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

User:Fram banned for 1 year by WMF office

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)

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)

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)

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? ∯WBG^converse 18:43, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

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)

@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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

This is T&S business and I am not sure if Community Relations knows better. — regards, Revi 18:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

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)

(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)

I've asked ArbCom to comment at WT:AC/N. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:26, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• WTF? Echo everything that Iri says. ∯WBG^converse 18:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• 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)
• 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)
• 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)
• T&S: training and simulation? Very confused. Talk English please. DrKay (talk) 18:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
  • DrKay, T&S means Trust and Safety. funplussmart (talk) 18:54, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
  • m:T&S. Killiondude (talk) 18:55, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• A big ‘ole whiskey tango from me too. –xeno^talk 19:03, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• 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)
• (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)

  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)

• "HELLO? IS THIS THING WORKING???" Explanation required. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:13, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• 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)
  • So have I. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:20, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
    • Seems like we are in good company as well. Probably better to wait now for any reply. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:23, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• 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)

  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)

  Don’t forget Media Viewer —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 23:56, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Iridescent: The cynic in you has some evidence in its favor ... . * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:41, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  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)

• 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)

•  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)
• 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)
  • 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)
    • 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)

  @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)

• 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)
• 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)

  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)

• 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)
• 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)

• 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)

  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)

• 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)
• 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)

  Yes, no reply. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  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)

  I'll do it, then no harm no foul if TRM gets permanently banned. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:13, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  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)

  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)

• (edit conflict) So what, are they repressing people with no explanation now? What did they violate? SemiHypercube 20:12, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  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)

  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)

• 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)

  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)

  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)

  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)

  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)

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)

TonyBallioni, now that at least Fram's side is out, do you still trust those people? spryde | talk 13:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• 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)

  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)

• 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)

  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)

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)

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)

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)

• So, are we technically prevented from unblocking? Tiderolls 20:36, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Not in a software sense, but the WMF will insta-desysop anyone who overturns them. ‑ Iridescent 20:38, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Then they need to get their collective asses in gear before someone does something regrettable. Tiderolls 20:43, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  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)

  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)

  Was that fork borne of a constitutional crisis? –xeno^talk 20:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  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)

  @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)

  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)

  (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)

  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)

  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)

  Do you think enwp would fare any better if the unpaid administration went on a general strike? –xeno^talk 22:04, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  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)

• 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)

  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)

  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)

  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)

  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)

  Also, Sydney Poore is FloNight and her picture is on her user page. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 07:06, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• 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)
• (self-removed) Legoktm (talk) 02:10, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Noting that you are *employed* by WMF. ∯WBG^converse 02:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  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)

• 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)

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)

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)

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)

Award-winning. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:09, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

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)

@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)

Response

• I.e. NOTHING. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:00, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  technically we can rule out a Rémi Mathis type issue.©Geni (talk) 21:27, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Oh cool, thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:29, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• What TRM said. I'm noting the singular absence of these alleged "community members who raised concerns" from any of these discussions, or of any concerns actually being raised about Fram at any of the venues where community members are actually supposed to raise concerns; would they happen to be either Wikidata-spammers or Visual Editor programmers by any chance? ‑ Iridescent 21:03, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
  • No. Let me translate. They were socking, and someone complained about the actions of the other account. (Based on the statement above, only, and not any inside information) UninvitedCompany 21:05, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
    • WTF? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:08, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
    • That would make sense, if WMFOffice had blocked more than Fram and EngFram. If there's a sock that has caused all of this, they've not blocked it... Nick (talk) 21:09, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
      • Exactly. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
        • I should point out, socking isnt actually against the TOU. Its a local ENWP policy. I would be surprised if it was a simple sock issue, as thats ENWP specific (no matter how many other wikimedia projects have rules against it). I would be more surprised if T&S was looking into SOCKPUPPETRY as a useful allocation of their resources. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:11, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
          • I'm not sure that UninvitedCompany really gets this situation if he thinks it's really about socking. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:13, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
            • I doubt very much that it's entirely about socking. I would imagine that it is about whatever the sock did. UninvitedCompany 21:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
              • What are you talking about? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:22, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
    • "the measure covers more than one user account in this case" Perhaps the other account is already blocked. UninvitedCompany 21:11, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
      • I'm having as much difficulty parsing that steaming pile of nothing as everyone else, but I think that just means the two accounts, Fram, and the legit alt EngFram, both of which were blocked by the WMF. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:16, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
        • For those speculating about socking, I doubt it. See the recent Od Mishelu precedent, that was ArbCom only, not WMF. I ully agree about this being a non-response though. GiantSnowman 21:17, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
          • The WMF has removed functionary access because of socking before: Ciphers was a CU on ar.wiki who was caught vandal socking here on en, and they removed the CU bit, but in that case the block and eventual lock were community actions: I blocked the account and a steward later locked it. From discussions at the time, this was intentional. That is to say: I doubt only socking would have caused this, and if there was admin socking, it is usually handled by the local CUs/ArbCom. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• It is the community’s decision what to do with Fram’s administrator access upon the expiration of the Office Action ban. but can I just say. How the fuck can we do that when WMF won't give us any information to make an informed decision ? Nick (talk) 21:06, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  We can't, which is indisputable proof that the WMF, in this instance, are fucking clueless. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:08, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• @WMFOffice: Your statement seems premised on "strongly indicating cases where local communities consistently struggle to uphold not just their own autonomous rules but the Terms of Use, too" - could you explain how we've consistently struggled to uphold one or both of these facets. Logically, if there's sufficient evidence to indicate repeated failure, then you should be demonstrating what we've done wrong or there's no reason it wouldn't keep repeating. Nosebagbear (talk) 21:09, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Well, the way we would do that is that Fram would make a request at RFA, and we would follow the usual process. If he got thrown under the bus for reasons that are still, at that point, a big secret, then I would imagine that the RFA would be widely supported. UninvitedCompany 21:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  How the fuck can we run an RFA when no-one knows what he was de-sysoped for? And how does the community know whatever he did to invoke the wrath of the WMF won't happen again? Madness. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:12, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Well, my view is that we would run an RFA based on the information that we have in hand. And people would support or oppose based on whether they thought that being blocked by WMF for secret reasons a year ago is a good reason to oppose. UninvitedCompany 21:16, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Well that's just plain stupid if Fram could then be de-sysoped once again on the invisible whim of WMF. Just think about it. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:21, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• Translation from WMF-speak: *WMF to en.wiki: Drop dead. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• The statement is mostly a copy of their post on deWP in February. Sunrise (talk) 21:12, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  i.e. NOTHING. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:13, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• If the implication here is that EnWp failed to uphold some vague terms of use, is there evidence that enwp in any of its various venues for solving disputes were notified, considering arbcom aren’t even aware? This sounds like total bumbling incompetence from WMF and like they’re involving themselves in some sort of editor dispute. Praxidicae (talk) 21:15, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• This seems like the wrong place for this discussion. Can we identify a better place? Thanks S Philbrick(Talk) 21:17, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Sphilbrick: - other than perhaps peeling this off as a separate page so we don't clog up the Crat's board, it seems a reasonable location. As we are limited on our direct action, it's not like we can turn it into an RfC. Nosebagbear (talk)

  It’s fine to continue here; imo, moving the discussion at this point would just introduce further collective confusion. –xeno^talk 21:41, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Agreed, but at least in theory this could be a good fit for the largely-defunct Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous): it's a community-based discussion without particular relevance to any specific page, policy, or editing function that has ranged from gossip and speculation to vocal outcry and condemnation. In practice, of course, VPM is frequently devoid of activity, so there'd be no use in opening a discussion there to begin with. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:55, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• They can't be this stupid, Community Relations has got to be telling them the catastrophes that can come from not involving anyone from a local wiki in banning a local sysop. It's been, what, 3 years since there was major blowup between the WMF and the Community - surely we don't have to relearn the same lessons? Their actions might even be justified - it's how they're going about it that makes it so ludicrous! Nosebagbear (talk) 21:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• @GiantSnowman: - the office response says explicitly, "Therefore, the measure covers more than one user account in this case." That is confirmation that it was at least partially a socking incident, isn't it?  — Amakuru (talk) 21:20, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  No, that's a reference to Fram's legitimate alt account EngFram. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:21, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  No it could just mean it was his two stated accounts. If it was socking, there are enough CU's, admins and Arbcom who would be able to work it out damn fast from all blocked users. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:23, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Stupid is as stupid does. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:22, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Ah, I see. Thanks Pppery.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:22, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• WMFOffice you're in the shit here I think. Unless you want a revolution on your hands, you'd better start talking the talk. Don't be obtuse and fob us off with another boilerplate horseshit response. If you have any competence left (yes Arbcom, I know), please clarify in precise terms what has happened here. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:26, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• We, as a community, need to craft a unified response. Seriously, I see no consensus here for acceptance of this action. With the exception of Fram's privacy in this matter I see no good reason for such a lack of transparency. Tiderolls 21:31, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Tide rolls: - you're definitely right as regards unified response. There could legitimately be concerns from an accuser of Fram (the unhappiness here probably would increase that). However, that would justify not resolving it on, say, ANI. It would still be a legitimate area for ARBCOM to consider. Given that their "justification" was repeated failures by en-wiki in implementing our rules or the TOS, non-communication is particularly non-acceptable. Nosebagbear (talk) 21:35, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  That seems like a great idea in principle but what's really needed is a "Spartacus" moment. Unblock Fram. And keep unblocking Fram, until we run out of admins. This is fucking stupid, and WMF have a huge responsibility here to address the stupidity rather than treating us like fucking idiots and providing boilerplate bollocks. How insulting. How denigrating. Many of us have been here for more than a decade, and to get that bullshit "recorded message" response in reaction to such a hugely controversial measure is beyond belief. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:37, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Such a scenario seems extremely unlikely. Even in the event that all admins could be convinced to take part, and it seems unlikely since it seems clear from this discussion that not all agree that T&S were wrong to act, in reality it would probably end with maybe the 1st, 2nd or at most 3rd to try it when the WMF introduces a 'superblock' which can't be overturned by anyone but the WMF. Of course admins are free to resign or stop acting as admins or leave wikipedia as they see fit. They could even take other protest action likely leading to the removal of their tools and maybe other sanction if they desire. But the particular course of action you suggested is never likely to last long. Nil Einne (talk) 04:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Nosebagbear: As has been said already, we have little direct action available. The only direct action I have at my disposal will mean my desysoping. The more the WMF obfuscates the less that scares me. Tiderolls 21:42, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man and Tide rolls: As long as we don't suddenly find out this was justified after all, there's always proposing a new exception to the socking policy. Then we wouldn't lose you as admins and it would fall to the WMF to perform enforcement. Sunrise (talk) 22:24, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• Tide rolls a unified response? Do you mean something along the lines of a very public vote of no confidence? Sure, it wouldn't be formally binding in any way, but it would terrible publicity for the WMF. Maybe, just maybe, it would force them to give a real explanation. Lepricavark (talk) 03:57, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Hi, Lepricavark. I'll assume you're watching here and not aggravate you with a ping. I had no format in mind when I posted. Your interpretation is something I would support. With all the varied participation here my confidence is not high that a single proposal will gain substantial traction. Rest assured that I would lend support to any proposal that stresses community action over WMF interference. Tiderolls 04:17, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  I think that a broadly worded statement of no confidence would probably garner a not-insignificant level of support right now. The community is rightly angry and so far we evidently haven't been able to get the WMF's attention. As somebody pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the community -- which is never unified -- has been unified against the WMF. That being said, I'm not the best person for drafting a statement. There are others in this thread that could do it, but I won't single anyone out. Lepricavark (talk) 04:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Well that's a massive great amount of absolutely fucking nothing, isn't it? Try again. Black Kite (talk) 21:33, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• Gag order? The statement does not say that Fram is precluded from discussing the issue. I don't think the Office has the authority to issue a gag order, so if Fram isn't talking that suggests he either doesn't want to talk about it, or agreed to a gag order in exchange for something (1 year instead of 2?) I see that some are attempting to contact him. Has any response occurred, even if to simply explain whether he is voluntarily silent or required to be silent?S Philbrick(Talk) 21:34, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Or hes asleep/away etc and will wake up at some point to a full email inbox and a headache. I generally dont read anything into non-response until its been at least 72 hours. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:37, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) It is half past midnight in Belgium—there's a very good chance he's just asleep and will wake up to a thousand pings. ‑ Iridescent 21:37, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  More like half past eleven, actually...  — Amakuru (talk) 21:38, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Seriously. The translation is pretty straightforward. A user filed a complaint against Fram's behavior onwiki. This behaviour did not occur yesterday, it may have happened a long time ago and it took a while for WMF to investigate, or it could have happened over long time and the person only filed the complained recently. Now, if you want to know what this behavior exactly was, I think it is not very difficult to guess. I have no idea who filed the complaint. I did not do it (and never in fact considered it seriously). There are some obvious candidates, but I do not want to be WMF blocked myself, and therefore will not continue here and will not respond private requests. I do not think this is in any way important at this stage.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:40, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  To clarify what I have written is not supposed to be a support of the WMF action, rather a clarification how I understand it.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:46, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  They state above it takes about 4 weeks. So my bet is on this Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:49, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Seems the likeliest explanation so far.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  But we should remember that a complaint normally taking about 4 weeks to investigate doesn't guarantee whatever it was was four weeks ago. It may be most likely it was around the time of the complaint. But as as Ymblanter was I think intending to say, someone may complain about something that took place longer ago perhaps when they first notice it. (Also it's possible it took longer or much shorter than 4 weeks in a specific instance.) Since this was a time limited and en only ban, it seems unlikely it was something that took place very long ago since if the concerns hadn't repeated in a year (giving a random example) since whatever it is occurred then a 1 year ban doesn't seem to serve much purpose. But still a few months seems possible. In addition, it's possible some of the behaviour was over a year old, and some was more recent In that case it's less clear whether a 1 year ban will be enough but I think the situation is complex enough that it could have happened like that. Especially since we still don't know what communication the WMF had with Fram and have zero definite idea what it's about.) Nil Einne (talk) 07:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Well now we have Fram's comment demonstrating it was something about 4 weeks ago. Funnily enough when people suggested it was because of the NPA discussion, I was thinking I seem to recall Fram making some strongly worded comments related to arbcom and possibly some related to the portal mess and the use of wikidata in the recent past. Anyway we also see it does involve older stuff as well as the recent stuff. And as a final comment, I do think it was a mistake to bring any specific suggestion of what it was especially when it involved specific other editors. Maybe the WMF shares the blame for that, but whatever their mistakes, we as a community didn't have to bring up others, especially so soon. (I mean it's still less than 24 hours.) We should be showing we are better than all that. Nil Einne (talk) 10:19, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Bollocks. Nothing you've said substantiates a one-year ban on a single Wikipedia. I call bullshit. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• Could another way of looking at this be the verdict of a closed-door appeals court to address long-term patterns of behavior among WP:UNBLOCKABLES? There have certainly been lots of calls, both on-wiki and off, for the WMF to intervene with harassment and other intractable behaviors that have proven difficult for the community to address. Note that this isn't a judgment of Fram, whom I wouldn't have thought of in those terms, but an effort to understand what's happening (and what might happen in the future). I think that ultimately any time the WMF intervenes due to "things the community has a hard time addressing" it's going to be difficult all around, since there are of course reasons the community has not addressed it (i.e. another way of wording "hard time addressing" is "decided not to take action"). I'm undecided how I feel about mechanisms that allow for that kind of intervention (i.e. action for reasons other than the particularly egregious sorts of things global bans are used for). There are certainly times when I've thought ANI, etc. has failed to deal with long-term problematic behavior. (Though, again, Fram has not been involved in those, so forgive my abstraction/speculation here). Regardless, it would be good to have some kind of clarity if that's the situation we're in or if indeed there was a single problematic action -- or otherwise something more. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:38, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  I did ask for that above, the key point of addressing things that have been difficult for the community to address is that the community has to attempt to address them first before its proven difficult. I cant think of anything in Fram's history that is close to that except for issues that the community as a whole has trouble address (such as the WMF's technical 'advancements' and wikidata's attempts to force itself into everything). Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:43, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Rhododendrites: - if it was "something more" then it would be even less justified to tell us nothing, since there wouldn't be any privacy concerns for either Fran or Fran's accuser(s). Nosebagbear (talk) 21:42, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Sorry, the "something more" was intended to follow "it would be good to have some kind of clarity" (i.e. more information about what happened). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:43, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  I have a hard time believing that any situation would warrant that remedy, Rhododendrites, if it was something out in the open. If ANI and ArbCom collectively fail to apply sanctions to a user, then chances are they don't deserve any sanctions. I'm not sure how a different, more remote, set of people are somehow more qualified to take that decision than those we've already entrusted to do so.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Well, I think the argument would be not about qualification but about their focus and the [debatable/hypothetical] benefits of making a judgment from outside the community. When WMF makes a decision, it can remain more focused on the behavior and their own investigation without legions of friends, detractors, grudge-holders, partisans, etc. jumping in and complicating the discussion. I imagine it would prioritize community health over other aspects of the project that the Wikipedia community sometimes weighs differently. When those discussions happen, any admin who closes those threads knows they'll become a villain to some. Is it useful to defer that villainy to people paid to be in that position rather than volunteers who shouldn't have to take the abuse? Or, I suppose the question isn't "is it useful" but "is it worth it to give up autonomy". It's hard. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:05, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  (ec, re Rhododendrites' initial post) In which case, I'd expect them to be able to point to the community failing to address an issue. The only dispute I can see Fram involved in in the last couple of months was Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks#Harassment, mocking or otherwise disrespecting someone on the basis of gender identification and pronoun preference, and frankly if the WMF banned everyone Fae made accusations against we'd have about three editors left. (Plus, if they were genuinely looking for a mechanism to get rid of editors the WMF didn't like but whom the community refused to ban, it beggars belief their fancy WP:OFFICE laser cannon wouldn't be fired squarely at Eric Corbett.) ‑ Iridescent 21:44, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  I don't disagree re: being able to point to the community failing. But yes, basically, my question to understand what's going on could be framed as "would this have happened to Eric if these processes were in place years ago?" (With apologies to Eric, who I don't actually want this to become about). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:51, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  There is perhaps at least one difference between me and Fram, who I note has done his duty and banned me on more than one occasion - which must have earned him brownie points- and that is that I don't give a flying fuck what the WMF do. I do however agree with Iridescent and wonder why I've never been at the end of the WMF's weapon du jour, and can only conclude that Fram must have done something far worse than call Jimbo out for being a dishonest c**t. Eric Corbett 22:39, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Rhododendrites: - it would also require the following: the WMF to always make decisions in line with what is actually beneficial for the project, rather than the WMF's appearance, any specific team's viewpoint etc etc. The Visual-Editor saga showed that those decisions are not well made. If they want reduction in autonomy then they either need oversight accepted by both sides, or to be flawless. That decision would also have to be specifically made by the Community - whereas TOS changes are self-made by the WMF. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  This (Iridescent's idea and link above) does fall under issues 'the community has had difficulty enforcing', so this seems the likeliest explanation put forth so far. Perhaps Fram was singled out because he was an admin, and it fell under ADMINCOND. Softlavender (talk) 22:56, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

This just seems like a rehash of WP:OFFICE in that it describes the process in general rather than why specifically it was used. Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but still. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:33, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• This is not an adequate response. ―Susmuffin ^Talk 21:41, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I got an email back from T&S that essentially pointed me here. I'm trying to engage with them and point out specific concerns about how this has been handled, because I don't believe they are likely to follow the discussion here. It would be my goal for WMF T&S and the ENWP community to have a high degree of trust respect for one another. It pains me to see actions taken that could have the effect of undermining that trust and respect. UninvitedCompany 21:50, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

They're well aware of how piss-poor they're handling this. This community has zero trust in the WMF T&S group right now. That's obvious. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• The policy seems clear that someone(s) complain(s) about alleged TOU vios (the list of possible offences is kind of broad ); Office decides if it's merited or not; and it's all held privately. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:54, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• If it were a one of the "cases where local communities consistently struggle to uphold not just their own autonomous rules but the Terms of Use, too" then not letting the local community know what it's about prevents us taking steps to improve what we do. In my experience when someone says "I'm doing this for your own good, I've got a good reason for doing it, and I'm not going to tell you what that reason is" sooner or later they will be proven to be lying. DuncanHill (talk) 21:57, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• Different languages - could those with multi-lingual capabilities drop a summary of what's happened and a pointer onto a few of the big wikis. If it is going to be a big flare-up (and I'd really want to hear something, even indirectly, from Fram first) then other wikis knowing is worthwhile. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:00, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Indeed, some external press agencies in the UK are asking questions too. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:02, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  The single best way to get people to dislike you on any other project is to import en.wiki drama. I’m waiting to see if ArbCom can say anything that makes sense, but if your goal is to get the global community behind you, going about it in that way is pretty much guaranteed to backfire. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:12, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Tony, I appreciate your endeavour, but since this has nothing to do with Arbcom, it would be shameful if WMF gave you some information that it wasn't prepared to share with the community. That's not how WMF nor Arbcom should be working. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  I’m not on ArbCom (thankfully) my point was more that if they share their reasoning with stewards, they should be willing to share it with the local ArbCom since privacy is within their remit. Anyway, more to Nosebagbear’s point, if someone tried to notify other projects, the response would almost universally be “We don’t care, why are you trying to cause drama here, we have enough of it without you importing en.wiki drama.” TonyBallioni (talk) 22:21, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Did they not share the reasoning with ArbCom in this case? Since the ban only affects this project that would make sense to me. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:20, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Ajraddatz: Since you're here; it strikes me that while this is clearly WMF's responsibility, a statement from one of the stewards could go a long way toward reducing tension here. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:34, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  I don't think my personal opinion would add much to this, unfortunately. There has not been any discussion of this among the steward group. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:42, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Ajraddatz, are you aware of the reasons? ∯WBG^converse 00:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  I was a steward when WMF global bans became a thing (2015). They would give us maybe a sentence of why the user was banned. Of course, we couldn't say anything about it. --Rschen7754 01:05, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Please let me know when we're going to abolish the WMF. Nothing good comes from that office. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:06, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I sent notes to several of the trustees highlighting the importance of this matter to the relationship between WMF and the ENWP community and would encourage others to do likewise. UninvitedCompany 22:24, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• Seriously, if it is something to do with this, we might as well all give up now, because the main users that caused the issue in the first place remain editing. Black Kite (talk) 22:26, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Indeed. And no, we shouldn't be coerced into sending begging letters to WMF to let them know what a fuck-up they're making of this. They know this. They should fix it. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:28, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Well even if T&S were taking action over the that dispute, it may be for whatever reason (possibly including private info, who knows) they saw what Fram did there worse than you or TRM or a few others saw it. To be clear, I'm not saying the WMF was right to feel that way, I'm only loosely aware of the dispute and have intention of looking in to it, especially since I have no idea of it's relevance to anything. My only point is that it may be that even if that was part of the reason, no one else is likely to be blocked for similar reasons despite getting into dispute with one of the editors concerns. And in addition, someone will need to complain to the WMF. The fact that someone may have done here doesn't meant they will do so in every other dispute involving any specific editor. We really have no way of knowing who and why. Even the person themselves may not really know. I'm sure that I'm not the only person to notice sometimes a confluence of factors not all of which you can identify, you take some particular dispute more severely then others even if to other observers they look similar. Nil Einne (talk) 04:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Has anyone considered asking Jimbo to give us some sort of explanation or force the office to give us a meaningful explanation? Seriously, this is the sort of thing where I'd say that we need to consider going over the Foundation's collective head. rdfox 76 (talk) 22:29, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Yes. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:30, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Rdfox 76, User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Admin_Fram_locally_banned_by_T&S_for_one_year. SQL^{Query me!} 22:32, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• Brainstorming, the possible behaviors this could have been in response to (if they occurred) include: socking, misuse of tools (sysop tools, CU tools, etc.), personal attacks, outing or borderline/attempted/threatened outing, or ADMINCOND. There my be other possibilities that I haven't thought of. Softlavender (talk) 23:00, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  All of which we have mechanisms to deal with, and do so on a regular basis. What makes any of those so unique that the WMF gets to overrule both our own community processes and Arbcom? As has been pointed out ad nauseam, in the four week timescale they mention in their statement, there has been no complaint made about Fram at any venue, so how is this a case where local communities consistently struggle to uphold not just their own autonomous rules but the Terms of Use? ‑ Iridescent 23:05, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  Did the committee receive a complaint and neglect to act? So this was an appeal of the committee’s decision? If not, I don’t see how the argument that the local community has struggled, if not given an opportunity. –xeno^talk 23:17, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Xeno: An arbitrator has denied that hypothesis. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  No idea, Iri. I think whoever complained must have convinced WMF, or WMF convinced itself, that EN-wiki doesn't deal with whatever situation it was very optimally. I'm obviously not approving either the action or the secrecy. They should at least tell us which of the categories I listed it falls under. I made my list because no one had made a comprehensive list of the possibilities. Softlavender (talk) 23:21, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• The partial ban here can only be done after review by Legal, Maggie Dennis, and the Executive Director [1], the only people left are the Board (and not Jimbo alone) but it's hard to imagine the Board overruling the entire staff or going against legal who will no doubt advise, keep it private. (and when will the Board even meet next, Wikimania?) Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• Jfc, what a joke. A boilerplate legalese response from a faceless role account that says absolutely nothing. Still waiting on ANYONE from T&S with integrity to come forward as an individual and actually communicate in a reasonable fashion like a human talking to other humans. It's actually hilarious how not a single person will. I actually feel less confident in the WMF now than I did when we had no response. This looks dirty. If it's not, quit acting like a soulless, faceless, evil corporation run by sociopaths trying to cover up corruption, and start acting like a fucking humanitarian non-profit that wants a good working relationship with its volunteers. Literally no on-wiki issue ever comes close to uniting the community like this. And yet you're doing it, you're uniting the community against you. Do you really just not even care? ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 00:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Swarm: I've come to the realization that the WMF actually think they're doing the right thing. They may be, but their communication skills are inhibited by unimaginable disconnect or unlimited hubris. You've been around long enough to recognize the pattern. I'm tired of rolling over. Tiderolls 01:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• It would be nice if they at least told us which term of the TOU was violated. Otherwise, how is a community suppose to improve its ability to uphold its own autonomous rules and the Terms of Use without knowing what the violation was? "This community has consistently struggled to do something but we won't tell you what it is, instead we're going to ban this admin for a year" is probably not a message that should have been sent. – Levivich 00:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• With respect to next steps, it appears arbcom has reached out to the WMF. I just became aware of this issue when someone above pinged me. We have our next board meeting on Jun 14th 2019. A good first step would be someone providing us Fram's position on this. I am than happy to reach out to folks at the WMF and fellow board members to see if we need to look at this issue (if Fram so requests). Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Doc James, do you have concerns about this? I would hope that the Board is unable to get the specifics of cases like this, but I would imagine that you know people on T&S. StudiesWorld (talk) 01:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  StudiesWorld the first step is does Fram want anyone to look into this further or do they accept the ban? Well the board would be unlikely to provide any details we could likely at least confirm whether or not it was justified (and at that point you may simple be required to take our word at it). Arbcom may already be performing such a role per the comments above. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Doc James, that makes sense. So, as I understand it: at this time, you have no specific cause for concern, are investigating the situation, and will let us know if you believe it to have been inappropriate. StudiesWorld (talk) 01:25, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Doc James The issue is not necessarily the ban itself. The ban may be 100% justified, and Fram may have no grounds to contest it, nor intention to. If that is the case, that doesn't make everything okay. This is, primarily, a community relations disaster that the Foundation does not appear to be taking seriously—in this regard, the merits of the ban are completely irrelevant. If that is the case, that arguably makes it worse, because a simple, bare bones explanation would be all that is needed to avert this crisis, and yet the Foundation appears unwilling to provide even that. That is the issue. Whether the ban was deserved, or whether Fram accepts the ban is entirely irrelevant. The only reason people are suggesting it's a corrupt "disappearance" is genuinely because that's the most plausible explanation for this bizarre stonewalling. In the best case scenario, the Foundation is harming its relations with the community for no good reason. Anything less than that is a truly frightening thought. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 05:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• The legal will almost certainly advice T&S/Jimbo/XYZ-(WMF) to refrain from issuing any non-generic statements and I don't see them deviating from it; our best bet lies with the ArbCom. ∯WBG^converse 01:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  • FWIW, I do not agree that his fallout with with Fæ is relevant to the ban; if it was so, Guy Macon and User:SMcCandlish would have ended perma-banned by now. ∯WBG^converse 03:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  As far as I know this block has nothing to do with anything Fram wrote to me, and it would be jaw droppingly astonishing if this action had anything to do with the campaign of transphobic abuse and death threats I have been targeted with recently. Fæ (talk) 04:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  I would have preferred that other users had not filled the void of information with reference to that incident. cygnis insignis 05:13, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• This is a messy non-explanation from WMF. I think we deserve to know something about this office ban. And what gives with bypassing the community so blatantly? Worrisome behavior, at the very least. I'll be watching this very closely. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 01:17, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Karen (Fluffernutter), something serious enough to warrant WMF action should not attract a one-year block on this site only. Anything not serious enough for a permanent global block by the WMF should be handled by the community or ArbCom. We therefore need a fuller statement, signed by an individual, as soon as possible. It isn't clear from this page who is in charge of Trust and Safety, so I'm pinging you as the first name and as someone I trust. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I've just noticed that Jan Eissfeldt is the lead manager. I didn't notice that earlier because he is described as a contractor. Hi Jan, we would appreciate a fuller statement as soon as possible. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:09, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• This mess is creating a huge cloud over ArbCom. If ArbCom knows of issues with Fram and has declined to act (which is one interpretation of the WMF statement), then action against ArbCom should follow. If ArbCom doesn't know (as seems likely from WT:ACN statements) and the WMF acted in the belief ArbCom wouldn't act on a local matter, then enWP is being left with an ArbCom that the WMF doesn't trust – which is also something the community needs to know and action would be needed. If the complaint went to T&S and they bypassed ArbCom because it is a non-local issue, why was Fram only restricted at enWP? If the issue is local and ArbCom was bypassed for no good reason then T&S are demonstrating questionable competence. WMFOffice, should we be expected an OFFICE action dismissing the present ArbCom or a statement declaring the WMF's lack of confidence in them? Will the WMF be taking over ArbCom's roles and responsibilities? Or, has Fram been banned only from enWP over a non-local issue... and if so, why? Or, is this a case of T&S incompetence? Is there a possibility I've missed? Whether intentionally or not, the WMF actions appear to me to undermine ArbCom in a grossly unfair way, as well as harming relations between the WMF and the largest WP community. Doc James, irrespective of Fram's view, isn't it a board-level problem when T&S undermines ArbCom in this way? EdChem (talk) 01:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
  • • Waiting on details... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
  • This had nothing to do with ArbCom, therefore it is mostly certainly not "creating a huge cloud over ArbCom". The only "cloud" it seems to be creating is over WMF. Softlavender (talk) 03:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
    • The statement from WMF strongly implies a lack of trust in Arbcom to take necessary action ("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"). That's creating a pretty big cloud. Absconded Northerner (talk) 05:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• I considered creating Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Fram 2, but I was too scared of what the WMF’s Ministry of Love would do to me. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 02:17, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  A candidate is required to accept their RfA for it to begin. Fram is incapable of doing so while he is still banned. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• That is one of the more bizarre statements I have ever read. The whole thing could've been summed up in one sentence. It was remarkably long and said essentially nothing other than the fact that they are not going to bother explaining anything. The last paragraph was particularly irksome. Enigma^msg 03:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• If the intent was to do damage control as a result of taking an unpopular and (widely-seen-as) disproportionate and unjustified action, then they have failed miserably. This is not how you do this shit, Trust & Safety. You've gone and made a martyr at the expense of pariahing everybody who had any real say in this decision. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 03:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• I find it very strange that Fram's page was completely locked and he was given no ability to even speak in his defense on his own talk page. If whatever he supposedly did is so bad that we can't even trust him to post on his own talk page, then why is the ban only for one year? If it's going to be for a limited period of time, why is a year any better than 3 months or 6 months or 2 years? Seems kinda arbitrary, unless they had a specific reason for keeping Fram out of our community for a year and would only need him blocked for that long. I'm aware of the conspiracy theory floated above and our longstanding lack of trust in the WMF coupled with the complete lack of a genuine response certainly make me uncomfortable. Lepricavark (talk) 04:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• It's not just that they did that; they also revoked email access. I can understand revoking talk page - this block can't be appealed, and the only use of a talk page while blocked is to appeal - but why block email? —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 05:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• It's of course possible that email was one area where concerns arose. Nil Einne (talk) 07:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• It bloody well better not be, given that Fram can send and receive e-mails via our sister projects. Nick (talk) 07:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• • I find it completely inappropriate to blank the user and talk page, aside from fully protecting them so no one can say anything. They could've simply added a box at the top rather than getting rid of the pages. Enigma^msg
• I've spent some time reading about Meta:Trust and Safety, and what their purpose and remit is, and Meta:Office actions/WP:Office actions and what their scope is. I can't currently envisage a scenario involving Fram that would merit an undiscussed, unwarned (unwarned on-wiki), unilateral, unexplained, virtually extrajudicial desysop and one-year site-ban and TP+email lockdown, unless the activities/actions occurred off-wiki. Among other things, I would like to find out somehow, ideally from Fram, whether he received an email warning or any opportunity to discuss prior to the ban and desysop. Softlavender (talk) 04:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• I don't understand...does anyone understand? Shearonink (talk) 04:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• All I understand is that the WMF's quiet act has backfired on it. Surely there's some information that doesn't implicate privacy or legal policies that will be helpful in understanding why Fram's (time-limted, mind you) block was justified, since the boilerplate the office gave us is functionally useless. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 05:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Shearonink: The community is lacking information at this stage, the situation is unusual but currently static. The blocked user has made no comment in the brief time since this was announced, which constrains how members of the local community can and should respond or any actions that can be taken. That is where things are up to, at least, the important bits as I have seen this emerge. cygnis insignis 05:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Cygnis insignis, Shearonink: Fram cannot comment because access to his talkpage has been blocked, and his email has been blocked. Softlavender (talk) 06:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Softlavender I know Fram is unable to comment on-wiki and that editors' email access from WP-->him has been disabled. I still don't understand...if his behavior, either on- or off-wiki has been so [fill in the blank here folks...we don't know what we don't know] that he is barred from his own user-talk so he cannot communicate with us on-wiki AND his email access has been borked both outgoing and incoming via EnWiki...why does the ban/block only last a year? Shearonink (talk) 07:19, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) All of this makes me think that I need to find at least one long-term Wikipedian that I trust, confirm my identity with them so that if I get banned by a WMF Office Action I can still be able to communicate with someone who can still post here. I'll have to have my own Designated Survivor on-wiki... Shearonink (talk) 07:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• (modification EC) Well one of the reasons why this ban seems to be contentious is because it was only partial suggesting whatever the problem is it wasn't severe enough to warranty a complete ban from WMF projects. So Fram can comment elsewhere if they desire albeit risking being blocked by the other project for importing drama. Then again it's arguably on-topic at meta and at a stretch anywhere since people are uncertain what's the reason for the block and therefore people in other projects may also be uncertain whether there's reason to be concerned over Fram editing their project. Probably the bigger issue is the WMF could consider commenting on the ban elsewhere justification to extend the ban to the other project. And of course, Fram is also able to comment anywhere outside WMF project. I'm not sure if they have any existing identities connected to them elsewhere but realistically a joe job is likely to be quickly noticed. I recall some mention somewhere in this long discussion that others have been in contact outside the WMF universe before this blew up so added reason why it would be impossible to joe job if Fram is interested in commenting. Now whether or not we are able to discuss Fram's comments on en.wikipedia, even more so if they are posted outside of the WMF universe is less clear cut. Still the point remains Fram is able to comment if they wish to. As others have mentioned there is a possibility that Fram has agreed not to comment for whatever reason. More likely they either are not even aware of this yet, are aware but are holding off on commenting for now, or maybe don't even intend do ever for whatever reason. Nil Einne (talk) 07:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• At the risk of taking this a bit too far, I have a few thoughts:
  

As a matter of procedure, this decision and announcement has been in the works for at least around four weeks, and potentially a lot longer. The WMF knew what the reaction to this would be, but they also know how much power they hold, and probably expects us to complain for a week or so, until most of us eventually get tired and forget all this happened. And after all, what is one admin? Some among us may miss him, but will the project?

If we stop and think, we see the real issue: if we do nothing, this will happen again. The WMF grows year after year, and they become increasingly obsessed with their image, their brand. When they aren't satisfied with the community process, they will intervene. They will give themselves additional powers, bypass community consensus, shape projects as they see fit. And why not? There are no consequences. All the content here is free, but the means of distributing it is not, which means they hold all the cards.

But what is the cost? The fundamental appeal of Wikipedia is that it is free and open, it belongs to no one, and has no agenda. When the WMF takes actions such as this, they undermine those values. In rendering unappealable dictates they deny participation to communitymembers; by subverting existing disciplinary processes they take control from the hands of ordinary users; by concealing their reasoning and motives they engender fear, mistrust, and uncertainty. These actions have a profoundly chilling and disruptive effect.

So what can we do? The WMF would like nothing better than to post their vague non-statement and disappear, to let this peter out. If we wait for them to come back for Q&A, we will be waiting a long time. Our only real option is to force them to engage with us (or our representatives) by presenting a united front and using whatever leverage we have combined. What exactly that entails or how it could be organized I couldn't begin to speculate, but it seems worthy of consideration. Bear in mind: the issue isn't one ban/desysop, it's the role of the WMF in our project and how far we're willing to let them push their authority before we push back. —Rutebega (talk) 05:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• There's one I can think of, but it would likely result in the admin and bureaucrat doing it being whacked - do to WMFOffice what they did to Fram, minus revoking talk page and email, and leave them blocked unless and until they can come up with a satisfactory explanation for this. It's clear the Trust and Safety team fucked this up, so the easiest way to make it clear we disapprove is to block and deop the main office account. It is symbolic more than anything, but it would, if nothing else, force them to acknowledge that there is unrest among the serfs. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 05:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Actually, that's an interesting thought: We can ban by consensus of the community. Granted, the WMF may not honor such a ban and may do what they're doing anyway, but I think just being subject to such a sanction would be a significant statement in itself. (And if the WMF themselves are evading a ban, can they complain if someone else evades one of theirs?) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• We can't overrule OFFICE (which blocking the associated account amounts to); but is there any ToU reason we can't ban any account ending in "… (WMF)"? So far as I can tell, they haven't carved out a loophole for employee-role accounts anywhere, and that would send a pretty loud signal about our unhappiness at this situation. Accumulating WMF-account block logs over years would also be a nice way to keep track of incidents of overreach over time. --Xover (talk) 06:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• There's a similar long discussion at de.wiki over here. From my cursory glances, I see that the Foundation had ignored the editors in entirety, after posting the same boilerplate statement. We ought not expect anything different, over here. ∯WBG^converse 05:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• So, several problems here. The first is the lack of transparency. I know there are cases where private, off-wiki evidence is used in a decision, and in that case, privacy issues are what they are. But in that case, WMF should at least say that they made their decision partially or entirely based upon evidence which cannot be released to the community. (Of course, they should only be making decisions in those cases; if everything is available to the community, the community should be making the decision as to what to do about it, including nothing.) And in those cases, where they're too sensitive for even ArbCom to handle, I was aware of the details of a few when I was on ArbCom, and there was never a case where only a year's ban was justified. Situations grave enough to be handled by WMF should be cases where a user has done something extremely egregious with serious off-wiki consequences, and should be cases where that person should never, under any circumstances, be allowed back. Not your run of the mill edit warring, or editors sniping at one another during a discussion; that should be handled on-wiki, and WMF should not be handling matters where only a time-limited sanction would be the appropriate remedy. If the issue was, as UninvitedCompany guessed above, related to sockpuppetry, well—in the very thread above this one, ArbCom and the CheckUser team handled an admin inappropriately using socks. So that is clearly not a case where, even by the WMF's own policy, the community can't handle that issue. We literally just handled it. So, this seems like a way for WMF to step in and overrule decisions by the community (including a decision not to act at all, which is itself a decision made), and to do it with "We have banned __________ because they...did something. The evidence of that is...we won't tell you. Our reasons for deciding the ban was warranted are...well, won't tell you those either, but they were very good ones; just trust us." One of the values of the community has always been that decisions are, to the greatest extent possible, made transparently, publicly, and by consensus. By doing things this way, we don't even know what to do next. The WMF statement says Fram can run a new RfA, and, well, sure, he can, but what do we do from there? Is Fram a victim of WMF overzealousness or an error in judgment, or did he do something we legitimately should be concerned about? Should Fram be welcomed back with open arms, watched closely, or perhaps even sanctioned further? Well, because of this Star Chamber style of doing things, we don't know. So, based upon all this, I will, if no one else gets to it first, be preparing a statement of no confidence for editors to comment on, and if that gains broad consensus, the next step from there might be community sanctions or a ban against User:WMFOffice. I think it's time to remind WMF that they are here to serve, not rule, the Wikimedia projects and their communities. I thought that lesson had been sufficiently taught to them with the last few software fiascos and their increased engagement with the community following that, but perhaps Trust & Safety, too, need to learn that "We're going to do what we do, we're not going to tell you why, and fuck you if you don't like it", which is what their statement says (if in more polite language and a great deal more of it), is never an acceptable approach for dealing with the volunteers here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I think this is an excellent idea, and I would love to help you draft the statement. Starting a discussion among the community and determining consensus, if it exists, is the way we make all our important decisions, and it would help organize us and send an unambiguous message to the WMF that we disapprove. We occasionally need the their legal protection, but we don't need this overreach. Community sanctions against WMFOffice, if done right, could show that this community can handle itself, its rules, and its members. It also might be interesting to consider an RFA for Fram in absentia, conditional on the WMF not saying anything more. The page WP:RFA is nothing more than a place to form consensus about whether an editor should be made an admin, and there's no reason we can't form that consensus without the editor in question accepting a nomination at the conventional page. I think starting with a statement like you suggest is the right way to go about any of this. KSFT ^(t|c) 07:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Banned without the right of correspondence. Careful. You, the unfortunate reader, could be next. EclipseDude (Chase Totality) 06:38, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• The real point is this. "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.". Now, we know that Fram hasn't broken the TOU with their editing on enwiki in the last few months because we can see their contributions. Unless they've been socking, and I'm pretty sure that if that was the case Office would have blocked any socks as well, which they haven't. This only leaves off-wiki activity (including email). In which case, why didn't they just say that - no details would have to be given. Also, anything off-wiki serious enough for Fram to be "disappeared" from enwiki would almost certainly have resulted in a global lock anyway. So we need answers - after all, any of us could be next. Black Kite (talk) 07:13, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• I don't see how we can know that. For starters, how many of us have actually looked at even 5% of Fram's contribs in the past few months? I probably haven't even looked at 0.1%. More to the point, even if every single wikipedia contributor had and none of them who didn't work for the WMF had found a TOU violation, it doesn't mean the WMF didn't find one. Now this disconnect between how the WMF feels and how other contributors feel is likely to be a problem, but it doesn't mean it can't happen. And for better or worse, barring legal action the WMF is the final arbitrator on what is and what is not a violation of their TOU. (And most TOU tend to be written, and the law surrounding them likely, gives wide latitude for the company to interpret them however they wish.) And of course even when legal action proves them wrong, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Actually similar things happen all the time in far more serious areas e.g. employment disputes. Ultimate point being, if people want to say 'in my opinion from what I've seen of Fram's on wikipedia contribs, none of them are TOU violations so I'd like to more info on what contribs, if any, that the WMF found are violations since if I don't agree I want to express my disagreement/stop editing here/whatever' that's fine. But we cannot know that the WMF didn't find some of their contribs were since we have too little info. Nil Einne (talk) 07:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Also, re "I'm pretty sure that if that was the case Office would have blocked any socks as well, which they haven't" I don't think we can be so certain of this either. If there was a socking issue, perhaps involving an· IP, then there would be privacy issues involved with linking the sock to Fram, and they would have had to find some other mechanism for blocking rather than the same account making that block and Fram's as its only action that day.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, they'd have gotten one of their trusted admins to quietly block the sock account. But I don't think there are any other accounts involved apart from the legitimate EngFram alt. I still strongly suspect this is about Fram's vocal opposition to things like WikiData and VisualEditor. Reyk _YO! 07:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment 1) I want to wait a day or two in hope of hearing from Fram, before going bonkers. Fram can figure out ways to communicate with us even if all of xer(?) (that's supposed to be the possessive of the disputed pronoun "xe") wikiproject accounts are blocked. 2) But maybe someone can check if xe has a working email link at commons or meta, since the one here on en.wp is apparently disabled. 3) Yes WMF is showing a considerable tin ear, but that's ok, they lost sight of Wikipedia's supposed goals many years ago already (a rant for another place and time). I appreciate Doc James' efforts to look into this. 4) As someone already mentioned, socking per se is not against the Wikimedia TOU. Abusive socking could have been handled by the local wiki if it had been reported, but it apparently wasn't. 5) I can think of some things that might infringe the TOU without running afoul of en.wp policy (example: using a bot to scrape too many wiki pages) but this reaction seems extreme unless there is a considerable backstory. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 08:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

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 [2].

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"[3] (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)

• WTF? Did the ArbCom have any problem with the last diff? This is ridiculous and WMF T&S have been effectively appropriating the role of ArbCom without any minimal transparency. Nothing mentioned over here, needs any privileged dealings. ∯WBG^converse 08:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Yeah, always a good idea to silence people who criticise you. Reminiscent of the Nazis. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• "This action is effective immediately and it is non-appealable" - Huh?! It can take months to desyop an admin on here, with plenty of discussion, but this sort of thing can happen behind closed doors? Great way for WMF to help with editor retention. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 08:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Pathetic behavior by the WMF. The community needs to send a strong message that this type of side stepping of the community policies and guidelines will not be tolerated. Mr Ernie (talk) 08:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Well someone, or some people at WMF should be removed from their position really. This is a disgraceful abuse of position. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Who and where and how do we send the strong message that this is a community and deserves community discussion. - I am not biased, no particular friend of Fram. Silencing criticism in such an obscure way is not acceptable. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• OK, that's that then. You can be unappealably unilaterally banned (and effectively gagged) and desysopped, without discussion or recourse, by WMF on the strength of two or three edits and the use of the F-word. Good to know. Softlavender (talk) 08:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Fuck that. >:( Reyk _YO! 08:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Wait. Seriously? It was for incivility? Incivility that supposedly culminated in this statement, speaking out against a highly controversial Arbcom action? Sentiments which were so overwhelmingly backed by the community, that Arbcom actually backpedaled and issued a correction? That was it? Are you fucking kidding me? The office is banning people for incivility towards Arbcom? In that case, there are no privacy considerations, and it isn't confidential. So who complained to the fucking office? Was it an Arbcom member? Was it an established editor? Who? Was it the one Arb who resigned? This is beyond insanity. Why the fuck is the office civility policing, this user, after so many years? Is this a joke? Honestly, if no one complained, then that's even worse. Who's responsible for this? Please, have some integrity and come forward. At least own it, like Arbcom did. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 08:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Incase anyone has missed this, Jimbo is reviewing the situation. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 10:17, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Yeah, that'll help. ‑ Iridescent 10:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Also who is LauraHale and what is her role in this? So far we have allegations that you warned Fram for unspecified and anonymous complaints, then you unilaterally IBANNED Fram for good faith edits that happened to “make [LauraHale] feel uncomfortable”, and the next piece of evidence is a legitimate critique of an Arbcom blunder that the community overwhelmingly backed. It doesn’t add up. How can one, or two, or even a handful of users lobby the Office for a unilateral ban of a MOSTACTIVE admin? Since when can we circumvent the process by lobbying the office? Or was a staff member on Fram’s case the whole time? In either case, why wasn’t this referred to the relevant on-wiki authority? Laura, do you have any insight on this? ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 10:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  I will provide for you two pieces of the puzzle. First one is on the top of Laura's talk page and has been there for longer than I can remember. Another one is this one. Note that none of them answers your question though.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  I assume Swarm already read that thing on the talk page since they mentioned said editor's name here. Nil Einne (talk) 10:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  She is mentioned above by Fram and, as far as I see, nowhere else on this page. I stopped short of mentioning her yesterday.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:53, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Ymblanter, if you are saying what I think you are saying, this whole thing could have been easily and equitably resolved at ANI, and if not fully resolved there, definitely at ArbCom. Such run-of-the-mill interactions and disagreements are exactly what our noticeboards are designed to handle. The fact that an editor or editors did an end-run and went straight to WMF is truly tragic, and has resulted in massive overkill and a reprehensible unilateral "unappealable" secretive longterm action by WMF. A bad deal all around. Softlavender (talk) 11:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  I actually agree with that. I think this is a real conflict, or at least was a real conflict, and it should have been probably gone to ArbCom. It is absolutely inappropriate by WMF to take offica action here rather than referring the case to ArbCom, using the established community dispute resolution procedures.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Well it's worse than that. Not only did it not go to Arbcom, but apparently Arbcom weren't even informed about it. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Were even the preliminary conduct-dispute-resolution boards (ANI/AN) which typically hands out IBans et al, invoked? It does not seem so ..... We ought to mention T&S, in our page about dispute resolution, seems to be an impressively effective method! ∯WBG^converse 11:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Not that I think it matters in this case, but they were alerted that WMF is considering a sanction against Fram which would be solely on en.wp, see OR's responde on the ArbCom talk page.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• This is a major vote of no confidence by T&S in Arbcom and this community's ability to maintain appropriate norms and standards. If T&S do indeed believe that the "local community is consistently struggling to uphold the Terms of Use", then that is serious: they should be making Arbcom directly aware of their concerns, and having a full and frank discussion with the community. This is the very least we should expect. But there has been no such discussion. Otherwise, and given that there appears to be no issue of urgent safeguarding here, T&S's untransparent and unchallengeable actions appear to be an over-reach, beyond their charter, ultra vires. Our systems are not perfect. Bringing and taking an issue through Arbcom can involve a huge amount of process: intimidating, overwhelming, exhausting; and too often a drama-fest. There is the question of whether some users are so-called "unblockables". And, on the other side of the coin, there would also be sensitivities if it seemed WMF were taking sides, one user over another, in a public process. But the clear message needs to go out, that we expect T&S to normally encourage (and perhaps support) users to work through established community processes, unless there are reasons not to do so that are truly pressing and overwhelming. That does not appear to be the case here, so the community is entirely right to be up in arms. T&S has serious questions to answer, if it felt its involvement here was unavoidable - to the community, preferably; failing that, if necessary, to the board. Its role is not to supplant Arbcom and community processes except in the most extreme circumstances -- which these do not appear to have been. Jheald (talk) 11:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Earlier in this discussion we were told that stewards has agreed this action was justified. Would any steward care to comment on whether Fram's summary is accurate to the best of their knowledge, and whether they agree that the action is justified? As far as I can see the action was totally unjustified, and if the stewards think otherwise, it's not only WMF that needs a vote of no confidence. Absconded Northerner (talk) 11:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Absconded Northerner, AFAIS, Tony claimed that some particular steward had asserted of the justifiability/seriousness of the action. Ajratadzz, a steward has said that Fram's ban was not discussed among them. I don't see as how all stewards are to blame. ∯WBG^converse 11:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• That's a fair reading but I think it can also be read as multiple stewards. I should probably have separated my hypothetical from the question more clearly too. At the moment I don't see any problem with the stewards individually or as a group. I apologise for my lack of clarity. Absconded Northerner (talk) 11:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Absent a coherent response from Trust & Safety, I believe Fram.

Folks here probably don't know because it's not technically part of this project, but something is foul over at Azerbaijani Wikipedia. A cabal of admins has formed there publishing clearly politically biased material with an agenda, much of it blatant copyright violations, and also defending each other and blocking any editor who expresses disagreement. In short, they have hijacked the project to turn it into Armenian-genocide-denial-pedia. The admin at the centre of the dispute more or less admitted it. That seems pretty bad, doesn't it? Like something the WMF would want to step in and urgently do something about, in defense of their brand and Wikipedia's mission? Well, you'd be wrong. The Foundation seems plenty comfortable trying to let the global community (with participation from the allegedly corrupt azwiki admins) work this one out on its own. There has been a discussion going on over at meta ("Do something about azwiki") for a month now, which WMF was notified about on May 21, and responded that they "[would] evaluate the situation". A proposal to the effect of desysopping and banning all of the admins at Azerbaijani Wikipedia is stalled because stewards insist it requires WMF intervention. They haven't. But Fram says "fuck" to an arbitrator? That's what the Foundation thinks needs urgent office action.

It is a completely outrageously disproportionate response for the WMF to have interfered here. We're the biggest 'pedia and the most active, with the longest-standing and most mature community processes to deal with this kind of benign incivility, had anyone participating in that discussion felt offended enough to engage in them. Frankly Arbcom deserved being sworn at for that ridiculous notice, and Fram was hardly the only one expressing outrage in that thread (related: User:Ivanvector/2019 Arbitration Committee protest - if I am officebanned in the same way as Fram has been, that's most likely why). Using that as a pretext to pick off one of the Foundation's most vocal critics reads like somewhere between a bad day in the Comms department and outright tyranny. I'm for doing something right up to and including "going bonkers". Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I was also thinking of the Azeri festering pustule, which is allowed to continue even today without anybody at WMF apparently caring. At least their page "So-called Armenian genocide" was moved to a less offensive title today. --Randykitty (talk) 14:17, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• After reading many paragraphs of text, this all boils down to Fram used some vulgar language and so the WMF banned him for a year. This is a mind-boggling turn of events. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 14:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Community response to WMF

OK, I said further up that I wanted to wait a few days to hear from Fram before going bonkers. 17 minutes later, we heard from Fram. Is it time to go bonkers?

Support response to WMF (1st proposal)

1. The block of Fram was ridiculous micromanagement by the WMF, and Fram wasn't even that noisy a WMF or Arbcom critic (I'm sure everyone here can think of noisier ones). I'm not an admin so don't want to sound like "let's you and him fight". But the strongest response I can think of offhand would be an admin general strike (let the WMF handle its own vandalism and BLP reversions, or shut off editing) until Fram is unblocked and resysopped.

   Something like that should only be done if there is considerable solidarity among the active admins. They should communicate with each other (probably off-wiki though it couldn't really be private) before deciding.

   Lesser actions are also possible (suggest your own). As a resolution I'd be fine with the WMF referring the matter to the en.wp arbcom, which I think would respond with an appropriate "sheesh" and do nothing. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 08:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

2. Silencing criticism in such an obscure way is not acceptable --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:53, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
3. Fram can be abusive, hostile, a pain, but existing WP policy is sufficient to ensure that we separate harassment from robust discussion. If the WMF believes Arbcom is incompetent, or policy is not being implemented properly, then that is something to raise openly, where the evidence can help improve the culture and norms. This action should be handled from here on by Arbcom, where Fram can follow the appeals process. --Fæ (talk) 08:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
4. What Fæ said. If an editor is causing problems, we have mechanisms either to deal with the problem or to decide that the problem isn't actionable; we don't need the WMF sending in secret death squads to eliminate editors against whom they've taken a dislike, simply because they don't trust our own processes to come to their preferred verdict. Consider this a complete vote of no confidence. ‑ Iridescent 08:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
5. Per Iridescent, this is a vote of no confidence. Yes, I know this will put me on the WMF's hit list. No, I do not care. Reyk _YO! 09:05, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
6. Per Fae and Iridescent. ∯WBG^converse 09:10, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
7. First they came ...; per all the above. (Block all WMF accounts for a period as a minimum - anything 10 minutes to a match of Fram's block), just to kick things off. - SchroCat (talk) 09:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
8. Yes. The community needs to make it overwhelmingly clear to the Foundation folks that actions like this are not welcome here and won't be tolerated. If they won't repeal that ban, and do it quickly, heads must role at the office. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
9. We have long-established processes in place. We don't need or want WMF office actions for anything other than serious legal / safeguarding issues. A faceless, anonymous WMF account with no accountability, no intention of explaining themselves, and no competence or experience deciding s/he knows better than the entire en.wiki community, deciding our norms for us, and flinging around blocks is not what we signed up to. WMF, if you don't trust the en.wiki admin corps, the en.wiki bureaucrat team, and the en.wiki arbitration committee to manage our own house, feel free to go right ahead and look after it yourselves. Block your own vandals, protect your own pages, why should we do it for you if there's no trust? Fish+Karate 09:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
10. Consider my comment a vote of no confidence in the WMF. This was a sanction in search of a reason, and when none could be found, the WMF hid behind Trust & Safety. Mr Ernie (talk) 09:15, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
11. Overturn as a gross abuse of wmf t&s oversight. I'll have more words later, but this unilateral ban for criticizing ARBCOM is completely unwarranted. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
12. This is indeed precisely what I meant above, and it is clearly not ok. I do think there are issues (or more precisely there were issues a year ago), but they must have been handled via existing on-wiki processes.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
13. Support per Mr Ernie. WMF have made a huge error of judgement, people should lose their positions over this, and Fram should be restored to the community. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
14. (edit conflict × 8) I also agree with Fæ and Iridescent. I'm certainly not Fram's biggest fan but we do have processes here to deal with actual problems and it does not look as this was attempted and failed. That said, I do generally see a problem with WP:UNBLOCKABLES being able to evade scrutiny and in these cases an intervention from the Foundation might actually be helpful if local processes failed. I just don't see that this was the case here although I am open to be persuaded iff the WMF actually explains their actions. Regards SoWhy 09:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
15. I support any of the following "community responses" in order of decreasing severity: 1) a ban or block of WMFOffice, 2) a TBAN to WMFOffice from enacting blocks, bans, desysops etc except where legality supersedes community desire and/or 3) a general admin and editor strike. Consider this a vote of no-confidence with sanctions attached. (Oh yes, noting Headbomb's vote I'm also up for a very bold overturn of the office sanctions if that's the way we want to play it). Mr rnddude (talk) 09:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
16. Overturn the ban, and start seriously discussing methods to ban Foundation-controlled accounts support MER-C's discretionary sanctions suggestion in instances of hideous overreach like this. This is not just beyond the pale, it's something that any other admin would lose his tools and very likely his editing rights over given how grossly disproportionate this is. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 09:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
17. Per Mr Ernie - this is an excuse to push through unwanted software changes when they can't even get the basics right. This decision should have been referred to Arbcom. Put all WMF staff under discretionary sanctions while we're at it. FYI: Community action against the WMF is not unprecedented - we nearly had to resort to using the abuse filter to implement WP:ACTRIAL (see Wikipedia talk:The future of NPP and AfC/The DGG discussion and Wikipedia talk:The future of NPP and AfC/Archive 1. MER-C 09:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    That is an interesting point. "Structured data"? "AI-generated content"? The WMF has a serious conflict of interest with the supposed goal of writing an encyclopedia. But, I don't think that was the motivation for the immediate incident. It seems more like a facepalm-worthy attempt at living the wokeness currently fashionable in the internet platform management world. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 09:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

18. Per Mr Ernie and Iridescent. While Fram might be a "love him or hate him" character, they most certainly do not deserve such underhanded action. And the WMFs attempt at censorship is akin to an online dictatorship. Cassianto^Talk 09:33, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
19. Support withdrawal of service. Until this is overturned, the WMF can do my admin job too, because I won't. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    Honestly, an admin/functionary strike might help - or it might backfire horribly. I'm doubtful it'd be ignored, though. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 09:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    The only thing which would help is a blackout for a visible period of time.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:57, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    I can't see any backfire that could possibly affect me. As I say in the section below, I will not work as an admin under the control of an unaccountable civility police - and if that is not rectified, I don't want to be an admin here anyway. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

20. Support - I'm not really following this monster thread any more, but follow whatever action (such as striking) my fellow editors/admins agree upon. I'm not a scab! GiantSnowman 10:06, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
21. Support - if people go for this then I'm in. I too am appalled by what's happened and happy to go with whatever consensus is reached. Another possible idea is to replace the main page with a banner of some sort. We could do that as a community couldn't we?  — Amakuru (talk) 10:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    Yes, of course, if we have a consensus to do so. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    I would oppose doing anything destructive to the encyclopedia itself - I simply support the withdrawal of admin labour. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:39, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    Admins going on strike is ipso facto destructive to the encyclopedia because it will give vandals the temporary ability to make hay. That action, although likely to make the WMF take notice, is actually a lot worse than turning off the main page would be, since it would affect our readers and the accuracy of what they read without their necessarily being aware that then are being affected.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    The distinction I'm trying to make is between any of us actively doing anything destructive, and passively not doing anything to stop destruction. And I think that's an important distinction. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    It is necessary to make it clear that we work here as volunteers and can withdraw our free labour as and when we choose. This is a message that some people at WMF apparently do not choose to hear. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 11:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

22. Support general strike as described. Just halting Main Page processes like TFA, ITN, DYK, and OTD is going to make SanFran uncomfortable. Chris Troutman (talk) 10:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    It'll take some balls, but that's a great idea. Let's just delete tomorrow's TFA, DYK, OTD, ITN, TFP. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    No, we shouldn't actively break things, just passively not do them any more until this is resolved. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    I propose that we let the stale TFA, DYKs et al remain. No need to actively blank stuff.

    And, along with that, cease using editorial/admin tools. If the WMF can micromanage to such extents, they can certainly write the encyclopedia and maintain it. ∯WBG^converse 10:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    Yes, let's not be actively disruptive - just passive. Non-violent civil disobedience. GiantSnowman 10:47, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    Alright, that. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

23. Support Vote of no confidence, blocking all WMF usernames not associated with a specified person, and a general "down admin tools" until this has been reversed. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 11:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
24. Support vote of no confidence. I will participate in any non-destructve measures to drive home the community's rejection of this gross overstep. Tiderolls 11:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
25. Support CBAN per CIR. I believe there should be a measured and proportionate community response to this, so obviously we should hand out 1 year unappealable bans like candy. The OFFICE ban is ridiculous, and so is the form letter statement. At least put together a half-assed explanation when banning people, if a full-assed one is too hard. Alpha3031 (t • c) 11:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
26. Support Go bonkers. Per Fae & my longer comments above. [4]. T&S should not supplant Arbcom and community processes except in the most extreme circumstances -- which these do not appear to have been. Jheald (talk) 11:25, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
27. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 11:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
28. Support, per the above. Karellen93 (talk) (Vanamonde93's alternative account) 12:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
29. I agree with many above that, based on the information provided here so far, this action by the WMF Office appears irresponsible and unjustified. I support the community overturning it, to the extent possible under applicable policy, and pending a better explanation by the WMF Office. Sandstein 13:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
30. Support anything that doesn't damage the encyclopedia. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:39, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
31. Support - I'm a non-admin, and even I think that something needs to be done, if nothing else to at least get the WMF's attention.--WaltCip (talk) 14:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
32. Support - I'm out for now. - Sitush (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
33. Support Just like the people in Hong Kong knew what was coming a long time, we knew what was coming the minute they started locking accounts at all. But now that it's here and they're directly making their move to take over, we still might as well protest like those million people on the front page. We accumulated a lot of content and a lot of money and now a certain class of Better Than Us is here to take it all for themselves so they can continue to be Better Than Us. Wnt (talk) 14:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
34. Support at a minimum, we need to strongly consider banning LauraHale for her grotesque and unconscionable overreach. And yes, I'm quite comfortable taking Fram's word against the WMF's word. Why? Because Fram is the one who cares about and contributes to this community. Lepricavark (talk) 14:58, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Oppose response to WMF (1st proposal)

1. "Go bonkers" isn't really specific enough for me to be able to support. I do not support many of the escalation paths listed in the support section, such as beginning to block WMF-related accounts. It'd be nice to hear a more specific proposal. --Deskana (talk) 11:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
2. Oppose anything more than a passive "down tools" action right now. No WMF blocks, bans, or anything like that, as that is over-reaction at this stage. Jimmy is apparently looking at it, Doc James suggests the board will look at it, ArbCom is apparently seeking clarification. So let's keep our heads cool and not go dramatically overboard until we see how that all turns out, huh? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
3. More or less per Boing! said Zebedee in this section. Let's wait for inquiries to produce anything. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
4. Oppose I'm particularly concerned about any attempts to make this a "you're either with us or against us" type situation with comments about scabs etc. If individual editors (including admins) want to stop editing here (including taking admin action) they're completely welcome to. But it would be incredibly harmful to everyone if we try and force others to act in a certain way. I'm likewise obviously completely oppose to any active attempt to harm wikipedia like deleting elements of the main page. (To be clear, blocking WMF accounts doesn't fall into that category since the WMF can ultimately override those if needed although I am opposed to it as it's something which just seems silly.) See also my oppose to the other proposal. Nil Einne (talk) 11:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
5. Oppose - I don't see how this is going to help. Our responsibility is towards the encyclopedia, and us downing tools as our first counter-step is insanely counter-productive. Let's let the community reps on the Board have a go (they meet on the 14th June) and give us a thumb up/down on whether it was reasonable (even if excoriatingly badly handled). Nosebagbear (talk) 11:48, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
6. Oppose. "Go bonkers" is not something that will plausibly help defuse the situation or result in any other positive outcome - whatever your view about Fram or the WMF. Thryduulf (talk) 12:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   Thryduulf, have you missed a "not" from this? - SchroCat (talk) 12:04, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   @SchroCat: I did indeed, now fixed. I went through about three different ways of phrasing this before clicking save - seems I didn't update everything! Thryduulf (talk) 12:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

7. 'going bonkers' can rarely count on my support and I support the statement by Zebedee above. I do however find this entire page plenty evidence as to why people would feel safer turning to T&S than to the community when it concerns Fram's behavior. I've long stated that I think the community is not upholding it's own rules when it comes to certain people; That I can barely support our current core community as it is and regularly consider leaving it (it's a tough battle between the mission I care for and getting rid of negative influences in my life, which i consider this community to be). I'm also first to admit that Fram gets considerably less consideration from me. Fram's behavior towards volunteers and staff was a big part of why I turned in my sysop tools for 2,5 years. While I've seen progress by Fram over the last few years, it is far from perfect. As such none of this surprises me very much. I also note that only T&S is likely aware of employee complaints about editors. I'm not sure that was into play here, but the communication does seem to imply some history (unsurprisingly). I fully support the Foundation in providing a safe and sane atmosphere for their emmployees to work in. If you don't, then please stop using this website and start running your own and hiring people yourself that you are responsible for. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   Translation:- I developed severely shitty products during my tenure with WMF and plan to do so; Fram did not like it and criticized me. But obviously, we are above criticism. Incompetency is a virtue in WMF and we are a bunch of children, to be mollycoddled. We got angry and complained to our Class-Monitor and he (obviously) took action. Now I see that nobody supports such stuff but hey, that's the reason why I don't like the core community, at all. I am beginning to think that I am the sole arbiter of civility and that the rest of the community can fuck off. ∯WBG^converse 13:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   Winged Blades of Godric, I never worked for the foundation. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

8. Oppose per TheDJ. Gamaliel (talk) 13:25, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
9. Oppose per most of the above, basically, "go bonkers" is not something that I can support. —DoRD (talk)​ 14:15, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
10. No it is not time to go bonkers. It is time for civil discourse and possibly straw polls of actionable statements. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
11. As above. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Alternative proposal: The WMF was wrong to ban Fram, and we reject this overreach and have no confidence in the WMF's handling of office bans.

Support response to WMF (alternative proposal)

1. Support – I'm adding a new heading, because I don't think "go bonkers" is quite the right reaction. I don't know how I should format this, so feel free to change it. As I mentioned above, I think Seraphimblade has the right idea. KSFT ^(t|c) 09:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   Do you mean ban WMF accounts? I'd count that as going bonkers (and I'm in favor of going bonkers), but it is silly and wouldn't change anything (try to realistically imagine how it would play out). 67.164.113.165 (talk) 09:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   (edit conflict × 2) I mean that we should start by making clear statements, like, I hope, the one I wrote above, and that we should consider later symbolic protests like imposing a community ban on WMF accounts, possibly including WMFOffice. As much as I seem to agree with you, I don't think "go bonkers" is a particularly useful call to action here. This isn't mutually exclusive with the heading above. KSFT ^(t|c) 09:25, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   Do you want to suggest an alternative wording to "go bonkers"? Would "throw a gauntlet" work for you? What I mean is take non-symbolic action that potentially leads to disruption (e.g. the idea of an admin strike: who needs to do shitty volunteer work day and night if the result is to be treated like this?). Banning WMF accounts would be symbolic (i.e. ineffectual) and disruptive, which seems even more bonkers to me. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 09:33, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   Just ban the ones that do not have a responsible person attached. We already have a policy that an account must be for a single user. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 13:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

2. Support. This is not mutually exclusive with the Support I will be giving above. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 09:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
3. Support- again, this complements my support of the "bonkers" section. Reyk _YO! 09:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
4. Support of course they were wrong. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:25, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
5. Support per Fæ. If the WMF can persuade ARBCOM this was justified, that would be adequate, but to have not even attempted to do so is overreach. Even as a new user, I'm shocked. GreyGreenWhy (talk) 09:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   I'm sorry this is one of your first looks at behind-the-curtain stuff. This doesn't paint anyone involved in any sort of a good light. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 09:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   For what it's worth, I appreciate the comments in opposition to this, and my support can be considered withdrawn if arbcom or the community board members express confidence this was okay. Thanks, GreyGreenWhy (talk) 12:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

6. Support. MER-C 09:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
7. Partial Support. I wasn't generally opposed to WMF's handling of Office Bans because there are some that clearly need to be done. But this is clear overreach and is firmly overstepping into issues that the community and ArbCom should have been left to handle. The T&S squad has appointed itself as an unaccountable civility police. That's a chilling development and presents an environment under which I will not work. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
8. Obviously Per all above. ∯WBG^converse 09:58, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
9. Support - Per everything. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:02, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
10. There are some issues that need to be handled privately, but this is not one of them. For a WMF employee to appoint themselves as en-wiki's Civility Cop and start handing out additional blocks and bans because they don't feel we're being harsh enough is a gross abuse of their position. For a WMF employee to be so clueless that they're unaware of how much reputational damage this would cause is incompetence rising to the level of outright misconduct. ‑ Iridescent 10:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    Yes, they should be encouraged to seek alternative employment. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:10, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

11. Support - of course. GiantSnowman 10:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
12. Support and one wonders if this piece of gross mismanagement is the WMF's new method of removing their critics, in which case a lot of us should be severely concerned. Black Kite (talk) 10:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    Well, if was good enough for the Nazis and the North Koreans... The Rambling Man (talk) 10:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

    This was bound to happen eventually... —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

13. Support -  — Amakuru (talk) 10:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
14. Support. What Iridescent said. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
15. Support as an alternative to bonkers, which is my preferred choice. Chris Troutman (talk) 10:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
16. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 10:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
17. Support as second choice to the above - SchroCat (talk) 10:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
18. Support No confidence in WMF's handling of this office ban, anyway. Jheald (talk) 11:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
19. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 11:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
20. Prefer this one after reflection on Boing's oppose. – Teratix ₵ 11:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
21. Support. The handling of this has been unacceptable; I have been reading and drafting responses to this thread for too long - a statement of lack of confidence is important, but other action may also be required. My guess is that at the very least, a number of experienced people will get completely disenchanted with the whole thing and gafiate (a pretty useful term, even though this isn't fandom). --bonadea contributions talk 12:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
22. Support --Fæ (talk) 12:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
23. Support -- In fact, I am very tempted to take the next year off in protest. -- Dolotta (talk) 12:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
24. Support Absolutely outrageous the WMF would trample over Arbcom and all our processes this way.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
25. Sandstein 13:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
26. Support per everything. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
27. Partial support along the lines of Boing. I found Fram's actions towards ArbCom troubling, especially when ArbCom decided to started making changes in response to Fram's decision to clerk through protection like sectioning themselves (which is silly) because it suggested Fram cowed ArbCom. I still cannot in any form or factor support the WMF Office action in response. ArbCom was wrong to not stand up for itself. We the community were wrong to not stand up to Fram in a stronger way about their actions towards ArbCom. And yet despite that wrong and that inability/failure of the community to act WMF got it wrong in more substantive substantial ways with this action. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
28. There are some bans that absolutely have to be done, and whose reasons are unsuitable for public discussion. Arbcom spent years trying to get WMF to take over child protection bans, for example. But WMF needs to remember that the legitimacy of their bans depends on a limited reservoir of community goodwill, and that reservoir can easily be depleted by this kind of overreach. T. Canens (talk) 13:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
29. Support; aside from the fact that this specific ban appears totally unjustified based on the evidence so far presented, the idea that we will now have two overlapping and competing bodies (one paid, one volunteer; one accountable to the community, one not) dealing with routine conduct and civility issues is a terrible idea for many reasons, made worse by the fact that it was imposed on the community without any input or consultation, and made worse still by the fact that the first target was a long-standing administrator well-known for offering legitimate, on-point criticism of the WMF's various bureaucratic overreaches and technical foul-ups. This really stinks, and needs to be pushed back on with whatever means we have at our disposal. 28bytes (talk) 13:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
30. Support to the same extent as my support for the previous proposal. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 13:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
31. Support Disgraceful and sinister (ab)use of power that undermines the open and community-based decision-making of the project. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 13:58, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
32. Support certainly a broad statement, but it's pretty hard to have confidence right now. What concerns me is that the WMF apparently thinks they will get away with this. Lepricavark (talk) 14:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Oppose response to WMF (alternative proposal)

1. Oppose. I don't agree with the above statement, because I think it is far too broad. I haven't yet looked in detail into the circumstances of Fram's ban. However, even assuming that the ban was handled improperly, I do not agree with the blanket statement that I "have no confidence in the WMF's handling of office bans". The vast majority of their bans are reasonable, so if this ban was handled improperly then I would say that my confidence would be reduced, but I would not say that I "have no confidence" at all. --Deskana (talk) 11:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
2. Oppose per Deskana. I personally do feel the way the WMF handled this was very poor, and I'm not convinced they should have gotten involved in the way they did. But I also don't feel I've seen enough to be able to comment reliably and in any case it's only one particular action (or a series of actions about one editor). And I do find a number of the comments Fram has made that I've seen before, and I don't just mean the ones highlighted here, the sort of commentary which I feel harms a community. Whether they were bad enough to warrant sanction, I make no comment in part because I haven't looked into them in detail and I'm also unsure how far we should go in requiring civility etc. (And I repeat what I said that I'm unconvinced it made sense for the WMF to involve themselves the way they did.) But I was very reluctant to post this because I didn't want to paint a target on my back from anyone. I ultimately plucked up the courage due in large part to someone who is either new or socking and Deskana the first (and only when I wrote this) to oppose either proposal as well as coming to the realisation that I don't really care that much what others think. And I trust that however people may disagree what I've said, it's not going to be strong enough reaction to encourage doxing or anything untenable. So whatever the WMF have done wrong, I do think we need to consider how we have responded. P.S. Give the two principles of 'don't care enough' and 'this is a mess all around and I don't like a lot of what I'm seeing', this will probably be my last involvement in the matter. Nil Einne (talk) 11:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
3. Oppose 1) Let's wait and see if the board reps feel it was justified as a ban (even if badly handled). 2) As Deskana says, I don't have no faith in their office bans - we are instead concerned with a growing overreach of their responsibility. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
4. Oppose as far too broad per Deskana. The handling of this particular block was terrible but we don't know enough to understand whether it was reasonable or not. Other office blocks that I know about (e.g. from my time on arbcom) were absolutely correct and handled appropriately. Thryduulf (talk) 12:02, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   the problem with that argument is that firstly its not enough to be reasonable but it also has to be reasonable for the WMF to do it through the office mechanism. The other issue is that it appears this block is so flawed that it is difficult to have any faith in their actions going forward.©Geni (talk) 13:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

5. Oppose per Deskana. I aware of the circumstances of a number of the office bans and in all of those cases they were done properly and were warranted. Gamaliel (talk) 13:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
6. Oppose as too broad. I do have confidence that the office has, at least up to this point, made appropriate and necessary bans, and that they likely can in the future. —DoRD (talk)​ 14:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
7. In favour of alt 2. I have general confidence in their ability to handle bans. It just appears this one was a pretty large mistake. Basically what DoRD said. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Alternative proposal 2: The WMF was wrong to ban Fram

Support response to WMF (alternative proposal 2)

1. Regardless of broader issues they've failed to provide any justification for a block or the need for the block to be carried out by the WMF using the office mechanism. There is no evidence that they have any such justification and what evidence is availible strongly suggests they don't.©Geni (talk) 13:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
2. Obviously. This support is not mutually exclusive with the others I have supported. Reyk _YO! 13:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
3. Assuming that the information we have access to is accurate and complete, I support this statement. —DoRD (talk)​ 14:17, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
4. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
5. Per DoRD and Geni. Currently, there is no information available to suggest that this was an appropriate action. Regards SoWhy 14:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
6. Yep. GiantSnowman 14:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
7. I think Fram should have been desysopped and banned for his behavior a long time ago. I also think it should have come from ArbCom or the community, not WMF. --Rschen7754 14:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
8. I'm concerned that the quantity of proposals floating around here will muddy the waters and result in us all getting bogged down in disagreements. We need to provide a united front to the WMF letting them know that we are not okay with what they did and that there will be consequences. We may need to take a bit longer to work out exactly what those consequences should be, but for now this proposal is a good starting point. Lepricavark (talk) 14:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
9. From the evidence we have, I think the statement is correct. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Oppose response to WMF (alternative proposal 2)

1. Civility and respect, one of the five pillars, is at best a weak suggestion these days. I have no problems with T&S taking action against users who have a years-long track record of incivility and making rude/nasty comments to people. I would like to see the WMF being more transparent about this type of ban, however, and will be recommending that to them. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 15:09, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Supplemental proposal 1: Share your BEANS -- all of them!

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The thing that is going wrong with Wikipedia is that we are being invaded by bureaucrats -- not bureaucrats in the permissions sense, but the employee managing, ambitious, massively overpaid, ass-covering bureaucrats who infest and take over every other business and nonprofit in the world and suck all the life out of them into their bank accounts and resumes for Facebook and the like. And we ask, why is this wretched thing happening to us? And the answer is simple: because we got too good at fighting vandals! There was a time when every few weeks you'd open up this site and be presented with a full-page vagina or a lovingly pixellated table version of goatse. Bureaucrats can't stand that, it's like holy water to a vampire. They dread things that hurt their 'reputation' and make them look wretchedly human, like their site was written by humans, because they expect to be paid like they have only ichor in their veins. But bit by bit, with only the best of intentions, we became like the komodo dragon that let somebody brush its teeth and lost its reeky venom.

No matter what happens with this case, the long term solution we need is to allow, even encourage a resurgence to the level of vandalism that marked the Wikipedia of yore. We need less patrolling, weaker penalties, and above all, we need BEANS. Stop holding back secrets about what mischief-makers do because they might "damage the wiki". There's more than one way to damage a wiki, and a few minutes of mischief is not the worst of them! Let the (IRL) bureaucrats flex their new-found powers hunting vandals ... less time for them to deal with us. But don't just think of it as a general strike -- think of it as a long-delayed recognition that we need a little Yang in our Yin, an Anteros for our Eros. We know where this top-down management will get us ... so let loose the secrets and we'll see what happens! Wnt (talk) 14:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Support

Oppose

• Strongly oppose such stupid childishness. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• This is actually a worse idea than the ban that started this mess. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 15:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators general strike

I'm putting this here although it's not really a proposal that requires community support, but see the section below. Wikipedia is not compulsory, it's voluntary, and that includes pushing the admin buttons. If the WMF wants to insist that we're incompetent and go around us, fine. They can be the admins. I wrote in response to something that ended up being directly related to this: "I [was at the time] one functionary of dozens and [am] one administrator of hundreds, so my absence is unlikely to have any significant impact other than symbolically. But I believe strongly that members of a community have a duty to use their status and privilege to stand up to oppression. And so yes, I am aware that this is going to be long-term, and am prepared for the consequences."

Sign below if you're an administrator who will not exercise administrative functions until Fram's office ban is rescinded, and/or WMF Trust & Safety publishes a more appropriate response.

1. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
2. Yes, subject to my caveat below. GiantSnowman 14:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
3. I've said elsewhere that I will not work as an admin under the control of an unelected and unanswerable civility police, which is a role that the T&S people appear to have taken on. I also do not wish to be an admin under a WMF that has usurped the en.wiki community powers that we have traditionally exercised via consensus and via the Arbitration Committee if that is what, as appears, has happened. Until I can be convinced that, in fact, no new power regime has been imposed on us (which, I think at this stage would need to include the rescinding of Fram's ban with the referral to the appropriate body, ArbCom, if needed, plus a convincing assurance that they will not act in this way again), then I will not carry out any admin actions. If the outcome is not as I hope and does confirm the existence of this new power regime, then I will formalize it and turn in my admin bit. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

   Just to respond to those below who fear the damage this might cause, I want to add that I am not urging any other admin to join this - I'm just being clear about the conditions under which I, personally, wish to be or not be an admin. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Community support (general strike)

Please sign below if you are not an administrator but want to endorse the action in the section above.

1. The WMF profits handsomely off the tireless contributions from volunteers. They owe at least a little bit of accountability in return. Mr Ernie (talk) 14:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Discussion (general strike)

• Comment ​ I feel like this would only compound many of our current issues. I worry it sends the wrong message that we don't care about Wikipedia and are willing to take our ball and go home (so to speak). If we are going to break rules and protest WMF, then maybe writing an an article would be better? (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 14:25, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• We need to define what administrative actions we will not refrain from, for example serious BLP violations. I'm happy not to block petty vandals, no deletions, no day-to-day stuff like DYK/ITN - but we should still block BLP violators, otherwise we are opening the doors to trolls posting child porn everywhere or something ghastly. GiantSnowman 14:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• This will only hurt real people. I don't volunteer my time on Wikipedia as a sysop and functionary because I get some power trip or because I get some great joy about being part of a self-governing community. I volunteer my time because the work I do has a real impact in actual people's lives from a harassment and privacy perspective. Good faith volunteers will continue to edit. LTAs will continue to edit. People with agendas that want to harass others and out them will still be here. Those of us who have been entrusted by the community with extra tools to assist in protecting the encyclopedia and aiding those who write it should act upon that trust so long as we continue to hold the tools. While I think this action was incorrect, I cannot in good conscience call upon other administrators to not act in the encyclopedia's best interest. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• An administrator's strike would effectively be an invitation to vandals to do their worst, and would likely result in such widespread damage to the encyclopedia that some of it would slip past the radar and never be repaired. bd2412 T 14:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Fair points (the three above). Defending BLPs and protecting users from harassment are important things we do, even if the WMF thinks we're incompetent to do those things. There was half a proposal further up to specifically refrain from certain functions, such as DYK/ITN or anything to do with content on the main page, which would be noticeable without being unreasonably disruptive. How about something along those lines? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Agree with BD and TB, that seems more reasonable. Things that would harm the English Wikipedia to readers (both short and long term) would be counter-productive at best. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Wikipedia would be better off long-term if we left petty vandalism ("Changed text of the page to PENIS") to the readers. It would get them involved, maybe even start them editing long term. Plus, it disgusts career bureaucrats and might drive them away (see above). Paid stuff, bot stuff, professional vandalism, that may be a different story. "BLP violations" are a mixed bag -- people venting about Trump or Clinton aren't nearly as big a deal as some here make out, but you don't want some high school kid with a Wikipedia article written by a fan club. I think it might better to have a long term loosening of administrative control as an attitude and policy than to have a short term strike, but I don't really know that. Wnt (talk) 15:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Statement of intent

If WMF isn’t going to say more, I am going to assume everything Fram says is true. Now that I understand the circumstances better, this “strike” seems too passive for my taste. Since there is near unanimous opposition to this site ban, I intend to unblock Fram as soon as I get to a regular computer. If that results in Fram’s reblock by WMF and my desysop, I’ll be sad. It would make me feel better, however, if another admin unblocks him when I’m desysopped. And another. And another. See how many admins they’re willing to lose. If the answer is “as many as it takes to enforce our will”, then I don’t want to be part of the system anymore. —Floquenbeam (talk) 11:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

This will most certainly result in Fram's reblock and your desysop, without any benefit for the cause, so that I strongly advise you against doing this. There are other, more efficient ways, to express your distrust with WMF actions.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:57, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

if I’m the only one desysopped, that’s true. We’ll see if I’m the only one. Civil disobedience with no potential cost isn’t civil disobedience, it’s whining. —Floquenbeam (talk) 12:04, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Please don't do that. It is really unnecessary. 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)

If calm, reasonable discussion is what is desired, then we can have a calm, reasonable discussion while Fram is unblocked. If I'm desysopped for unblocking Fram when there is an overwhelming local consensus that the block is wrong, then I won't be the one who is escalating things. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

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)

But how can we have a discussion of any kind if the WMF is content to give a boilerplate response and then nothing else? Lepricavark (talk) 15:04, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Okay I couldn't resist the temptation to check out what was up when I saw this was now a separate subthread and then saw this weirdly titled thread. As I mentioned above, it seems unlikely this will happen more than say 3 times at the most. Not because so few will try, really I have no idea and it's irrelevant. The WMF control the software and I see nothing stopping them adding a type of superblock that cannot be overturned by anyone but those given the special power. There is zero reason to think they're going to need to keep blocking editors, putting aside the WMF, no one is likely to do that when they control the software whoever they are. It's simply not the way things work in the real world. Nil Einne (talk) 14:38, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Floq's actions have enough symbolic value, as a form of protest against WMF's abominable micromanagement and over-reach, by resisting their whimsical orders. But, then, I do believe that WMF is indeed tone-deaf enough to desysop Floq and we can't afford to lose one of our best sysops. ∯WBG^converse 12:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Floquenbeam - I admire your resolve. It is not in our best interests to lose you as an admin. You are indeed one of our best sysops. Mr rnddude (talk) 12:09, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Please don't do that Floquenbeam, give the people who are apparently looking at this behind the scenes (Jimmy W, the board, ArbCom) some time. It's unrealistic to expect an instant response, and it's better to give them a chance than make a pointless knee-jerk sacrifice. If we reach a stalemate point where it's certain that no more will be done and you're not satisfied, by all means make a big gesture then - but falling on your sword right now won't help. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

It's 5am in San Francisco. At least give them a chance to wake up before you decide they're aren't going to say more? -- KTC (talk) 12:05, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, this. Pigs might fly, but they *might* come to their senses - probably worth waiting before running out of the trenches into the machine gun nests. Black Kite (talk) 12:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm not expecting anything other than another long-winded and fatuous boilerplate brushoff or, more likely, silence. But let's wait and see before we go and do something rash. Reyk _YO! 12:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• I support this, but with the caveat of waiting 24hrs to allow issues with timezones. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 12:13, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• We've lost one too many administrators as it is – we don't need to lose another. – Teratix ₵ 12:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Sigh. OK, I'll wait until noon SF time. I don't actually think waiting is a good idea, but since my whole shtick is "en.wiki community consensus", I'll try to listen to others and be patient. But not more patient than that. --Floquenbeam (talk) 12:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Next board meeting isn't for a few days yet, and Doc James is on it - can you at least give it that long? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I probably have more confidence in Doc James than any of the people close to this, but I'm not waiting days for action. The WMF needs to act today. Today. Tiderolls 13:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Get a useless Admin to unblock Fram, that way when they get desysopped the project is improved! I could suggest a few. Or make people "Sacrifice Admins" specifically for the purpose of reinstating him. I'd even volunteer, and promise to relinquish the tools as soon as ... -Roxy, the dog. wooF 12:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Tried that, Roxy the dog, it just gets supervoted out under the guise of "reducing drama". Fucking incredible. ——SerialNumber54129 13:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Also - see Jimbotalk - he's investigating as well FWIW. Black Kite (talk) 12:57, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Something needs to be done, most certainly, but I'm not sure what. I've been a harsh critic of the WMF many times - and I've also received some really impolite threatening emails from the WMF in the past, some signed, some unsigned on generic WMF email accounts, but I've refused to be bullied and I've got stuff done. If someone comes up with a good idea, I'll support it and then probably have a lot more to say. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• @Floquenbeam: WTF is "noon San Francisco time" — could you please speak to be understood? What time UTC do you intend to block? I was interested to read your statement of intent just as I was typing up my own intention to unblock, which would have had a ping of you specifically, asking for your support. But I'm always too slow, and this time I also had a dental appointment. :-( Anyway, I'm with you, Floq, and I'll be Spartacus if you are. I'll mention that I saw the diff Fram says he was blocked for, this one, at the time. I thought it inappropriate and asked him to stop with the personal stuff.[5] I was thinking especially of the attacks on AGK. Admittedly my comment didn't seem to do any good, inasmuch as Fram replied quite combatively.[6] But I would still say my approach was on a better level than a fucking non-appealable one-year block. A sanction might have been appropriate, but should have been up to the community, for instance via WP:AN. (I wouldn't go directly to ArbCom. The community should have a go first.) Incidentally, I can't say I have much faith in Jimbo accomplishing anything in this case. He's quite keen on civility policing AFAIK. Anyway. Bishonen | talk 13:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC).

  The only thing Jimbo is good at now is making BLP violating edits for his COI friends. Nick (talk) 13:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Jimbo long ago banned Fram from his talk page for criticizing him, so let's make sure our expectations of helpful action on his part are realistic here. 28bytes (talk) 14:10, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

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)

Noon in San Francisco (UTC-7) is UTC19:00. Currently it's about 6:30 in the morning. (Source: in a weird time zone myself and have to do business with the west coast a lot) Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks ivanvector. Bish, the extent of my knowledge (without a calculator) is that US Eastern time is 3 hours ahead, so it's 3pm my time. All other calculations are left as an exercise for the reader.

I also want to say somewhere that T&S plays an important role. I would imagine with the exception of this ban, all of their other bans have had the support of like 95%+ of editors. After all other attempts have been exhausted, even an unappealable ban has it's place here; but this is absolutely not the situation. The fact that this ban has 95% of editors in opposition should tell them they are in the wrong. I'm disappointed they won't simply admit to that, particularly now that I see that several people I respect are involved with T&S. So I'm not willing to throw T&S under the bus for this one big mistake. Instead I hope to force their hand and make them reverse course. And go back to actually protecting en.wiki from things we can't solve ourselves, as they have been doing up to now. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

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)

The absolute worst thing that could possibly happen right now would be for you to intervene. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I could think of worse things. At least a Jimbo-related action is par-for-the-course. (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 14:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales:, I disagree with my friend above, and would ask that you do intervene. People seem to be treating this as an all-or-nothing proposition, when it is in fact an opportunity for negotiation and clarification of roles. I therefore request that you reverse Fram's ban pending discussion of an appropriate sanction by the community for the offense alleged. You can think of it as sentencing him to time served plus probation. As he has been desysoped, which is by itself a harsh punishment, leave it to the community to have a discussion as to whether that bit should be restored, not as a response to WMF's actions, but on the merits of Fram's conduct. It will be easier to get to the point of discussing what the appropriate delineation of roles should be once the immediate point of conflict is resolved, even if the resolution is a temporary measure. bd2412 T 14:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I would think negotiation should precede action. Tiderolls 14:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

That's arguably illegal. Jimmy may like to pretend he has this authority, but he doesn't. He is one member of the board of directors and if he were to act this way overruling an action of the corporate organization without the support of the full board of directors his position on that board would be untenable. Board members have no authority in their individual capacities. They have authority in their collective capacity. Jimmy intervening would turn what has been a project specific constitutional crisis into a foundation wide one with potential legal implications. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Floquenbeam and Bishonen: I agree we should not throw T&S under the bus, but neither of you should go there either. Having worked with them for 4 years as an Arb and in various ways before that, I'm extremely puzzled by this action. But they are a bureaucracy and from my experience may not be able to respond today, and any unblock might be a needless sacrifice. I want to see this solved asap but there's no immediate deadline. However, unblocking may be a one-way street to a desysop. I can easily imagine a situation where ArbCom doesn't want to desysop anyone over this but feels compelled. At least let's give them until the end of the week, please? I'm asking here for what may be a major favor and I'll owe both of you if you agree. Doug Weller talk 14:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Doug Weller, end of the week? They are not volunteers, they are paid by WMF to discharge their duties. I fail to see, as to why they shall take more than 24-48 hours, at all. ∯WBG^converse 14:48, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to be away from the computer for a few hours, so just to be clear before I go: I fully intend to do this at noon SF time if it hasn't already been resolved; even if people I really, really respect, like you, ask me not to. To be honest, I'm finding it hard to justify not doing it right now, which would be the actual right thing to do. I said I would wait, so I will, but I shouldn't. As I said to Jimbo above, if discussion is needed, it can happen while Fram is unblocked. I'm certainly not going to stand in the way of discussion after the unblock. If this is going to result in a desysop, then it's useful for the community to know that this is how the WMF handles things. Instead, they should unblock right now themselves, and then have whatever kind of discussion they want to. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:48, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Doug Weller, they could respond today, even if just to say "We do intend to discuss this further with the English Wikipedia community, and we're working out who should do that and where, but we understand there are serious concerns over what's happened and we do plan to engage with you about them." Even that would be better than radio silence. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant they might not be able to make a decision today, I shouldn't have said "couldn't respond". Also we have no idea whether they are dealing with what they (and maybe we would) see as more urgent issues. Doug Weller talk 14:57, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I agree with Doug Weller. This is a bureaucracy we're dealing with, and even if a majority of the necessary decisionmakers believe this decision should be moderated or at least explained, reaching that majority decision to act can take what seems like ridiculous amounts of time. I get that such gestures and their fallouts can provide meaningful information to all parties, I really do. But I'd hate to see anyone spend all their capital because a bureaucracy is moving slowly rather than because it ultimately made no correction. This is crucially important, but that doesn't make it urgent. --valereee (talk) 14:58, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• The first thing we need to establish here is whether this was genuinely a Fram-specific action or if they mean to supplant all the admins and simply chose one to start with. If a bunch of our best admins go and get themselves desysopped, and the bureaucrats intended to supplant them all, this won't work to our benefit. So the question is ---- how many other admins besides Fram are out there who have already gotten 'warnings' from Trust & Safety? Wnt (talk) 15:06, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Hypothetical question

Hypothetically speaking, if someone were to unblock Fram (which I'm not saying is advisable!) and then get desysopped for it, couldn't we, as a community, RFA that desysopped admin back into having the tools? The wording at WP:RFA even says, "Most nominations will remain active for a minimum of seven days" (emphasis mine). Just a weird, hypothetical question about a technicality. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 14:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Useight: so I think we'd have a problem, as even if Fram were unblocked, there is still a WMF OFFICE action that has prohibited that account from holding administrative access for 1 year, so any 'crat would be violating that office action to grant it - even with community support. As far as an RfA goes, it could certainly run, but I can't see any reason that this issue would be so pressing that it would need to close early. However, even after closing successfully the implementation may need to be on hold for the year. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Community TBAN on all WMF accounts

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

(Feel free to move if this is the incorrect venue) Yes, you read that right. In light of the WMF's nonsensical 1 year ban of Fram for this which would have gotten him blocked for a day at most, and how they apparently completely overstepped arbcom in doing so, I am proposing that All WMF accounts be topic banned from taking action on accounts without consultation from ARBCOM first. I don't care if this is wikicide, I think that this is the right thing to do in light of recent events. 💵Money💵emoji💵^💸 13:17, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Blocking WMFOffice as a violation of WP:ROLE would be a good start. If the WMF is going to be blocking / banning editors, they should at least be doing it with an account operated by an identified person. EdChem (talk) 13:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  WMF Legal is also violating WP:ROLE. Those seem to be the only two violating accounts with staff permissions ([7]). Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  WP:ROLE has a clear-cut exception for WMF-approved accounts and Office and Legal are both on the list. – Teratix ₵ 13:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  That exception also clearly indicates that the accounts are for contact purposes and are not to be used to edit. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  Regarding the wish for identification, EdChem, directing aggression at a specific identified person when complaining about an action that was made by a group of people would probably be pretty unhelpful ("attacking the messenger"). This may be the reason for having an WMFOffice account in the first place. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support per everything. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose this was a particularly bad decision, but WMF staff accounts, and in particular T&S play a vital role behind the scenes dealing with real issues. I’m personally shocked that they would ruin the goodwill they’ve created over an incident that did not need their intervention, but preventing them from doing their necessary work, even if only symbolically, is not the answer. To be blunt: we don’t want ArbCom dealing with pedophiles again. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose this violates the office actions policy and therefore should be a last resort if it is clear all discussion has stalled; not all our options are exhausted yet (e.g. petitioning or waiting for the 14 June board meeting). – Teratix ₵ 13:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose There are times when WMF action is necessary to prevent legal issues or to safeguard someone's health or wellbeing. While outside of these very clear areas they should stay out of things completely, blocking the accounts would have no real benefits and could cause actual harm. Fish+Karate 13:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Petitioning

I propose the construction of a petition to the WMF, in a similar fashion to meta:Letter to Wikimedia Foundation: Superprotect and Media Viewer, that clearly outlines the community's concerns with the ban and requests it be overturned and any further sanctions pursued through the usual dispute resolution channels, which were left untried. This is a concrete next step that would display a united community front (as Rutebega noted, this is important) but is not as extreme as banning accounts or editor strikes.

This will be my last edit for the night; I hope the situation improves by the time I wake up. – Teratix ₵ 14:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm already in the process of drafting one, at User:Seraphimblade/Draft petition to WMF (may be red for a moment while I get the first draft written up; it'll be turning blue shortly). Everyone's input is very welcome on it; it's not "mine" just because it's in my userspace. In the meantime, could we please all hold off on concrete proposals and !votes until we've got something fully baked? I don't, for example, want to ban the WMF accounts altogether—they handle issues like child protection, threats of violence and suicide, and such issues. I know the details of some of those issues, and while I can't discuss specifics of any of them, I can say in general some would turn your hair white. I have no reason to believe that they do not competently handle cases like that. Where they do fail is at intervening in matters that should be handled by the community, and it is that, in particular, that I think we are seeing "no confidence" expressed in here. So whether it's our statement, or whether community sanctions turn out to be necessary, let's take a moment to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Community sanctions can, after all, be bans on specific things rather than a full-on site ban, and I think we're perfectly capable of, if the need should arise, crafting a sanction that would allow T&S to do the work they should be doing, while restricting them from usurping areas where the community should be the final authority. Floq, maybe you could give me a hand writing that rather than getting yourself needlessly desysopped; your input would certainly be very valuable. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Without commenting on the specifics of the situation, given the unknowns of the situation, I'll leave some thoughts here on the general response. I think that we need to avoid paranoia or blanket statements, given out lack of information. I think that we should draft a petition that would take a similar format to ArbCom decisions with findings of principles, findings of facts, remedies, and enforcement. I think that we should adopt a position that the WMF should refer to ArbCom any local community violations, unless they believe that the complainant would face imminent and real harm from the disclosure to ArbCom or if the WMF is subject to legal requirements. I think that we should request that the WMF disclose to ArbCom the specifics of this case, as a local matter, without an immediate revocation. Then, ArbCom should pass a motion either supporting the action; supporting the result, but rejecting the process; or rejecting the action wholly. StudiesWorld (talk) 14:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Board

I have requested, as a board member, a briefing of what occured, preferably today Pacific standard time. Might not be able to arrange anything until Jun 14th however. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Doc. I'm not sure if 14 June will be soon enough, though. It sounds like some action will occur within a few hours. If nothing else, though, I hope the briefing, whenever it comes, will shed some light on this situation. I'll be watching this closely. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 14:57, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Unblock Fram in the meantime

We can't just say "might no be able to arrange anything until Jun 14th" while there's an overwhelming consensus that Fram should not be banned. Are there no telephones functioning in WMF? I propose that he is unblocked in the meantime, per the community. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:05, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

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)

• Support thanks for raising this proposal TRM. It would definitely help to have a clear community consensus behind Floq's unblock, which is set to happen in just under four hours. That would make it harder for the WMF to frame it as a rogue admin action. Lepricavark (talk) 15:09, 11 June 2019 (UTC)