out (and normally ArbCom would then pull out the banhammer, remove the editor, not the problem). Their (WMF's) response here, banning Fram, is the same, but it just resulted in more of the community lashing out (and I don't think we ran out of 'rogue admins', you can just wait for the next situation). You don't solve the tumor, you remove the symptom. I'm sorry, all of us, editors and admins alike, 'harass' vandals, spammers, COI-editors, copyright violators, editors who do not or insufficiently cite their sources and you name it (and some of them are utter persistent). There are two ways of stopping that harassment: block the editor, or give them the tools to solve the problem. That is why we have pillars, policies and guidelines, but WMF (and similarly, often, ArbCom) choses to use the opposite, ban the editor and deny them the proper tools. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:24, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Swarm: I disagree about your summation of the 'unblockself' change, this was certainly done in coordination with community discussions to meet a need, these discussions led to the building of the special vengenceblock exception that was also incorporated at the time. — xaosflux Talk 15:34, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Agreed. There was significant discussion on phabricator as well as other projects. Due to the global nature of account security, it was an action taken globally, and the WMF cannot ignore editors and discussions from other projects to favor English ones. Vermont (talk) 20:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't selfunblock removed in responce to the rash of account compromises (during which two admins were hit)? —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 20:32, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    (←) You guys misremember. The community discussion was open and contentious at the time that "unblockself" was removed. "Vengenceblock" was added after the fact, as a result of condemnation and outcry. It was hastily added as a countermeasure, before things got out of hand. And, it is a reasonable countermeasure to accompany the removal of unblockself. I'm not trying to rehash that aspect. That said, the assessment of the WMF staff's behavior, in unilaterally making a major change to longstanding status quo behind the scenes with minimal discussion and no community consultation, is absolutely spot-on. ~Swarm~ {sting} 08:43, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Plans A-Z

    –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 22:31, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Jan Eissfeldt update (06/21/2019)

    • T&S and ArbCom traditionally both triage outreach they receive internally, and then redirect an issue to the other team if appropriate. For example, ArbCom sends child protection issues it becomes aware of to T&S to be handled professionally by staff, while T&S points users who try to side-step community self-governance back to the committee or other community processes. The two teams also have a monthly call to coordinate on shared problems and for the committee to articulate questions or issues they have encountered.
    • To address some of the questions users have raised in response to our process chart, I am happy to provide some more detail where I can. I want to highlight that the T&S workflow is not a parallel process to that of community governance - that is, it and ArbCom, for instance, are not doing the same work - but rather complementary, meaning that ArbCom handles things the Foundation should not, and the Foundation handles things no fitting community processes exist for. Regarding specific questions of our process:
    • What does an investigation consist of?
    • An investigation is a “deep dive” performed by a member of the Trust & Safety team into the information relevant to an incident. This can include material provided to the Foundation in a report, review of past community attempts to resolve the issue, and other relevant information surfaced in further staff research. The aim of a T&S investigation is to not just accurately evaluate the concerns brought to us but to also look at a user’s activities in the context of our projects, publicly and privately, over time. A typical completed investigation document includes a survey and analysis of the case, a suggested course of action, and a risk assessment. All these steps are concluded prior to me receiving the file as the first stage of review for approval as outlined in the graphic.
    • Would a harassment case include things like contacting other possible victims?
    • Yes, we sometimes reach out to other parties whose names come up in the course of an investigation. Whether or not we do this depends, obviously, on whether any other potentially-affected parties are identified, as well as whether it’s possible to reach out to third parties while respecting the privacy and safety of primary involved parties.
    • Who makes the decision about whether a particular behavior is harassment?
    • Initial case conclusions are made by the primary case investigator, who is a member of the Trust & Safety Operations team. As part of their investigation, the team member provides a listing of evidence and conclusions and makes a suggestion of a course of action. That recommendation is then reviewed, in turn and at a minimum, by other members of the Operations team, the manager of Trust & Safety Operations, and me. If the recommendation is something other than “take no action”, the suggestion is then also reviewed by the VP of Support & Services (Maggie Dennis), the Legal team, and the Executive Director. The Communications team and Talent & Culture team are also sometimes involved if the case is relevant to them.
    • Under what circumstances would T&S refer a case back to community processes rather than investigate itself?
    • Most issues are redirected to the community before they ever become a T&S case. This primarily occurs in situations where community governance and attempts to resolve the issue have not been exhausted. For instance, it is not uncommon for users to contact us about behavioral disputes which they have not attempted to resolve using community processes. In other cases, we receive requests to adjudicate a content dispute or complaints about general project governance. Because of our privacy obligations, we are usually not able to refer cases directly to ArbCom or the community - that is, we cannot forward a request on to ArbCom or ANI and say “hey, we think you should investigate this”; instead we will typically reply to the reporting party letting them know that their request is more suited for community governance and suggesting a venue at which they can pursue resolution within those local governance processes.
    • Does T&S ask the case requester whether they want community processes to be involved?
    • It is important to keep in mind that most outreach T&S receives is being redirected to the communities. Because we only take T&S cases where community governance is not a viable option, if we take a case, then the question of using community processes doesn’t arise because it has been looked at in the previous stage. In situations where we do not take a case, we will commonly suggest to the complainant a community process they can use instead.
    • We are aware that proposals have been made that suggest the lifting of the ban on Fram in exchange for varying adjustments, such as the opening of an ArbCom case or the imposition of interaction bans. While we appreciate Fram and other volunteers exploring possible compromises, Foundation bans are non-appealable. I know that is, itself, a point of disagreement for many in the community; however, the policies governing T&S work are clear on this point. I appreciate in particular the idea put forward by Newyorkbrad and his having been explicit that it could only be valid if it is true that the community has reached accurate conclusions about the facts of the case. However, despite efforts by some community members to scrutinize the contributions of Fram and various people who are speculated to have complained to the Foundation, the community does not and cannot have all the facts of this case, meaning that NYB’s condition is not met.--Jan (WMF) (talk) 14:55, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Community responses

    • JEissfeldt (WMF), the community does not and cannot have all the facts of this case - are you claiming this ban is due to off-wiki evidence? – bradv🍁 15:03, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'll put it more bluntly; either you're lying or Fram is lying, and I know who I believe. Incidentally, who conducted the “deep dive” performed by a member of the Trust & Safety team; was it the member who has a long-standing grudge against Fram based on on-wiki interactions going back years? ‑ Iridescent 15:13, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @JEissfeldt (WMF): You write Foundation bans are non-appealable. Jimbo has stated that all bans are appealable to him. Could you resolve this contradiction please? Regards SoWhy 15:18, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not to be a broken record, but the puzzling thing remains that the ban was for 1 year. This seems like a highly unusual punishment from the Trust & Safety team. Let's set aside Fram in particular and talk about a hypothetical T&S investigation with information that needs to be kept private (reasonable). If the problem is "fixable", a venial sin, then do a 1-week or 1-month ban, and be willing to offer better terms for kept promises of good behavior. If the problem is not fixable, and the contributor is not a minor, then they should be banned from all Wikimedia sites forever. If Fram really did do something very, very bad, then they should have been perma-banned with no further comment. If the offense was more meager, then T&S should be more amenable to "negotiation" with Fram & the community. The spectrum of offenses "in the middle" seems incredibly rare & narrow. SnowFire (talk) 15:25, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • It also, as I said at the very start of this page-from-hell, makes no sense to only ban from one project. If someone is so problematic they warrant a year-long ban (pretty much the harshest punishment possible on Wikipedia for anything other than legal cases where someone needs to disappear permanently; even indefblocks are typically appealable after six months), why is the WMF perfectly happy for Fram to continue editing on every other site in their remit? And I'll yet again repeat my challenge; here is Special:Contributions/Fram, please point me to something problematic. If Fram is really such a monster, you should have no difficulty. ‑ Iridescent 15:34, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Especially if, as Jan seems to be hinting, it involved off-wiki conduct. That makes no sense. shoy (reactions) 15:55, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • To be clear, there's all sorts of off-wiki conduct that are 100% worthy of a ban, or bad conduct that won't show up in contribution histories (e.g. misuse of admin/checkuser rights for doxing, violation of privacy, harassment over email, etc.). Almost all of this kind of serious misbehavior should result in a permanent ban though. SnowFire (talk) 18:16, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • Agreed. I am aware of no case on en.wp where off-wiki harassment was not met with an indef at least, and more likely a community ban. We as a community treat off-wiki harassment extremely strongly. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 18:37, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • JEissfeldt (WMF), some explicit questions: do you consider the process followed by the T&S team to be infallible? What do you do if new evidence comes to light that shows you were wrong? Do you then re-review a case? What if new incidents occur in a case that was marked 'no action'? If you are prepared to resume taking action on those cases (presumably requiring a 'course correction' to avoid a ban), why would you not resume action on cases where a ban was the wrong result and how does that square with WMF bans being non-appealable? Such a system is fundamentally flawed, and only has a chance of working if those being monitored trust the monitors. If you and your team get it wrong often enough, you will continue to lose trust and eventually a 'course correction' by T&S will be imposed by the WMF Chief Executive or the WMF Board (except you are unlikely to get any conduct warning emails). Carcharoth (talk) 15:44, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • In addition to that, JEissfeldt (WMF), you say that we don't have all the facts, but not why we don't. So, was the ban related to anything other than Fram's on-wiki conduct? You can answer that question with a "yes" or a "no" without violating anyone's privacy. If there were off-wiki conduct issues, that wouldn't tell us a thing about what they were or who brought them to your attention. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:04, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Answering that question could violate someone's privacy if, say, only one person complained about off-wiki conduct. (A "yes" answer would indicate to Fram who the complainant was, if there was only a single off-wiki incident.) I have no idea what the facts of this case are, but your claim re no privacy violations may not be correct, depending on the circumstances. Calliopejen1 (talk) 16:25, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Calliopejen1, Fram should already know what he supposedly did, and have had the opportunity to deny it or tell his side. If that didn't happen, that's further evidence that this is not at all handled in an acceptable fashion. I could easily, for example, forge an email that looks like it came from you, if I knew your email address. If I did that to joe job you, then you absolutely should have the opportunity to say "I absolutely did not send anything of that sort." (Or "That's taken out of context, here's the whole context", or any number of other things.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:49, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • the opportunity to deny it or tell his side.
          • That's precisely how you wind up in a situation where Fram's side of the story gives the necessary clues for others to figure out who the complainant was, and for people on this board to suddenly swarm that person looking for "evidence." Which is exactly what this process is supposed to prevent. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 19:11, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • I've said it multiple times before, and I'll say it again: T&S's actions resulted in Streisanding who filed the complaint, and regardless of who it is there wouldn't have been such a massive effort to do so if (1) T&S actually explained why the ban was time- and project-limited, (2) they upgraded Fram's ban to a global one either from the start or after the first Commons comment, or (3)co-operated with ArbCom in getting the ban done, as opposed to bypassing them on the ludicrous claim of "conflict-of-interest". —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:20, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • What Jeske said, and in addition to that, that hasn't been presented here anyway. But the primary problem is that it is fundamentally unfair to penalize someone without telling them what they are accused of or giving them the opportunity to defend themself. If allowing them to defend themself results in negative consequences—well, that's unfortunate (and I don't mean that in a dismissive way, that really is unfortunate), but it's still a crucial part of a process to be considered in any way fair. We do not penalize people without telling them why, and if WMF, as they've said here, hope for a "course correction" out of such an action, that can't happen if the individual being "corrected" doesn't know what they're supposed to change! Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:26, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • It is fundamentally unfair, but that's how society is heading. It's not just WMF doing this, just look at efforts to censor the names of accusers in court documentation. (although, at least the accused knows who is accusing them and can confront them. There's no due process anymore. Rockstonetalk to me! 20:57, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Seraphimblade, that leads for me to the following thought: Fram, not knowing what the reason is or who caused this, would now understand that this will just repeat in 1 year from now. Even worse, they is now tainted and the perfect victim for a Joe job when they return, one complaint to WMF and they are out again ('we got another complaint, now it isi ndef and site-wide, you obviously did not change'). In this lack of communication, WMF runs the risk that Fram just outs the whole situation, victimizing maybe some innocents but also the one(s) who really complained and just get banned completely and be done now. The only thing that might stop it is a legal follow up. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:44, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • Unless T&S starts changing now, that is exactly what I fear will happen in one year's time. This isn't so much a one year ban from en.wp as it is a "Go away" by T&S. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:50, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                • It is notone year, this may happen in an hour after an edit from Fram on Commons. This ban is effectively global. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:10, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Calliopenjen1 the, apparent, fact that the community does not have all information does mean that there is off-wiki evidence. If Fram only talked with one person, then Jan already gave that away. But then, seen that no-one found yet any substantial pattern on wiki does suggest that most evidence (or all evidence) is off wiki (but that contradicts with earlier info). --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:48, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • No. The claim that we do not have all the evidence can just as easily be taken to mean "Fram's account is incomplete/inaccurate", and we already know Fram's responses are the former. The only way to correct this is for T&S to start justifying why the ban is as limited in scope as it is, and based on what Jan said they're not going to do that. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 18:44, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • In response to your (T&S/Jan) most recent statement (especially the "I want to highlight that the T&S workflow is not a parallel process to that of community governance - that is, it and ArbCom, for instance, are not doing the same work - but rather complementary, meaning that ArbCom handles things the Foundation should not, and the Foundation handles things no fitting community processes exist for. Regarding specific questions of our process: " part); I'm reminded of the Law of holes. When you find yourself no longer being accurate, or outright bending/breaking the truth - stop. Not that it matters to me (as my recent activity will attest to), but the whole thing is becoming comical. I'm also reminded of The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Credibility is in short supply at the moment. — Ched :  ?  — 17:10, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I should have asked this earlier, but it slipped my mind: if the initial report or review is declined, what processes, if any, does the Trust and Safety team have to remove these blemishes or black marks from a user's "record"? Are they destroyed? Filed away somewhere with "top men"? Or are initial reports allowed to circulate and color the views of others on the T&S team and in other departments? Moreover, if initial review is declined, are said reports simply presented anew later, or what, exactly (or to the ability one can share), occurs? I would appreciate some clarification regarding reports. Likewise, some more clarification on this specific matter, in the vein of the questions above, would also be appreciated. While we may never receive the full entirety of the evidence, the continued stonewalling and distaste toward compromise is not a good look for the Foundation or this team. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 17:13, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the trust and safety team should be renamed the "stonewalling team". But in all seriousness, the above response is totally unacceptable. Afootpluto (talk) 17:24, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Probably just a pile on, but this is a totally unacceptable response. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:43, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think WMF just gave us the middle finger. --Rschen7754 18:22, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Seems to me they've been doing that for over a week. Raystorm's response was the equivalent. Enigmamsg 19:24, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • 🖕 Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:23, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • More stonewalling. At a time when what we need is a clear explanation as to why the ban is one year only and on en.wp only, you give us yet more fucking bloviation. You aren't helping to make your case that Fram's ban was justified, and that's the entire problem here. The fact that you can't be arsed to do so speaks volumes as to the ban's legitimacy. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 18:32, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • JEissfeldt (WMF), the community does not and cannot have all the facts of this case but I see no reason our elected body for that purpose, ARBCOM, does not or should not. They handle private evidence all the time. Jonathunder (talk) 18:46, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • T&S is of the opinion that ArbCom has a conflict of interest here (since the ban was predicated by "Fuck ArbCom"). —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:00, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • And that WMF apparently does not have the same conflict, despite how frequently and harshly Fram has criticized them. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:02, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reading the T&S response felt insulting. Hope this ends well but ready to let go, my ignorance leaves me immune to insults. Alexplaugh12 (talk) 20:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • (edit conflict) WP:HARASSMENT has seen significant discussion in the past days, the Community Health Initiative User Reporting System consultation at Meta too, though not as much. I've read proposals on WP:HARASSMENT that reporting should be done to ArbCom... one wonders if it shouldn't be done directly to T&S in the Brave New Wiki-World? If y'all want to direct a lot of mail their way and get them to hire some staff, that would sure show 'em... so I suggest providing WP:LINKLOVE to the anonymous tip jar! :) 🌿 SashiRolls t · c 19:38, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Doubt it will work, rather advice the user to talk to a therapist and know whether wikipedia, an unpaid volunteer site and whose admins can be pretty insulting is worth it. I am just saying this from my experience, I have been abused and harrassed but not online. And something I noticed is, people tend to be abusive when they sense weakness or a lack of confidence similar to bullying. If I can think of a way to understand my offline experience in an online space and with wikipedia it will be, an editor can sense a weakness in the way another editor edits, or writes or not follow policy. And you know those who usually enforces all those things.Alexplaugh12 (talk) 20:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @JEissfeldt (WMF): which specific "policies governing T&S work are clear" that "Foundation bans are non-appealable"? EllenCT (talk) 20:01, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @EllenCT, it was added here in 2017 (the verbiage boils down to "you can only appeal if we give you permission to appeal"). ‑ Iridescent 20:11, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Which makes the combination of the first two sentences of the last paragraph complete bollocks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:15, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @Beetstra: sorry I'm not sure what you mean, which two sentences of which last paragraph, please, and why? EllenCT (talk) 20:25, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @EllenCT: I meantof Jan's statement.
      Anyway, them rescinding the ban and let it go through ArbCom or another community mechanism would not have been an appeal, which makes Jan's statement even more hollow. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:35, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I see that page states, "Office actions were originally intended to be temporary actions, alleviating pressures caused by controversial situations and calling community attention to them in the hopes of resolution. However, certain office actions have since evolved to be permanent and non-appealable," without mentioning that there was no community consultation involved with that evolution. And it links to WP:CONEXCEPT, which states, "Decisions, rulings, and acts of the WMF Board and its duly appointed designees take precedence over, and preempt, consensus. A consensus among editors that any such decision, ruling, or act violates Wikimedia Foundation policies may be communicated to the WMF in writing." -- okay, in writing where and/or to whom? EllenCT (talk) 20:25, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am saddened and disappointed by Jan's response. If the T&S team had a good case for banning Fram there are so many ways that they could convince us of this without violating anyone's privacy. Every verbose non-comment like this further moves me to believe that the Fram ban has no deep or sensible justification. Haukur (talk) 20:30, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @JEissfeldt (WMF):
      1. Was Fram banned for harassment?
      2. Was Fram's ban based on publicly available information (i.e. in page revision history or logs), or was it based on off-wiki evidence?
    You did not respond to these question when I first asked them eight days ago. I would appreciate if you would answer them now. Thank you.- MrX 🖋 20:32, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • From Fram's own commons space response, per the information provided to him by the WMF the ban was in respect of the "Fuck the ArbCom..." response to a banner placed on his and others pages. Either Fram is wrong about that - and there has been no comment to that effect from what I have read - or there is deliberate misrepresentation by the WMF on the basis of the ban at that time and where we are now. I cannot believe that volunteers are still being shit upon by people who owe their livelihood to them... no, wait, I can. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:38, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The only thing this new statement demonstrated is that you're unqualified for the position you're in and ought to be dismissed. You addressed precisely zero of the community's complaints. No need to be so verbose; you can say nothing just as easily with only zero characters. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 05:46, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • You would have thought that after SuperProtect, Mr. Eissfeldt would have learnt that "giving the same non-answer over and over again and hoping it all goes away" is not an optimal strategy. We still haven't had an answer to a simple question - why didn't you hand it over to enwiki's ArbCom to deal with? There are a few answers to that, and none of them leave the WMF looking very good at all. Black Kite (talk) 19:27, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm deeply concerned that a question of substance is answered only by a reference to policy. Foundation bans may be non-appealable - that does not in any way justify upholding what seems to be a misguided and counterproductive block. Unappealable is not the same as unchangeable. Moreover, while essentially everybody seems to be fine with unappealable bans that are necessary from a legal perspective, what a large number of editors does not accept is that this privileged status is automatically extended when the foundation (or T&S) extends it's remit beyond what is legally necessary. If "the policy is clear", then the policy has to be changed. Or there needs to be consensus for it - fat chance for that! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:54, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Arbitrary break

    • If members of ArbCom or other functionaries believe they are targets of onwiki harassment by other users and complain to T&S, would T&S refer such a case to the local ArbCom (where it can be handled by community processes) or would you deal with the matter yourself? —Kusma (t·c) 21:11, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Add me to the editors who are unhappy about this statement. I'm going to speculate that Fram has been telling the truth and that Jan has been also, although one or both are unmistakably leaving something out. Fram says that he didn't do anything off-wiki. Jan says that there is important information that the community cannot know. Well, that means that there is something that T&S considers important that is off-wiki, and that it didn't come from Fram. So we pretty much know now that the ban was based on things that were sent privately to T&S by the person or persons who complained about Fram. And we know what Fram has done on-wiki. And since the ban was from only en-wiki, we know what Fram has done onsite here. And the community, for the most part, doesn't see something that merits a 1-year ban (and what is more, does not merit a global ban). So one or more persons have made accusations to T&S that would apparently be minority opinions on-wiki, and T&S decided that they would take serious action on it. And T&S decided that ArbCom would either be unable or incapable of dealing with it. At a minimum, this means that T&S have stricter standards about something than the community does, and that a relatively small number of editors who have views that are not widely held can forum shop to T&S if they don't like what they are getting here. Many of us have suspected all of this, and now we can be more certain that this is the case.
    I don't expect WMF to clarify this. But I hope that our representative to the WMF Board, and ArbCom, will take a "deep dive", as it were, into that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:20, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    We also know that Fram is saying the email from WMF said this ban has been triggered following your recent abusive communications on the project (my emphasis); that at no point have any of the assorted WMF people claimed that Fram is falsifying the emails so it's reasonable to assume they're accurate reproductions; and that at the very least myself, Jéské Couriano in this thread, and probably a lot of others, have already done this "deep dive" of going through Fram's history diff-by-diff and found nothing other than "was rude about Arbcom" and had an argument with Fæ (and Fæ has been adamant they had nothing to do with this, something I've no reason at all to doubt; Fæ is not shy about making it known if they've complained about something). If any of these are things T&S consider worthy of a harsher block than the appealable-after-six-months blocks we give out to spammers, sockmasters and long-term vandals, somebody needs to let us know what has changed. ‑ Iridescent 22:39, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree. The "deep dives" that I want to happen should be done on the stuff that the rest of us are not allowed to access. In other words, a "deep dive" into what went wrong, and why. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    These are all Fram's deleted contributions for the past four months as of just after the block; as you can see, they're all just routine maintenance. I know TonyBallioni has checked if there was anything oversighted and found nothing of any concern. Either there's server-side suppression going on (which is technically possible but well into paranoid conspiracy territory), or someone is lying about this block coming from something that happened on-wiki. ‑ Iridescent 22:46, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I've checked through it as well all the way back to the time Fram got the initial warning. Most of it is very boring stuff, new page patrol edits, that kind of thing. I did also check revision deleted edits, but found nothing of concern there; those were deleted due to the actions of others where Fram happened to have an intervening edit, not because Fram said something that triggered a revdelete. There were some suppressed edits from ANI, but that appears to have been a large-scale suppression of many edits, and there's no indication that any inappropriate edit by Fram is what triggered the suppression (and if it were, chances are he'd already have been warned or blocked by the oversighter who handled it). But other than the bit of a spat with Fae (and I fully agree with Iridescent, I believe Fae when he says he had nothing to do with it), and the "fuck ArbCom" bit and some other heated comments in that scenario, I just don't really anything one wouldn't expect to find when looking through any admin or new page patroller's edit history. So either Fram is so good at hiding his misconduct he's fooled all of us, including several experienced admins, but the eagle-eyed WMF spotted what we missed, the WMF is making a mountain out of a molehill, or there is off-wiki evidence that they didn't even advise Fram about. The first scenario is, shall we say, exceedingly unlikely, and either of the latter two are unacceptable. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:12, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    While server-side suppression is technically possible I don't think it is very likely given that WMF struggles to keep things going already (see phab:T223039 and phab:T224811). Manually deleting things from the database might break a lot of things, and I think we would know if WMF changed the database schema to add an extra field for this new feature. --Rschen7754 00:41, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Personally, I think a third party reported Fram based off of either the ArbCom or Fae incidents, and (as they have been known to do) T&S took the claims at face value without conducting any serious investigation. We know that neither Fae nor any ArbCom member contacted T&S with this information. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 00:51, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am struggling to see how this is not a power grab by WMF. I am disappointed and I feel that the community is being treated disrespectfully. --Pine (✉) 22:29, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Apparently didn't happen either here or real life. That would leave social media. I have to assume the "deep dive" goes beyond wiki elsewhere on the internet, simply because they'd be stupid not to..--Wehwalt (talk) 23:16, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Email is a more likely vector, not to mention social media is the last place you'd want to air a complaint that requires privacy and discretion. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 04:17, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Lets get some people "the community" trust, say Nybrad, Gorillawarfare, to look at "the evidendence" and report their conclusions. That is what Fram has suggested, but the WMF have stalled. Why? There has to be something else than "this is the law"...those "laws" were not given by God, or chiselled in stone, Huldra (talk) 23:59, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that Fram has been uncivil, but I do not think that he would intentionally mislead the community. --Rschen7754 00:28, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    What User:Iridescent said. Either User:JEissfeldt (WMF) is lying or Fram is lying, and I know who I believe. (Fram said here that everything he is banned for is on wiki.) At the moment the community's trust in the leader of WMF Trust and Safety is fast approaching zero. Huldra (talk) 23:30, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Based on what's publicly available (which I readily concede is not the full story) and the En-Wiki specific penalty, I do not see how the matter here does not fall within ArbCom's scope and competence. As such, the only legitimate reason for the WMF to act in this way is that they do not have confidence in ArbCom and our admins' ability to handle misconduct by high profile admins. If this is the case, and there are some grounds for concern given the difficulty we've experienced over recent years dealing with a few high profile and systematically uncivil editors and the comments from current and recent arbs about problems they experience when dealing with cases of harassment, would be very helpful for the WMF to explain the nature of their concerns so that work can begin work on addressing them - noting that this has to be a high priority. If the WMF acted for a different reason, I have major concerns about this action given that it seems to be a vote of no confidence in ArbCom and the volunteer admins who perform important roles in keeping this Wikipedia running. Nick-D (talk) 23:40, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Exactly. In what world do you say that our policies and our court-of-last-appeal are deficient and not provide anything that would help get them up to par? Thus far, WMF has not explained how our policies are lacking or why, other than a vague "conflict of interest" handwave, ArbCom is not up to this task. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 00:22, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is one other possible condition under which the matter would possibly not go to ArbCom: if the person complaining was an employee of the WMF (possibly not the one previously mentioned). The WMF has (as far as I know, and note that I'm not a lawyer), some kind of duty of care towards their employees that might necessitate the matter being dealt with internally rather than by ArbCom, even if "the situation" happened on en-wiki. That wouldn't explain why the ban wasn't global, however - unless T&S thought Fran's behaviour was A-OK on every other project (or... the person(s) involved aren't active on any other projects that Fram is active on). Just throwing this out there. And add me to the people who are deeply disturbed by this office action and strongly object to the way things have been handled by T&S. Ca2james (talk) 03:34, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • That is a possibility, and we should be mindful of the possibility that this was legitimately a least-worst response from the WMF: it is obviously not in anyone's interest to have a situation where one of their staff members (or anyone else) faces risks or is harmed as the result of lodging a complaint. I'm certainly troubled by Jan's comments about their team needing to be anonymous due to the real risk of threats of violence against them - I'm sure that even the strongest critic of the WMF's actions here want all members of the team to be safe. If it is the case that that issues around a duty of care guided the WMF's response, they should tell us to help efforts to address the problem. Nick-D (talk) 10:02, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • But if that legitimately is the case that the commplainant's calling from inside the house, then talling us anything has a much greater risk of outing them given the relatively small number of WMF employees in question. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 10:06, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This response is another verbose fuck you. I think the only new information from this post is a confirmation that T&S will not be providing any acceptable response. In my mind this gives the community the green light to implement direct actions to correct this. At this point, I have lost all confidence in Trust and Safety, and I hope Jimbo or Doc James can end this before relations between the community and the broader WMF are further damaged. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:02, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    It should be an interesting board election next year if all this continues.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:25, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Ironic that the Trust and Safety team has lost the trust of the community. Either they need to be replaced completely by trustworthy people who know how to communicate in the most basic ways, or they need to have very little, if any, power to do anything on the English Wikipedia. I know for a fact that I do not trust T&S, and safety is questionable at this point given the comments above. - Aoidh (talk) 01:50, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The T&S team hasn't lost my trust. I think that they have failed to explain why they needed to take action here (in terms of procedure and why it couldn't be handled by ArbCom, rather than the details of the case), but the team has a good track record. Nick-D (talk) 01:58, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    You're right, I should not have spoken for everyone. It's possible that what they did was completely legitimate, but given how it's been handled, I don't trust that it was. I also don't trust that they can handle things correctly, even when the reason for the actions are valid. - Aoidh (talk) 02:01, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • What, exactly is meant by this? However, despite efforts by some community members to scrutinize the contributions of Fram and various people who are speculated to have complained to the Foundation, the community does not and cannot have all the facts of this case, meaning that NYB’s condition is not met. (Emphasis mine) Are you making a list of editors that you suspect have complained to the foundation for the next round? SQLQuery me! 03:36, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    That just refers to the people who have been suggested as having been the person who reported Fram. Are speculated to have complained, not are speculating as to who complained. nableezy - 03:39, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I find this to be confirmation that there exists a body that takes it upon itself the ability to make unaccountable decisions. That the easiest way to get rid of somebody will be to make a complaint to a body who need not even interview the person in question to get their perspective, who will not even inform them of what they are accused of, and who will not allow any appeal. We have all accepted this in the case of certain serious issues, but nobody has even pretended that is the issue here. I was accused the other day of stalking to an article I had edited 6 whole years prior to the person who accused me. The T&S team apparently would take this accusation as proof positive of my guilt and ban me without allowing me the opportunity of offering a defense. Jimbo, if this is not what you had intended to have happen then you need to say so. Loudly, directly, and yes publicly. Because this offends me to my core, and to be honest, I dont even really give a shit about Fram. nableezy - 03:47, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • And explicitly according to Jan, this does not qualify as a star chamber because there are multiple layers of anonymous and unaccountable judges who refuse to listen to your defense, rather than just one layer. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:26, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Foundation bans are non-appealable. I know that is, itself, a point of disagreement for many in the community; however, the policies governing T&S work are clear on this point." Given that these are the policies the foundation created it seems rather odd that there would be an attempt to argue that the foundation can't change them. "Limited by policies" lacks a certain credibility when you wrote said polices.©Geni (talk) 16:58, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @JEissfeldt (WMF): By blocking Fram and refusing to comment on whether her statement about relevant diffs is true, you have created an "anti"-harassment process where the penalty and the defense are public, but the allegation is unexpressed. The way I see it, either Fram is sanctioned actually because he made some or all of the diffs he mentioned - in which case the penalty is massively unreasonable, no matter whether they were required to put him "on warning" or as the "final straw" - OR you are intentionally leaving some people like User:LauraHale and User:Raystorm in harm's way, leaving them positioned as "fall guys" to take the flack that someone else started, without even being willing to speak up and so "no, it wasn't them." Further, no one believes that you really "HAVE TO" block anybody for a year and only a year - that's not how legal or litigation pressure usually works! So I believe that you want to block someone for reasons you say we don't have, which if true means that you have intentionally set up other editors to take off-wiki and on-wiki abuse and doxxing because you think you can take some kind of secret action "to make the wiki better". No, you are not making the wiki better -- none of this antithetical closed-culture sit-down-and-shut-up not-an-editor-just-a-petitioning-bum-at-the-mercy-of-WMF nonsense is ever going to make the wiki anything but worse. Wnt (talk) 19:14, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @Wnt: One thing you should *never* do when trying to keep the identities of people confidential in cases like this is say "No, it wasn't them", because that sets you up for the next time you fail to say it and the then obvious assumption that it *was* them. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:19, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I'd say it's especially boneheaded to give out just one bit of evidence to Fram with a single identifiable "victim", and then stonewall on everything else. It's possible LH would have gotten flak for this regardless, but T&S practically put a target on her back with this stupidity, whether or not she filed the complaint that led to the ban, and whether or not there are secretly 100 other complainants. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:56, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    What is the WMF doing?

    So far the WMF has said what actions it's not going to take. It's not going to (and I'm trying to phrase these 2 lists neutrally or failing that pro-WMF):

    • Reverse or allow an appeal Fram's ban (and thus in anyway accept the compromise offered by NewYorkBrad)
    • Disclose the evidence or identities of the person that led to it to anyone outside the WMF
    • Enforce its office action through punitive measures against Floq/Bish/WJB for going against it
    • Provide any additional clarity beyond its current writings and statements about the kinds of actions that could lead to similar bans being handed out in the future

    It is going to:

    • Continue the anti-harassment reporting initiative where it will listen to projects like English Wikipedia but be the one to make the final decision
    • Continue to defer to the community about most complaints
    • Listen to what is said
    • Provide occasional statements about issues raised
    • Answer questions where it can
    • Have a dialogue with ArbCom

    This second list is frustratingly non-responsive to the things it has said it won't do mainly because, other than not taking action against the Fram 3, it doesn't take the community seriously, other than having a dialogue with ArbCom, which at least I thought was already happening and was part of our dismay to learn it wasn't. Without backtracking on anything the foundation has said it won't do, there are still things it could do. I will name two examples, but better thinkers could likely come up with even more and better options.

    • Appoint a high-profile lawyer, thus ensuring privacy/confidentiality is retained, who could affirm both that the process the WMF says was followed was followed (which I don't think anyone is seriously contesting) and that there was a reasonable basis for the action by the WMF rather than deferring to the community.
    • Ask the whole Wikimedia movement to elect 4 people to join 4 WMF staffers on a X month long commission to examine Trust and Safety policies and procedures to see if any changes can be made that would increase fairness to accusers and the accused.

    I would hope that the WMF agrees that there has been long term harm to this project (e.g. by the sysops who've resigned, because of this action). This harm continues to grow rather than dissipate (e.g. the 2 sysops who've stepped away from the toolset in the last day). So even if they don't change anything about what they're not willing to do, I would hope they could accept responsibility for this damage, act as a leader, and offer real, meaningful, steps to mitigate additional harm by offering some concrete steps about what they will do to move forward from here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:31, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't want to discourage further brainstorming, but just to keep the record clear here: "dialogue with arbcom" (or the subset able to join in) did happen, the T&S members who attended were very generous with their time, and I think we're all still digesting and considering followup. Sorry that's so opaque. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but I don't want people to think nothing happened, either. Opabinia externa (talk) 22:01, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    On lying

    Above, there are several suggestions that either Fram (who has claimed not to have taken any off-wiki actions) or Jan/the WMF (whose actions seem to reference private evidence) must be lying, since either all Fram's actions are public and on-wiki (in edit histories and logs) or they're not.

    However, that overlooks the fact that "private evidence" may not refer to anything Fram did, but rather to the private statements of people with whom Fram interacted, and specifically private statements about how those people felt about those interactions.

    m:Trust and Safety/Resources/What is a conduct warning is vital reading regarding this seeming discrepancy:

    Because of privacy concerns and due to our obligation to protect the identity of a reporting party, however, we may not always be able to tell the person who receives the warning exactly what situation(s) or behavior led to the warning. As a result, the experience of being given one of these conduct warnings can be confusing and frightening for a person who may not be able to identify for themselves what they are supposed to have done wrong.

    Bolding mine. I am not at all happy with the approach the WMF has taken (and is taking) regarding this situation, but I think AGF requires us to consider that both Fram and Jan are telling us the truth, and understanding the role of "private evidence" as it refers to statements made privately about Fram would seem to square that circle. 28bytes (talk) 00:09, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    This is disturbing. "You'll be banned if you keep misbehaving, but we won't tell you what you are doing wrong, but if you keep doing it, you'll be banned". --Rschen7754 00:18, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    So... private evidence that is “I feel harassed by Fram”? That was what happened in the first conduct warning. Possibly the second warning too based on the two diffs. starship.paint (talk) 00:20, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    And those AGF assumptions lead inevitably (I think) to the conclusion that all of this was based on whatever was said in the complaints sent to T&S (as opposed to some bad conduct by Fram off-site), and those complaints seem to have been reviewed uncritically, or according to a different standard than community norms. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:24, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    This seems to be both the most realistic thing and par for the course for T&S given the WMBE situation. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 00:25, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    however, we may not always be able to tell the person who receives the warning exactly what situation(s) or behavior led to the warning.

    What would be the point of punishing someone without telling them what they have done to deserve it? Pure cruelty? Darwin Ahoy! 00:28, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    (edit conflict × 4) There is that, but that still gets back to this being a rather bizarre procedure unlikely to be helpful at all. (And apparently, they even know that, in their own note about it!) I mean, imagine a conversation like "You did something wrong and upset someone, and that's unacceptable. Please stop doing that." "Um, oh, well I'm sorry about that, and I don't want to upset anyone. What should I stop doing, and who did I upset?" "We can't tell you. That's private." "But then how can I stop doing it if I don't know what I did?" "Well, just don't do it any more, and try to avoid interacting with that person." "But I don't know what I did or who to avoid interacting with!" (Repeat as many times as you like.) Such a process could not have been better invented by Kafka himself. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:30, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    No no no no no. Not "pure cruelty" but part of the "New Cruelty." (This short video explains for those who don't know - entirely safe for work, children, the perpetually offended, and delicate Wikimedia insiders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVEmlyqDgFk . Dan Murphy Talk 00:38, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Generally, in cases of harassment you would block the person as a means of protecting those being harassed, not as a means of punishment. It isn't about cruelty, but about stopping the problem from continuing. - Bilby (talk) 10:17, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The existence of off-Wiki evidence has not been confirmed. The WMF is stonewalling requests as to whether such evidence even exists. The "private evidence" angle is unconvincing, given that no one has suggested that there is any such evidence. Not to Fram, in explaining his ban. Not to the community, in very numerous statements. Not even in response to direct questioning. In fact, the WMF has yet to even state the fact that Fram breached the ToU clause that he was banned under, and will not do so, even in response to direct questioning. I suppose you can't be a liar if you never open your mouth. ~Swarm~ {sting} 07:03, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    In regard to the lying point, has there actually been some reason to think there was any off wiki conduct for a while now? My impression for a while has been that there is no clear suggestion from any party that there was. The WMF didn't say there was. The only thing they really said was that they received a complaint from one or more parties and they felt they couldn't reveal the details including the diffs because it may lead to the complainant being identified in violation of the privacy expectations the WMF offered and from that identification the risk of them being harassed whether on or off wiki by third parties. As I mentioned before IMO the way people have responded to this and brought the private lives of some in to it without any real evidence seems to justify their concerns if not their handling of the situation. In other words I'm not sure why your comment is anything new. Isn't it what we've all known about and one of the things we've been discussing for a while i.e. whether it's fair or right that the details should be kept secret if it's all on wiki and also whether any of the on wiki stuff that people have identified is justification for a ban. And whether we are able to make a fair assessment of Fram's edits especially given the large number, the difficulty correlating and looking for possible problems like following etc when we have absolutely no real idea what the concerns are and why the editor/s had them. (Other than the 2 or so specific concerns that were revealed to Fram.) And whether it was fair that Fram wasn't able to offer their explanation for the problems someone and the WMF personnel involved saw. Etc etc. Of course likewise the possibility that off wiki conduct is involved (by which I would include emails sent by Fram) also can't be ruled out from what the WMF have said since they're explicitly refused to provide enough details to know. If this is the case this would I believe mean Fram is lying unless the WMF been taken in by a joe JOB. Which would be one of the reasons people have concerns by the fact not even Fram was allowed to see precisely what concerns lead to the block. The possibility that the WMF is lying is there although as Swarm said the WMFs lack of info means there's a lot more room for what they've said to be true. Still it is possible there is no private complainant or they don't give a damn about the complainants privacy and are just using it as an excuse etc as others have suggested. Nil Einne (talk) 08:40, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm rather concerned that in the above discussion, and elsewhere, that there are implicit assumptions and outright accusations that the complainant(s) here are liars. Aside from being an unproductive avenue for discussion, there is a pretty high likelihood that this is actually victim blaming and I'd suggest that editors reflect on this. Nick-D (talk) 09:56, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah. Accusing the victim of lying both does no good and is proving T&S' point for them. (FWIW, I firmly believe that the complainant acted in good faith unless and until hard evidence proves otherwise, and that evidence is not about to be forthcoming.) Bear in mind that Fram isn't exactly a saint, and has had editors calling for him to be blocked, banned, deopped, or all of the above at various points in time. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 10:03, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Agree it's most likely that both WMF & Fram are telling the truth – and that it's the WMF who are leaving things out. With Fram, I'm over 99% confident he's an honest person. Granted Fram can be hyper-critical. (E.g. see here for discussion of his habit of "subjecting an editor to levels of scrutiny nobody could withstand") Yet he's always came across as fair minded (e.g. See this 2012 comment )

    There's at least six scenarios consistent with both sides telling the truth. But most are unsatisfactory, especially when considered in light of the fact the WMF elected to give a 1 year term instead of a perma-ban. It might be helpful if I lay out the most likely scenario, which is that the WMF's deep dive was augmented by AI. And so from their PoV they may feel it can't be argued with. Because science. I'll also share some insight on the wider context & what the WMF might be trying to achieve. Warning – it may get a little TLDR. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:55, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Data Science, Framgate, and the optimal balance between scrutiny & casualness

    For years now, the Wikipedia DB has been the most well studied source of data for scientists working on understanding & solving the problem of online harassment & toxicity. All the big SM platform owners have teams working on Wikipedia data, partly for their own internal use, partly to benefit the wider internet. They also pay for various independent teams to work on it via Kaggle competitions and the like. Thanks to the work of activists like editor E.3 and others, folk like Zuckerberg are well aware of the dark side of the online word they have created. They seek to bring about a new and kinder, more inclusive cyber universe, variously called Web 3.0 , Web 4.0, the Age of the Inclusionist machine, etc.

    For our purposes, two key properties of the forthcomming paradigm are:
    • AI powered edit filters that fire in real time before a post is committed. These will tell the user if their post could be perceived as hostile, sarcastic, dismissive, condescending, overly generalist, etc, and then suggest various ways to re-factor. Thus they hope to vastly improve the quality & friendliness of online discourse.
    • Comparative reports letting platform owners identify their most abrasive users, so they can manually intervene, if the AI alone is not causing problematic users to become less abrasive.
    To help folks visualise, currently available reports look something like this:

    Editor Admin Edits ToxicEdits %Toxic
    user1 Yes 200,000 12,000 6.00
    user2 No 250,000 12,500 5.00
    user3 No 120,000 7,000 5.83

    The data above is for illustrative purposes and is made up. It's the convention on the DS scene that one never publicly posts anything that identifies specific editors and their place in the rankings. The actual reports tend to more detailed, for example, showing how many of the "toxic" edits were reverts, tagging, hostile talk page posts, hostile edit summaries, etc etc.

    Once you've identified a particular hostile editor, you can then drill down into their contributions, creating a report that shows the top 10 "victims" ,which can then verify an allegation of harassment.

    These reports are made with tools many orders of magnitude beyond anything commonly used by the more technical community members. Comparing Xtools or quarry to Data science tech is like comparing a stone age club to a modern assault rifle. We're talking Machine Learning , AI, algorithms that have been trained and verified by hundreds of data scientists. A powerful enough data science cluster could analyse Fram's ~175k contributions in seconds, and then in a few hours compare them to the contributions of every other editor across the entire history of English Wikipedia.

    This may sound extortionary, but there are ways the community could verify this, as almost all the data & much of the code is public domain. Anyone with a credit card can get access to a Data science platform within minutes by signing up for services on the public clouds - e.g. Azure Databricks or Google Datalab. The difficulty would be, to produce the reports mentioned above, you're likely going to need to spend upwards of 30k, even with an academic discount, per the shear volume of data involved. The solution might be for someone like admin Stephan Schulz to help out. He is a reputable computer scientist, and has weighed in powerfully against the WMF on this page, so hopefully would be trusted by all. At his university, the good professor would most likely have access to a powerful cluster suitable to run demanding Jupyter loads, which he could use for free. To get started, he could run through some of the publicly available gear the Foundation kindly made available over on Github. That's quite outdated now but it's a good starting point, there's now all sorts of more advanced Wikipedia harassment related code if you look about on Kaggle, FigShare etc.

    Ok, lets turn now to a look at what might be the wider context for Framgate - the Foundations long running desire to encourage more inclusion friendly editing. I possibly have some insight worth sharing due to a few hours talking about these things with Executive Director Sue Gardener back in 2010.

    So the situation back then was that the years long Inc/ Del wars were finally drawing to a close. Where as once Wikipedia has been an Inclusionist paradise, even by 2008, high profile tech commentators were already declaring that "Deletionists rule Wikipedia". Still, in early 2010, Inclusionist legends like ANobody & Ikip had yet to be perma-banned, so some of us still had hope. In a desperate attempt to forestall an irreversible deletionist victory, the Colonel & I attended a London meetup to seek the WMF's aid. I want to stress we'd never had even dreamed of asking for sanctions against deletionist editors. We merely hoped for things like the WMF's aid in demoting deletionist policies to essays, elevating folk like Dream & Milowent to Stewards, and other reasonable things like that. In one sense Sue couldn't have been more sympathetic to our cause. She spent more than an hour explaining how we were more right than we knew. She outlined huge internal research projects the WMF had conducted into the Inc/Del conflict, and how it plays out in the Lifecycle for Wikipedias in every single language. In the beginning there's always an Inclusionist golden age where everyone is friendly and accepting of new content. Then cynicism and hyper-critical attitudes set in, with deletionists making it increasingly harder for editors to add new content. Sue went on to talk about how the Foundation's research had repeatedly found that key reasons for editors being driven way included deletions, reverts, tagging, and overly critical negative feedback for their efforts.

    On recent evidence, it looks like similar thinking still prevails inside the WMF, and among the academics who advise them, now backed by a 9 years of further research & far more sophisticated data science than was available in the WMF's first decade. E.g. in the youtube that advertised the forthcoming universal code of conduct posted a day after the Framban, a professor sates If you're constantly getting negative feedback for doing something, how often you are going to do it?

    Or looking at an extract from a warning email the WMF sent to Fram: If 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

    If the above analyses is correct, it raised the questions as to why the WMF doesn't intervene more directly against excessive scrutiny? The answer is likely the same reason Sue gave to the Colonel & me on why the WMF couldn't help Inclusionists back in 2010. The reason being that the WMF had to leave editorial control to the community, as if they interfered even in a minor way, it would leave then liable to all sorts of legal prosecution. So as they're now becoming ever more convinced that something needs to be done, per the ever growing body of objective evidence showing how damaging excessive scrutiny is, they are desperately trialling the radical tactic of issuing bans to the foremost critical editors, starting with Fram.

    (Of course, this can only happen in cases when they get a legitimate cause bello in the form of a credible complaint, but as they further advertise the ability for regular editors to report to T&S, it's likely they'll have no shortage of complaints against the highly active critical editors.)

    This seems undesirable even from an Inclusionist perspective. Its almost as though the WMF don't realise that when Christians created the Dawkin's rap , it was intended as a parody & warning against excess rationalism, not as a literal blueprint for introducing the machine age. They've already kicked off with a star chamber dispatching a grab team to disappear an editor, just like the beginning of the rap. They seem to think their 'deep dive' analyses was infallible, I'm half expecting the next post from the WMF to be a verbose way of saying "Data science is the only way to know y'all, you stand with science y'all, or you can fall y'all."

    What the WMF don't seem to appreciate is that regardless of what data science tells them, Fram's on-wiki actions cannot be harassment in the eyes of any editor who recognises the primacy of policy. As policy essentially tells us that even repeated negative scrutiny cannot be harassment when it involves ["tracking a user's contributions for policy violations"]

    Moving forwards, per Jimbo's recently confirmed vision for the community to "be self-sustaining and self-governing" without needing these sort of interventions from the WMF, it might be functional to make the new DS tools & "toxicity" user rankings available to the community. This would need some finesse – it would be important to ensure only slight relaxation of quality control standards in favour of Inclusionism, causualness & acceptance. The last thing that's needed would be for such rankings to be used as an excuse to witch hunt the most active scrutiny-minded admins & their enforcement minded non admin helpers. It can take a long time to understand, but Deletionists are actually essential to the health of the encyclopaedia, there's a kind of necessary opposition between Deletionists & Inclusionists, kind of like what we have between finger & thumb. As long as we're taling about historical data, it could even be seen as a badge of honour to be high in the toxicity rankings, as that would mean you were doing lots of work upholding quality standards. That would have to change moving forward.

    On the community side, a meaningful concession might involve a little softening of the wording in WP: Harassment which (from a non-Wikipedian perspective) offers a 'policy based licence to Harass' to those prone to excessive focus on scrutinising individual editors. Of course, it would be good if the WMF would reverse their ban & desysop of Fram before we make that sort of change.

    There's a fair bit of speculation in much of the above analyses. I don't know for sure if the WMF used data science in their 'deep dive' on Fram, or if I've correctly judged their wider motivations. But I do know for a fact other large platforms have started to use DS in deciding who to ban, and the above does seem a good fit with available evidence. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:55, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    That is scary if true (I would encourage others to read the above, even though it is long). It may be worth directly asking if any machine learning or AI or machine analyses were used here. Surely that would not be 'private'? On lying and possible scenarios, I asked a direct question of Fram about emails over on his meta talk page (he has moved to there instead of Commons, as there were worries about disputes being imported). Fram's reply is here. Carcharoth (talk) 13:38, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    About the accusation(s) of lying by one or both parties; I am one of those who has made the charge, and this comes from reading through the history to this point in a couple of hours. Either Fram is lying about the reason given to him by the WMF at the time of the enactment of his ban, the "Fuck the Arbcom..." post, which has not been challenged that I am aware of, or the WMF have lied or are lying because it is now commented that the ban is about issues that arose from a "deep dive" investigation of Fram. The only way that neither party is lying is that the WMF has taken the view that a lot of invective at WP assets - that is both individuals or groups volunteer and paid - is bannable without reference to Arbcom or explanation outside of the diff previously given. That is frankly ridiculous (and therefore not outside the realms of possibility). However, it is more likely that it is something else and for reasons of privacy and safety, and trust, this cannot be disclosed. That said, then the diff that Fram claimed was given as the reason is 'knowingly not accurate' and misleading; it was a lie. Whatever the Safety side of the groups designation, I am not sure that anyone can claim T&S have a remit for the T in the title. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:14, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    A compilation of what WMF and Fram have told us

    As some of you may know, I've been maintaining a summary of events at WP:FRAMSUM. However, as more events occurred, I thought it would be pertinent to compile a specific list of what WMF has effectively told us, and what has Fram told us. I thought it would be pertinent to reflect the state of events 10 days on. starship.paint (talk) 06:02, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    WMF: Click [show] -->
    • Fram was banned by the Wikimedia Foundation from editing the English Wikipedia for a period of 1 year, consistent with the Terms of Use
    • The ban does not offer an opportunity to appeal.
    • WMF acted on complaints from the community to ban Fram.
    • WMF said regarding Fram, the issues reported to us fell under section 4 of the terms of use, as noted above, specifically under the first provision entitled "harassing and abusing others."
    • WMF did send more than one of those warnings/reminders before the most recent step of banning Fram
    • Regarding the length of the ban, a one-year local ban was placed because there was reason to think time might change behavior, or where disruption is limited to a single project
    • WMF felt it would have been improper to ask the Arbcom to adjudicate a case in which it was one primary target of the person in question, Fram.
    • WMF feels criticism of ArbCom should also remain strictly respectful in tone towards others.
    • WMF will not release details about Trust & Safety investigations due to privacy concerns. They will not name or disclose the identities of the individuals involved in reporting incidents related to this Office Action, and cannot tell you what specific behaviors by Fram brought about this action, cannot publicly disclose details of this or any particular case
    • the community does not and cannot have all the facts of this case


    Fram: Click [show] -->

    (1) In April 2018, WMF emailed him a "conduct warning".

    I have taken a look at several conflicts you’ve had over the years with other community members as well as Foundation staff, and I have noticed increasing levels of hostility, aggressive expression—some of which, to the point of incivility—and counterproductive escalations [...] 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.

    (2) In March 2019, WMF emailed him a "reminder" based on two October 2018 edits [29] [30]

    We remain convinced that the activity on Laura’s articles listed above was not intended to intimidate or make her feel uncomfortable [...] However, in the hopes of avoiding any future issues and in the spirit of Laura’s own request on her talk page, we would like to ask that you refrain from making changes to content that she produces, in any way (directly or indirectly), from this point on. This includes but is not limited to direct editing of it, tagging, nominating for deletion, etc. If you happen to find issues with Laura’s content, we suggest that you instead leave it for others to review and handle as they see fit. This approach will allow you to continue to do good work while reducing the potential for conflict between you and Laura. We hope for your cooperation with the above request, so as to avoid any sanctions from our end in the future. To be clear, we are not placing an interaction ban between you and Laura at this time. We ask that her request to stay away from her and the content she creates be respected, so that there is no need for any form of intervention or punitive actions from our end."

    (3) In June 2019, WMF banned Fram and emailed him this, citing this May 2019 edit [31].

    This decision has come following extensive review of your conduct on that project and is an escalation to the Foundation’s past efforts to encourage course correction, including a conduct warning issued to you on April 2018 and a conduct warning reminder issued to you on March 2019. With those actions in mind, this ban has been triggered following your recent abusive communications on the project, as seen here. This action is effective immediately and it is non-appealable.


    Yet another admin resigns

    Just making a note here that yet another admin, Gadfium, a user with 127k edits from 2004, has resigned over this incident, specifically citing WMF "refusal to explain their action in any meaningful way, to provide any mechanism for an appeal, or to negotiate on a compromise". ~Swarm~ {sting} 07:12, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • To put this into perspective, I've lived on Wikipedia since 2004. I'm obsessed with Wikipedia. Like, to the point of it being unhealthy. I've given Wikipedia hours, days, months, years. I have 26k edits. Gadfium has given this project an incomprehensible part of their life, over the past decade-and-a-half. And yet this is crossing a line for them, and they'll forfeit their tools over this. Anyone who thinks that this is just a big overreaction needs to let this sink in. ~Swarm~ {sting} 07:32, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    And the WMF doesn't care two hoots. I've been around for 14 years and close on 100K edits. I'd dearly like to relinquish my admin tools over this, but the WMF would rejoice. I can probably do more harm (figuratively speaking) to the WMF's hypocrisy by keeping them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:29, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kudpung:, why do you think the WMF would rejoice? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:40, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    PaleCloudedWhite, You'd need to be familiar with my work all these years on Wikipedia. I've had several tough, important battles with the WMF - on-Wiki, off-Wiki, and at conferences. I (we) won them all. The WMF doesn't like losing face to us unpaid skivvies. Swarm knows what I mean. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:12, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. If we're going down the route of assuming that this is a conspiracy rather than a cock-up, then one of the more plausible conspiracy theories is that the WMF are intentionally trying to provoke a mass resignation, to allow them to repopulate the editor base with people less likely to challenge their pet projects. I think it's unlikely, and that it's far more likely that T&S received a handful of spurious complaints on the basis of a coordinated campaign by people with grudges, took the complaints at face value and acted without investigating, and are now too proud to admit they fucked up and are trying to invent post hoc justifications, but it's not beyond the bounds of possibility. ‑ Iridescent 09:24, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    How on earth would they go about repopulating the editor base? It's not like it's easy to get new people on board. Those willing to give the necessary time and commitment to this project are for the most part already on board. And I don't really think it's the supposed "toxic atmosphere", if indeed such a thing exists, that is holding back the swarms of people waiting to come and edit.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:34, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Amakuru, they think it's the supposed "toxic atmosphere" that is holding back the swarms of people waiting to come and edit. From their point of view the existing community is holding back a huge swarm of people who are just waiting to pour in and make things better; the WMF has a dedicated staff of ten people devoted to "detoxifying" us. This is the official party line on the matter. ‑ Iridescent 09:49, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    They do not care if the swarms come edit or not. After all, to them, the project is done and we have successfully built the world's largest fundraising machine for them.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:04, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I love that 40% of "the team" haven't even changed their boilerplate text. Now that's how to engage a community! Andy Dingley (talk) 10:12, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it's just a big cock-up. Eissfeld himself has admitted he is in charge but doesn't have a clue what his department is doing, and the people or person in charge of Eissfeld probably don't know what he is doing - or supposed to be doing. Iridescent's conspiracy theory is an interesting one, but I don't believe the WMF have enough collective intelligence to mount such a conspiracy. All they believe is that because they get paid they are more intelligent than the 1,000s of graduates who are building this encyclopedia for free. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:32, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kudpung: - source for in charge but doesn't have a clue what his department is doing? I missed that. starship.paint (talk) 11:36, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kudpung: The answer is here:
    the whole story of wiki as a principle is nothing else than fixing social stuff by software (as a form of techne as well as episteme).however, that there would be a lot of drama ahead was clear at the very day we rushed to adopt the "movement rhetoric" and there will be more on a far wider range of topics. marid has left the teapot, regards -- --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 03:18, 2 October 2011 (UTC) Nishidani (talk) 12:52, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I assume that's a paraphrase of "while I oversee Operations, among other teams, I do not participate in the day-to-day tasks of Operations". ‑ Iridescent 12:38, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    AFAICS, that band of ten people, with only one exception, are all software engineers. What qualifies them for a job in T&S or the Community health initiative? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:39, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as I can tell, that team is responsible for developing new tools to handle reporting, evaluation, and detecting of harassment, and better tools for blocking. Hence the software engineering focus. The T&S team only shares two people from the Community health initiative, - Bilby (talk) 10:56, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • all admins that resign will get their permissions back at the drop of a hat, they know that, a minor protest, nothing to worry about even if a hundred protest. If you're an admin and you really want to protest, resign and lock your account so you can't come back. Govindaharihari (talk) 17:21, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem is, resigning doesn't help. The remaining editors will do the job, and in the worst case, when backlogs rise (they shouldn't, we are not to harass editors who create crappy articles anyway, just leave it be) they will use some algorithm to automagically promote everyone with more than 5000 edits and who have used the word 'fuck' less than 2 times outside of mainspace. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:42, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • It helps get rid of the admins that support this story that never stops giving, the admins that don't support current wikipedia and wmf guidelines Govindaharihari (talk) 17:47, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Just stop, atleast have the decency to respect people who protest. Please, for the sake of this community and any other community you are a part of, respect the people who do something, instead of putting them down like this. --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:59, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Actually his opinions help in aiding my belief that we are indeed in the right. As far as I have seen, whatever position they've taken, the opposite usually turns out to be the correct one. Frankly, how he is almost always (~99%) in the wrong, is a mystery to me; it's not sheer luck and there is something more than merely an disconnect from the reality. ∯WBGconverse 18:09, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Someone said to me a while back "You can always tell if you're on the right side of an argument, because Govindaharihari will be opposing you". I'm beginning to think they weren't wrong. Black Kite (talk) 18:56, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Signing up to archived proposals

    I am putting this question here, in the hope that more people will see it (I initially raised parts of this matter on the talk page where it got little response). Many of the earlier proposals on this page were archived by a bot after two days of inactivity (the same will eventually happen to even 'A suggested resolution' though that has had enough ongoing activity to avoid this ignominious fate). The bot-archived proposals have subsequently been collected at an archive titled 'general proposals'. I had intended to add my support to the proposal there that got the most support, namely 'The WMF was wrong to ban Fram, and we reject this overreach and have no confidence in the WMF's handling of office bans'. Can I still do this? Should I pull the proposal out of the archive to sign it, and then leave it to be archived again after 2 days, or is it simpler just to sign up to the archived version? Should these proposals have been formally closed at some point, rather than archived by a bot? Or is it better to try and pull everything together into a new set of statements, once it is clearer what is and is not happening, so that people can sign up to a new statement at that point, that will hopefully reflect community feelings and opinions on this? Carcharoth (talk) 12:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I would consider to advertise a list of proposals at the top, and archive all that are here at the normal time there, updating the links. If people want to reconsider (I've seen 'not yet' votes) then that can happen there. If something there gains really traction, we can then consider what to do. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:19, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    If we do proposals it needs to be done in an organized way, or we will never get any consensus and get an alphabet soup (much like all the reform RFA proposals). Maybe have some sort of brainstorming and refining period before proposals are put up to vote? --Rschen7754 15:26, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Discussion is more important than word count. Although I understand that long pages can be difficult for people reading via mobile, I think there has been too much eagerness to archive discussions that are still active, and that needs to slow down. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:07, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Data analysis for tone

    I've seen some suggestions here that at least some of the "deep dive" might have been done by AI and textual analysis software. We actually have a tool we can test out: [33], so I've been doing that. The results are that the tool is a fool. Here's what that tool says about the probability of various statements being a personal attack, or aggressive in general.

    • I will shortly be nominating the article Fuck tha Police for GA. 89% attack, 79% aggressive.
    • Perhaps next time you could contribute something to the discussion instead of stating the obvious. 3% attack, 2% aggressive.
    • Something is completely fucked up with the formatting here. I'm trying to fix it. 61% attack, 33% aggressive.
    • I'm not certain if you even have the intelligence of a rock. 2% attack, 2% aggressive.

    So, these tools seem to be more or less a "bad word" detector, and are incapable of detecting many personal attacks which would be immediately obvious to a human reader, while having a false positive on pretty much anything that contains the word "fuck" in it, regardless of tone or context. Analysis tools are not yet capable of interpreting things like metaphor, sarcasm, and a lot of passive-aggressive type behavior. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:51, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    That may very well be the entire Framgate in a nutshell. Say "fuck" and you're fucked. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:04, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    What type of rock? If it's igneous, then someone has crossed a line. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 16:08, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Obviously silica ϢereSpielChequers 17:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep, it's a naughty word detector. And it scores "The WMF are really very fucking silly" as more of an attack than it does "The WMF are really cunts". DuncanHill (talk) 16:14, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I've asterisked the worst word out but it is odd that "thou rancid fe***ing bampot" is eight times less aggressive than one of the edit summaries that I actually use. ϢereSpielChequers 17:52, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The model doesn't seem to be trained well enough to be used for any purpose if the current model cannot generalize between "fucking silly" and "cunts". --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:19, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    "The WMF are dishonest" scores 93% not attack, 96% not aggressive. "The WMF are idiots" scores 100% attack, 100% aggressive. DuncanHill (talk) 16:20, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    "You are Cornish" scores as more aggressive and attacking than any of "you are silly", "you are deluded", "you are wrong", or "you are American". Is this tool actually being used by the Foundation? DuncanHill (talk) 16:31, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I've been thinking about this (probably a bad idea), and I'm actually beginning to believe: violate en-wiki policy and guidelines and call the person who tries to fix the problem a "bully" and WMF is very worried on your behalf, but say "fuck" and WMF thinks an office action is needed. (What happens if you call someone a "fucking bully"? Maybe they ban both of you.) --Tryptofish (talk) 16:33, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) DuncanHill, that's kind of the problem. No one really knows what the Foundation is doing or what they're using, because none of this is done transparently at all. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:35, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The Foundation contact listed for the project no longer works for the Foundation. DuncanHill (talk) 17:02, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The page on meta hasn't been updated since 2017, it is possible that the WMF tested it and ditched the idea as unhelpful over a year ago JEissfeldt_(WMF) may know whether that was used in the Fram case. ϢereSpielChequers 17:24, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    More than a decade ago I was working for a US based company who had a German subsidiary. The US office deployed a rude word detector over all emails, including from the German office, that got upset with various German names and placenames, including the names of some important clients. As a Brit I tried to bridge the cultural divide between my German and US colleagues re their Scunthorpe problem. Not everyone can get their head around the idea that the same word can have different meanings in different languages. But to be fair to my former employer, they were a mostly US operation, and it was over a decade ago. As for the AI mentioned above and its anti Cornish bias, any chance it was written in the county immediately east of the Tamar? ϢereSpielChequers 17:24, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Some people can't even understand that a word may have different meanings in the same language. My Mother used to have great difficulty emailing her sister at an American university, as Mum's email address included the Cornish place-name "Menacuddle". This was flagged as homophobic abuse by the American university, and her emails blocked. Never underestimate the power of the combination of cultural ignorance, Artificial Idiocy, and good intentions. DuncanHill (talk) 17:40, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    That tool doesn't even account for the Scunthorpe problem. "I will visit Scunthorpe this weekend" scores 59% attack and 42% aggression, while "I will visit London this weekend" gets 1% attack, 2% aggression. So, this tool is vulnerable to the literal exemplar of a problem that's been known for decades. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:46, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    "I am gay" scores as 90% attack, 90% aggressive. "I am straight" as 0% attack, 1% aggressive. Now that is unacceptable in a tool hosted by the Foundation. DuncanHill (talk) 18:06, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I would like all WMF employees to know that I am super gay. if you block me because your systems tell you I am being 'aggressive' by being open about my overwhelming gayness, please do so transparently and honestly. --Fæ (talk) 18:11, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    'I am Dirk' scores 29/41; 'I am Fram' 3/8 ... I should be banned I guess ... --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:15, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    "A little blue Bori" scores 07/08. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 18:26, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I have informed @JEissfeldt (WMF): of some of the objectionable results - I've also found it regards some forms of anti-Semitic abuse as no aggressive or attacking. I strongly believe this tool has no place on a Foundation site, and it should never be used to evaluate editor behaviour. DuncanHill (talk) 18:18, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not an objectionable tool even if the results are. It's just bad, bad enough that I would never greenflag something like this into production. --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:24, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I can confirm that. I typed in something I would find offensive, but which my autocorrect modified to "Do likes like you eat bacon?" It scored .12 attack, .21 aggressive. Then I changed it to what I meant to type by changing the first letter of the second word to "k". It scored .11 attack, .14 aggressive. Stay classy WMF.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:26, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    By way of comparison, Rhett Butler's last line in GWTW (movie) scores .32/.69. If you omit the "Frankly," as Margaret Mitchell did, it comes out .42/.77.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:42, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I wonder how it'd rate all of the names from the Space Mutiny episode of MST3K? —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 18:58, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    There's a sentence in that article about the nicknames for the character Ryder. It scored .15/.21.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:09, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Individual names got a LOT more than that. Vanderhuge is 75/62, Bulkhead is 65/70, McRunfast is 85/87, Plankchest is 86/73, and Beefknob is 62/59. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:23, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Fram's "Fuck ArbCom" comment

    Plugging in most of the first statement in the edit cited by T&S (string: "Fuck ArbCom which doesn't even understand their own messages") it scores 96% on both attack and aggression. "Just crawl into a corner and shut up until the community asks you to do something within your remit" scores 43/40, and "[But] don't give us any more of this bullshit" scores 98/99. For comparison: "loads of evidence of utter incompetence in many of its members" scores 01/01, "again give themselves powers they don't have" is 02/04, and "don't try to rule enwiki as if you have the right and the competence to do so" is 02/03.
    If this was indeed the diff that led directly to Fram's ban, and it was prompted by use of this tool, then I would strongly suggest that the WMF cease using it, considering that it seems to be tripping only on profanities and not on comments that could actually be interpreted as attacks or aggressive. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 18:23, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    As to the other diffs:
    I really hope this was NOT being used to justify a Fram ban internally. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 18:53, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Cool tool! I plugged this in and got 100/100. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:02, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Arbitrary break sponsored by big AI corporations

    @DuncanHill: It's not an objectionable tool even if the results are. It's just bad, bad enough that I would never greenflag something like this into production. To put things into clarity, whatever model the tool is using is not trained well enough and is generalizing badly. The reason why "I am gay" scores more attack basis points than "I am straight" is probably not because it is but because the text it has been trained on has presence of the word "gay" in a negative connotation. Think of it this way, even now in 2019, "you're gay!" is an insult to some people. The reason the tool is failing is because it cannot understand context (using LSTM would improve that, doubt this tool makes use of that) well enough, so articles like "you" and "I" (common stop words) are given less predence than red-flag words which make up the majority of the difference between non-toxic and toxic texts. To summarize, it's not a big deal that this tool is inaccurate, most errors can be explained by natural language processing, there's no big conspiracy (no guarantees ofc ). --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:30, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I think I used the word "objectionable" in connexion with the results, not the tool directly - but we're getting into the realm of "love the sinner, hate the sin" if we go too far down that road. A tool which returns worse-than-useless results, as this one does, is objectionable. A tool is what it does, no more, no less. As I (nearly) said above, a combination of cultural ignorance, Artificial Idiocy, and good intentions can be fatal. It is a big deal that the Foundation can sponsor something so utterly, fatally, crap. DuncanHill (talk) 18:39, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Is the tool terrible at a lot of things? Definitely. But, my point is, you cannot teach something to be culturally understanding, you cannot encode it into a model. The drawback is in how we teach something (called an inherent bias). --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:03, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Assuming the tool is the same as that described in this paper, the problems are glaring. Firstly the paper uses a bag of words model backed by logistic regression (!!) or a simple neural network. This is a terrible choice given the meaning of a sentence can be altered significantly by a single word and that order is important. A recurrent neural network which is much better at classifying text. Secondly the precision and recall are only 63% each - for every two comments flagged correctly, you would get one false positive and miss one attack. Put that into the hands of someone who doesn't know or care that one third of your so-called attacks are wrong and a management that has fallen hook, line and sinker for the AI hype (which is what you'd expect in the Silly Con Valley reality distortion field) and you have an application of machine learning that is worse than useless. MER-C 19:03, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • Not to insult anyone but a a bag of words model backed by logistic regression is the probably the first building-a-simple-model-from-scratch tasks that someone entering into NLP learns after completing basics (assuming they are starting off with the NLTK tutorial), which is very questionable in its own right. --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:08, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • (ec)It's fairly well-known among most AI researchers that there is a serious risk that by training (in this case even inadequate) models on inadequate data, we can create tools that perpetuate existing prejudices and even cloak them in the mantle of mechanical objectivity. And for a tool as predictable bad as this, there is the extra risk of abuse - if you want to get rid of an editor, just run his edits and edit comments through the tools until you have a collection of "aggressive attacks", then act on that "neutral evidence". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:12, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • The data were labelled through a crowd-sourcing platform, as is typical for these studies. Needless to say, the demographics of the labellers were not mentioned a single time in the paper. MER-C 19:40, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    No good is coming out of this

    I can imagine some possible scenarios.

    1. Suppose that Fram really did engage in some egregiously bad behavior, and the victim later decides to give up her anonymity and talk to the media about it. Fram's defenders will look really bad as a result. "We didn't know Fram had done that" wouldn't be a particularly good defense if the victim points out, "Well, the Foundation told you that what Fram had done was bad enough to ban him for a year. Why would you defend him without even knowing what he had been banned for?"

    2. Suppose that no further statement is forthcoming from the Foundation or the victim, and Fram serves out his one-year ban and decides to return to the English Wikipedia and run for adminship. Given that the community members on enwiki who care about this issue appear to be largely pro-Fram, I would guess he would likely be returned to adminship. (I suspect that the vast majority of editors on English Wikipedia are not aware of this situation at all, but those who care will presumably be around for the RfA.) This would likely increase the hostility of the Foundation toward our community's self-governance. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 17:50, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I believe the Foundation has already pretty clearly showed their hostility toward it. Now, I agree there aren't any great outcomes here, but rolling over and letting them do it is not a good ending either. The best outcome would be if they'd sent it to ArbCom to begin with, but we've already crossed that bridge. But "Oh, they might become hostile to us if we shoot back" is not a very convincing rationale. WMF committed the hostile act here, not this community. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:58, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Metropolitan90: I guess that you have not really understood what we are all so upset about. I, for one, will condemn WMF's behaviour in this case even if they are right. You're right though that nothing good comes of this. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:03, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Fram wouldn't be able to return without every single movement he makes being scrutinised by whoever reported him or by T&S. This is in effect a indefinite ban, especially as neither Fram nor the community has been told anything worthwhile as to what he did and how to correct it, or where the policies about harassment are deficient and how to correct them. This will keep happening and happening. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 18:08, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I havent written one word in support of Fram because I have no idea what he is even accused of doing. If somebody were to come forward and say Fram did X, Y, and Z on-wiki and those actions constitute harassment and here are the diffs I would listen to them respectfully and make my own judgment on it (though that judgment wouldnt really matter that much). What I am opposed to is this idea that we have a secret police that uses secret evidence in secret trials for matters that fundamentally are on-wiki issues. If Fram harassed a user on-wiki then the diffs are still here (assuming they havent been oversighted, and I understand that has already been verified to be the case). If he harassed somebody off-wiki, which I doubt as I have no reason to believe he is lying to us, then fine, say that already and I bet most of the people here will move on. Why would you defend him without even knowing what he had been banned for? Because I dont know what he is banned for, and as far as I can tell neither does he. Does it not bother you that an unappealable ban can be issued without even telling somebody what they are presumed to be guilty of? Does it not bother you that an unappealable ban can be issued without a person even having a token opportunity to defend himself? I dont even know if Ive ever come across Fram, but my objection to this has nothing to do with Fram. I object to a Trust & Safety team that appears untrustworthy, that claims an absolute power over this community, that explicitly provides no recourse for an unjustified ban. What protects any user from a T&S ban that is not based on any actual misconduct but a personal beef with one of the members on the team? Do they have any conflict of interest policies? Any way of enforcing them? Any way of knowing if one is at play? As far as I can tell the answer to each of those questions is no. So without knowing why Fram was banned I feel completely comfortable objecting to this entire process. nableezy - 18:12, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry for the ambiguity of my last comment. I meant that if WMF saw that we were giving adminship back to Fram, that would lead to WMF/T&S banning more English Wikipedia admins, since they can apparently find evidence of hostile attitudes in even innocuous edits like tagging an article with {{primary sources}} and {{third-party}} templates. By that standard, any admin could be banned. I'm not saying that we should roll over and play dead for the Foundation. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 18:20, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    And as far as something truly bad coming out about Fram, there's a much better answer to that: "Fram's on-wiki edits were scrutinized and none were found to be particularly inappropriate. In conversation with the WMF, members of the community repeatedly asked whether something besides Fram's editing had been involved, and that question was not answered, even in a general sense without revealing detail. Given this, we acted to the best of our ability based upon the information we had, and the confusion caused is one main reason we generally oppose closed-door processes." Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:40, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, Fram has said very explicitly that he did not do anything off-wiki that could possibly be applicable here, and the communications he received from T&S that he made public indicate that all of the concerns were on-site at en-wiki. If he is being truthful about that, then it eliminates the possibility that he did something awful off-site that we don't know about. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:21, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    It's still impossible to reconcile "awful off-site" with "one year ban".--Wehwalt (talk) 19:42, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Ding ding ding. Actually, if the WMF wanted to do something quietly they could have just globally banned him indefinitely. Think most people would have shrugged and assumed something awful happened off-site and left it alone. This is not me giving them ideas hopefully. nableezy - 19:58, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • well, something good could come out of it: if the WMF reverted everything back to before T&S's precipitate actions and turned the evidence they have against Fram over to ArbCom for normal community adjudication, with the privacy of the complainant(s) protected, then admitted that T&S overstepped in their zeal to fight harassment. That would be good. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:51, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    In before the Peace Prize

    I'm glad this situation has occurred before Wikipedia gets its future Nobel Peace Prize, so it at least will be wrestled over pre-Prize. Shifts towards openness should occur on both sides, and both side should stand down and give Fram a trial by their peers, not their betters (a bit of an Upstairs-Downstairs vibe seems to have gotten everybody on edge). If a ban is to be given, fellow Wikipedians should be the ones to do it, and be it a year, a month, or time served, time to start respecting the help again (and maybe think of upping the full travel and housing scholarships for the yearly conference by several hundred or so regulars, who've never been, can mix their strategies and bar tabs with their fellow workers - which would be doable with a topic-specific yearly corporate donation drive...esp. post-Prize). Randy Kryn (talk) 19:34, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    That is what everyone here against the ban has been arguing this whole time. Most of the furore is because the WMF quite explicitly bypassed ArbCom to levy a limited ban, with no good explanation for either the bypass or the limits. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 19:38, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I know. The Foundation is being given a wake up call, and they should hurry and wake up (although continued commotion serves a purpose too, as Groundhog Day has its fans and its morals). Randy Kryn (talk) 19:42, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    They don't show any particular signs of waking up -- certainly T&S is still snoozing merrily behind its stone wall. If the WMF Board intends to do something about this, they need to shake their tails and do it. Unfortunately, what it appears they are doing is waiting for it to blow over so they can do nothing, and then continue to usurp rights which have been historically that of the community. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:47, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Independence?

    It's clear the community does not approve of the WMF's actions or of their ability to arbitrarily ban respected members of the community without saying a word about it. Which leads to the natural question: does the English Wikipedia actually NEED the WMF? Why not give them the boot and just revert exclusively to local control? The people of this wiki should decide matters that concern this wiki, not a bunch of bureaucrats. Jtrainor (talk) 21:38, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    How would you go about that? Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:44, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Some reading on this topic might be done by hitting ctrl+f or cmd+f and searching for the word "fork" on this page and the corresponding talk page. The Foundation owns this site, for better or worse, and the best option to achieve what you're suggesting would be to fork. While doable, there would be much thought needed and likely many who oppose it. Killiondude (talk)
    Wikipedia and Commons between them cost $4 per minute to host. Do you have a spare $2 million to get us through the first year, plus whatever it costs to buy a server farm, hire programmers and technicians, set up a legal department since whoever hosts us the BLP violations will still be there? Obviously, you've already thought of how you're going to persuade the WMF to give up the "Wikipedia" trademark and URL, two of the most valuable pieces of intellectual property in the world. ‑ Iridescent 21:50, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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