Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-06-30/Discussion report

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Signpost
← Back to Contents
View Latest Issue


Discussion report

A constitutional crisis hits English Wikipedia

Contribute  —  
Share this
By Bri

On June 10, the WMF Trust & Safety Team (T&S) banned Fram, a long-time editor and administrator on English Wikipedia, without prior consultation with the community, citing unspecified behavioral issues. T&S refused to give details, citing policy. An extensive discussion followed across multiple venues, concerning the relationship between WMF – its Trust & Safety Team in particular – and the volunteer community and its own self-administration. The co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales said of the situation:

This is not about individual people, this is a question about our constitutional order. This is not about this specific situation, but a much more important and broader question about project governance.
— Jimbo Wales[1]

Former Arbitration Committee member Risker said:

It's completely unclear what their concern is here, what they want us to change, what they see as problematic.

As of the time of writing, one of the several discussions is over 1 MB in size and growing, with over 450 distinct editors.

Background

Prelude to WMF's recent actions

WMF has a unique role in English Wikipedia under the terms of WP:OFFICE, which stated that the Foundation may "override local policy" for the purposes of "complying with valid and enforceable court orders to remove content that might otherwise comply with policy or in protecting the safety of the Wikimedia communities or the public".[2] The policy was updated by WMF staff in mid-2017 with a list of actionable complaints to include privacy violations, child protection, copyright infringement or systematic harassment.

WMF Trust & Safety has been notifying Wikipedians about revamped policies around harassment since at least as early as 2017. See Wikipedia:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia for example or 2019 Community Health conversation on Meta. Community reaction to the ban of Fram suggests that many of these discussions and notifications were not well known or understood by the community. Many editors in the discussions noted by The Signpost expected office actions to be limited to extremely severe cases with specific legal consequences in the United States. In the words of Newyorkbrad:

It's been pointed out that [WMF attempts at communicating the dialog is open for creation of new civility-related policies and standards] have flown under the radar of many editors.
— Newyorkbrad[3]

External videos
video icon Exploring the gender gap in Wikipedia editors, University of Washington, June 11, 2019[4]

Sydney Poore, a Strategist for WMF's Community Health Initiative, described how WMF is moving towards a Universal Code of Conduct for all Wikimedia projects. Poore, who edits as SPoore (WMF) and FloNight, had spoken about this initiative in a June 11 video created by University of Washington. This video – sarcastically called the way Wikipedia communities had to find out about [a new Code of Conduct] by seeing it on Youtube[5] – may have been seen by some as symptomatic of the disconnect between the Foundation and the community.

In April 2019, WMF announced a new user reporting system on meta-Wiki to the following groups:

  • AfroCROWD User Group
  • Art+Feminism User Group
  • Black Lunch Table
  • Gender Diversity Visibility Community User Group
  • Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia
  • WikiDonne User Group
  • Wikimedia LGBT+
  • Wikimedians of North American Indigenous Languages User Group
  • Wikitongues
  • WikiWomen's User Group

Beginnings of the current crisis

On June 10 17:56 UTC, Pharaoh of the Wizards posted a note at the Bureaucrats' Noticeboard, which read in its entirety:

Please note admin User:Fram has been banned for 1 year as per Office action policy by user User:WMFOffice.

This came as a surprise to everyone as far as we can tell. As far as the The Signpost is aware, there were no ongoing discussions or Arbitration Committee proceedings regarding Fram in the usual English Wikipedia venues for editor/administrator behavior issues.

The initial statement from Trust & Safety on June 10 stated:

[W]e 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 ... 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.

At this point, Fram became barred from any sort of reply on English Wikipedia, but did make statements at his Wikimedia Commons page. In these comments Fram stated the total prior warnings from T&S came in April 2018 and March 2019 concerning two edits Fram made to an article in development by another member of the English Wikipedia community. T&S followed up with one more comment on June 11, summarized in the statement:

[W]e do not release details about Trust & Safety investigations due to privacy concerns.
— WMFOffice shared account[6]

There were two more communiques from T&S in the main discussion forum, discussed below.

The Bureaucrats' Noticeboard discussion was moved to Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram to avoid clogging response to other administrative matters. It was listed at WP:CENT on June 11.

Wheel wars

Administrator Floquenbeam unblocked Fram at 11 June 19:39 UTC, and was in turn de-sysopped by WMF, who also re-blocked Fram. Bishonen unblocked Fram. Then Floquenbeam was re-sysopped by WJBscribe, a bureaucrat. Notwithstanding Fram's unblocked status, according to T&S's third response (which acknowledged that "a number of community members believe ... [banning] was improper"), they are still banned by WMF for one year and under WMF directive not to edit the English Wikipedia lest the ban become indefinite.

[W]hat the community needs now is diplomacy, not a bunch of cowboy sysops
— Ritchie333[7]

Another incident occurred over Fram's admin status. He or she was de-sysopped in the 10 June office action, then re-sysopped 25 June 2019 by bureaucrat WJBscribe, then de-sysopped again by Maxim. A bureaucrat recall motion against WJBscribe was initiated on 26 June, after which WJBscribe resigned and retired from Wikipedia.

Community expectations

Former Arbitration Committee member Risker summarized why the situation was so problematic for the community:

Until this week, everyone on English Wikipedia understood that an OFFICE action against a user was taken when there was no appropriate local process to address the issue, or the issue needed to be addressed globally. ... [T]he ban on Fram is localized, it is of comparatively short duration, it is unappealable, and it is for reasons that are deliberately not being shared with the community. This is pretty much the opposite of what everyone on this project (and in fact, just about everyone in the global community) understood OFFICE actions were all about. This change in use of the OFFICE power has been completely undiscussed with the Wikimedia community ... It's completely unclear what [WMF's] concern is here, what they want us to change, what they see as problematic. It comes across as a FUD campaign: we'll temporarily ban people who did something wrong according to rules we haven't shared, but we won't tell you what they did, what can be done to prevent similar actions, or whether we'll change the [unshared] rules again without telling you.
— Risker[8]

Blue Rasberry, who has been editing since 2004, had a similar reaction:

I want to see due process and rule of law in opposition to opaque authoritarianism. ... At this point my fear is that the people at the WMF who are operating the levers of power are ignorant of what they are doing and [are] outsiders to [enwp] community values.
— Blue Rasberry

Arbcom involvement and requested case

Prior to the block, WMF conducted a conference call in which one member of the Arbitration Committee participated, Opabinia regalis. She has stated that "an action to do with Fram was under consideration". Other arbitrators have said they were not aware of it.

An Arbcom case was requested by WJBscribe on June 13 concerning WJBscribe's actions, but has expanded to request consideration of the entire relationship between Arbcom and WMF. Arbitration committee member Worm That Turned proposed a request for comment, sponsored by Arbcom in their page space and managed by clerks, to decide how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future.

WMF Board

Doc James, a Wikimedia Foundation board member, stated on his talkpage that the board did not have further information for the community at 06:05, 15 June 2019 (UTC), at 14:11, 16 June 2019, 15:19, 20 June 2019, 22:29 22 June 2019, and again 16:19, 26 June 2019. This statement was essentially reiterated by Jimbo Wales at his talkpage 10:58, 21 June 2019:[reply]

We on the board are in active conversations. ... I am stating my own views directly and clearly [to the board], but it would be inappropriate to share them here and now...
— Jimbo Wales

The board's chairperson, María Sefidari (Raystorm), stated that she "had nothing to do with this decision to ban an enwiki admin", expressing dismay that the on-wiki discussion had put a third party under the microscope with this:

This community, when confronted with the ban of an admin on the grounds of problematic behavior, instead of examining said behavior immediately turned to find another individual to blame ... [T]his pattern of trying to prove, in order to absolve a banned admin, that there must be either something in [a third party's] past, or that [the third party] must have done something wrong or used undue influence for her own personal gain, is sadly familiar to most women in the internet, and has strong textbook reminiscences of for instance gamergate. This is not safe. It's not healthy for this community either.
— María Sefidari[9] wikilink added by editor; see also WP:GamerGate

The invocation of Gamergate was received harshly by some editors. During development of this article, the author's note was met with this reply: [I]s The Signpost REALLY going to drag Gamergate into this??? REALLY? Talk about throwing fat onto the fire.[10] The Signpost is not taking a position here on the Gamergate comparison, merely noting it for the record.

Universal Code of Conduct

WMF's vision of a Universal Code of Conduct may not be achievable according to one side of a hot debate. Administrator Megalibrarygirl, cites her US Army experience and says it is. On the other hand, bonadea stated there is no universal concept of civility. not even in English [speaking communities]. Nishidani criticized the medicalization of speech codes,[11] perhaps reading it in the title of the Community Health Initiative, or the board chair's reference to the health of the community.

Rapprochement?

Out of this crisis has emerged not just strikes and angry commentary on actions of the WMF office perceived as abrupt and unannounced, but a round of soul-searching on the community's ability to self-monitor. An example is Levivich's comment:

It's a false dichotomy that we either have to totally ignore problematic editors, or we have to hound them.
— Levivich[12]

At the same time, members of the community have sought a rapprochement with WMF. Newyorkbrad proposed a series of de-escalatory actions in a "suggested resolution". The resolution ends with a request that

The [WMF] Office opens, or reopens, or expands a dialog with the community about what it is trying to accomplish and how to get there
— Newyorkbrad

As of writing deadline, nearly a hundred editors have endorsed Newyorkbrad's statement. However, it remains to be seen whether the response from WMF, acknowledging Brad's outreach but reiterating the ban is non-appealable,[13] has already closed the door on the discussion.

Conclusion

Summarizing a novel's worth of words in a column for a monthly newsletter inevitably brings selection bias. The voices selected above were intended to give the reader a flavor of the debate, not to substitute for deeper reading and involvement.

Intra-community and community–WMF discussion is still under way and likely will be for some time. Even when this report was "wrapped" a new debate erupted, resulting in the resignation of a bureaucrat. We hope this is not a new fracture line in the administrator corps. Nineteen have resigned so far, and they are needed more than ever.

We will close this report with a summary of the way forward from a member of the Arbitration Committee:

The community and the WMF will need to address the issue of enduring long-term harassment and incivility. These are not a Wikipedia only problem and it is widely being addressed both online and offline, particularly in legislation and in the workplace. Whether we like it or not, Wikipedia has become an institution and must also adapt to the changing times. If this whole situation has shown us anything, unilateral action is not the way to go. Instead, we must engage in dialogue and consultation on both sides going forward. If we truly believe we are capable of handling these issues locally, then we as a community must be ready and willing to make uncomfortable and even controversial blocks of established (and possibly even well liked) editors who consistently cross the lines of civility through a local governed process.
— Mkdw[14]

Readers are encouraged to review one of the indexes below and decide whether and where to lend their own voices.

Summaries and other notes

Index of on-wiki discussions, by Bri
Main discussion
Noticeboards
Village Pump
Project(s)
Other Wikipedia space
WMF Office
Miscellaneous user pages
List of Fram related strikes, resignations, and retirements, by Bri

The following editors made strikes, resignations, retirement or other related actions following WP:FRAMBAN.

Editors who retired or went on strike[a]
Sysops who resigned
Other bot and permissions-related protests
Vanished editors[b]
  • f14de8e7
  • d8028996

Notes

  1. ^ The word "strike" as used here encompasses all work stoppages where the editor cited the Fram affair – whether the purpose was a protest, or concern of retribution, retaliation or increased scrutiny.
  2. ^ anonymized by one-way hash of userid10; thought to be related to the June debates

References

  1. ^ Jimbo Wales, June 14, 2019
  2. ^ Linked to revision of WP:OFFICE extant at beginning of June; it has since been changed
  3. ^ Newyorkbrad, June 17, 2019
  4. ^ "Video: The Wikipedia gender gap". UW News. University of Washington. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
  5. ^ Boing! said Zebedee, 10:09, 15 June 2019
  6. ^ WMFOffice shared account, June 11, 2019
  7. ^ Ritchie333 07:31, 26 June 2019
  8. ^ Risker, 13 June 2019
  9. ^ María Sefidari (Raystorm), 09:33, 12 June 2019
  10. ^ Special:Diff/903138243
  11. ^ Nishidani 20:12, 16 June 2019
  12. ^ Levivich, 16:09 17 June 2019
  13. ^ Jan Eissfeldt (JEissfeldt (WMF), Lead Manager of Trust & Safety) 14:55, 21 June 2019
  14. ^ Mkdw at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case, 26 June
← Previous "Discussion report"
Next "Discussion report" →
+ Add a comment

Discuss this story

These comments are automatically transcluded from this article's talk page. To follow comments, add the page to your watchlist. If your comment has not appeared here, you can try purging the cache.

Several hours before this was published, ArbCom sent out an open letter to the board. --Yair rand (talk) 16:41, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Good job, Bri. It must have been very challenging to write a column-length summary of this complex and voluminous crisis. It has been so polarizing that I was unsure whether an objective synopsis was possible but I think this was well-done for the limited amount of space that the Signpost allows. Liz Read! Talk! 16:46, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, it was challenging, and I tried to limit my involvement in the discussions to remain objective. Even so, the issue left out many important late breaking discussions, not the least of which surrounds the WMF Executive Director's comments on Twitter and her first ENWP edit since 2016.
Readers should know that any column is not really just the creation of the author with the byline; there is much back-and-forth at the Signpost Newsroom and elsewhere, including offline guidance from the Editor in Chief for which I'm very grateful. I'm sure the next issue will have important followup. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:59, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A bureaucrat recall motion against WJBscribe was initiated on 26 June"? Why the passive voice? Who initiated it? Someone from the WMF? Another 'crat? A well-respected veteran editor? An SPA and/or troll? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:52, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    This appears to be the "bureaucrat recall motion", though I'm sure Bri can clarify, since they wrote that part. I agree it is a bit confusing to call it a "motion", since it gives it a bit more formality akin to Arbcom's motions (and one could assume it was Arbcom discussing the motion, as I initially did when I was reading it). I think adding a link to the archived discussion and a rewording from "motion" to "request" would be appropriate, especially since that was the actual discussion's section header. Retro (talk | contribs) 12:48, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    (Pinging Guy Macon) Retro (talk | contribs) 12:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    There was an overwhelming "Oppose recall" consensus (a consensus which would have been much larger had it not been closed after 8 hours) and the resignation that followed specifically says "and irrespective of the 'recall' discussion started above". I say we should remove this small part of the discussion report as being irrelevant. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:45, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Guy Macon: Since a consensus which would have been much larger is entirely a hypothetical, and discussions like this can easily shift one way or the other, I don't think anything definitive can really be said there. I do agree that mentioning the crat recall discussion may be undue weight and suggest a causal line that is not as clear as the actual reality of the situation. Retro (talk | contribs) 15:25, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The losses we have incurred in this incident are very serious. I do not want to say that they outweigh the cost of having taken no action, because that is far from clear, but it would certainly be a reasonable position to hold.
What, then, are the issues of concern?
Independence of the community
The Foundation was created, as much as anything, to be an entity to count beans, and protect the community from legal issues. It has grown into a behemoth, which has huge agendas of its own. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the repeated failure to respect the community is a crying shame. Every time it happens we get promises to do better in future, which presumably works, until next time that it doesn't.
Hostile environment
There is no doubt that there have been many issues in the community which have been dealt with poorly. And certainly Fram is one of those - there are others that have not even appeared on the radar. Because of the timescales of some of these issues it is tempting to "let sleeping dogs lie" - certainly something I have tended to prefer. It's important though that we are prepared to put the work into resolving these difficult issues. One of my complaints in the past has been that we have preferred to ban one or the other party, and move on. This can contribute to the hostile environment rather than resolve it.
Way forward
1. Fairly clearly we should return to the Status quo.
2. The community and the Foundation need to negotiate a way forward for future issues. This could include, for example, Foundation input to community processes, in the form of evidence, or providing tools to analyse data, training or funding for clerical work to compile and analyse the mountains of evidence that come to ANI or ArbCom.
3. Last and least, but still importantly, make some progress with the case that triggered this.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:01, 30 June 2019 (UTC).[reply]
  • I find reprehensible the use of the word "safety" by Raystorm and women like her. I have come to learn that many women continually reassess how emotionally-stable, socially-connected, and physically safe they feel. Sadly, some women wrap up their feelings about the former two into the all-inclusive language of the latter, which is a mistake. I don't use language that impugns others for the discomforts I and everyone else feel. I would recommend to all women that when they don't feel comfortable with the tone of a discussion, that they eschew claims that they don't feel safe, as if someone has put a gun to their heads. Describing your unhappiness with conversations and disagreements as feeling "not safe" serves to silence and punish the majority of us who are trying to reason out a solution, while also discrediting the word of all women about matters of safety. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:18, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I find the comparison to GamerGate more worrying owing to the association of that issue with virulent sexism. The sex of Fram and whoever they interacted with had never been mentioned up to that point, and even now the consensus seems to be that sexism is not a factor here, being a red herring at best. Throwing out unsubstantiated and gratuitous claims of sexism only serves to help discredit people who're legitimately suffering due to it, whether on Wikipedia or anywhere else. #MeToo is good if the accusations are accurate. It's an albatross if it's used in a manner approaching reductio ad Nazium. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 21:35, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as that goes, I believe it reflects off-wiki stuff that targeted a single user as the sole alleged complainant (which we now know not to be true, as there were multiple complaints). So the link to examples of virulent sexism perhaps was less about what Fram did, but rather what others who support Fram did. And those folks are not helping their own position, let alone anything else. Montanabw(talk) 22:01, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I would characterise the off-wiki people as less "pro-Fram" and more "anti-everyone-who-currently-edits-Wikipedia-and-the-WMF". —A little blue Bori v^_^v Bori! 22:19, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • On Pharoah of the Wizards’ initial post to BN, the article makes it sound like they were acting in some sort of official capacity or had some advanced knowledge but presumably they just had Fram’s user page on their watchlist, saw the block and then opened up a discussion. Pawnkingthree (talk) 23:55, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Bri: - disappointed that the summary that I and others have contributed to at WP:FRAMSUM was not offered a link at the bottom. Early on, when I was the sole contributor, I had said that I was happy to share my work. starship.paint (talk) 02:36, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you look at the article history, you will find it in earlier incarnations. I and my editors were attempting to balance many competing imperatives. Sorry you were not pleased with the final product. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Bri: - I'm sure you can see that Seraphimblade's summary after 12 June 2019 ended up focusing on resignations (in proper written form), while other events ended up being covered in very brief form. starship.paint (talk) 03:14, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Smallbones: - I see that you removed the link to the summary I contributed to [45] citing remove link to attempted outing page (no other links were removed, so it must be the summary). Where is the attempted outing? That would get me blocked, it happened once already. Please justify your comment, or publicly retract it. starship.paint (talk) 03:14, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • At the time I removed it from the article, the list had references to or links to outing of a board member and a very unfairly targeted editor. I think the outing of people in the early discussion of the Fram matter was totally shameful. Others may disagree or didn't see the links, but we never intentionally link to anything that contributes to outing. I'm not accusing you of outing, only that linking to your list would contribute to it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:28, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Smallbones: - acknowledged, so I'm guessing your edit summary instead meant "remove link to page that linked to attempted outing". If you agree, this matter will be settled. starship.paint (talk) 04:45, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just to avoid any misunderstanding: when I said "my editors" it meant the ones editing the article I wrote. Not the possessive "my" or that anybody was reporting to me or anything like that. They weren't. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:46, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    No misunderstanding from me. starship.paint (talk) 04:45, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, heck! I'm gone for a month and I miss some real shenanigans. Thanks for the detailed article, interesting stuff. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 05:57, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Great job Signpost for summarizing this dispute. -Indy beetle (talk) 04:24, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks a lot for the summary! -- Luk talk 09:40, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nice summary.--Vulphere 15:43, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Expanding on Rich Farmbrough's comment, for anyone doubting the side Wales is taking:

My own personal view is that drama never helps, but making it clear (through strikes/retirements) that something is unacceptable is a totally respectable and useful way to move the needle in an important way. (...) "Our best administrators are writing essays about why this is wrong, and many of them have indicated they will quit" makes a big dent. Also: "The good people protesting are not, for the most part, defending bad behavior. They are asking the WMF to consider how this action undermines our efforts to improve behavior" is helpful. – Jimbo Wales

(The bolding is mine). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:45, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you Signpost contributors for letting us know about this cluster****. WMF's "father knows best" attitude is really getting out of hand. Is it too much to ask that the community have input in the creation of a Super-ARBCOM body peopled by unelected non-Wikipedians? Come on WMF. Daß Wölf 02:32, 2 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Updates: there are now statements, issued in the last few hours, from the WMF Board and from the Foundation. PamD 08:44, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speaking as an editor ignorant of the internal workings of Wikipedia, this discussion is confusing and esoteric. What, specifically, did Fran do that was offensive? As Wikipedia edits are public information, why can't the offensive edits of Fran be identified? Or was his or her offense something else? Why can't the factors justifying the ban be presented in a concise and comprehensible manner? I see a lot of heat here, and little light. Is this mostly a bureaucratic power struggle? Smallchief (talk) 11:22, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Smallchief: The community is clamoring precisely because it was given zero information as to what Fram did to get that year-ban. Some people (including admins) have been reading through Fram's Wikipedia contribs, and (as far as I know) nothing obvious was found that matches; however, the problem might also involve off-wiki conduct.
    There are plausible reasons for the WMF to keep the community in the dark. For instance, there has been some speculation that the ban was due to harassment, in which case giving the community a full account of what happened would expose the victim to more harassment from Fram supporters. On the other hand, some (including Fram) say the ban dropped because of Fram's criticism of the WMF, which could be true even if there was an underlying pretext.
    Pick what story you prefer between Fram getting their just punishment at the hands of a brave WMF honor-bound to silence, a political dissenter being wiki-eliminated by the secret police, or something in-between. My uneducated guess is that Fram did something bad-ish, the WMF decided to half-ban them either because it was not so bad or the evidence was shaky, and when the uproar occured the WMF decided to stonewall. (The problem is that if the WMF appears publicly to cede ground when the community is shouting at them, it encourages the community to shout louder next time, no matter how justified the shouting is in either case.)
    (Also, it's Fram, not Fran) TigraanClick here to contact me 14:01, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks. Perhaps Fram should request that the Wikipedia Foundation publish the charges against him or her. Get it out in the open. Request full disclosure if you believe yourself innocent. Smallchief (talk) 14:08, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks User:Tigraan, a great and clarifying overview. Re User:Smallchief Fram should request that the Wikipedia Foundation publish the charges: that may be not the treshold. As Tigraan described: There are plausible reasons for the WMF to keep the community in the dark. The reasonable reason I can think of is: WMF Office explainig anything more would expose persons (those being harassed, possibly off-wiki). Not User:Fram themselves. For this same reason: WMF Office might have gagged Fram (i.e., silence Fram with threat of legal action or such) to prevent Fram publicising issues. It might be that WMF Office wants to prevent an off-wiki hounding. (todo: insert here the Maher post invoking Gamergate).
OTOH, last month dozens of enwiki admins have resigned as admin because, like: "If WMF Office does not trust enwiki admins & arbcom process, then what community we are?". -DePiep (talk) 16:52, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Editorial Question about “Administrator Megalibrarygirl, cites her US Army experience and says it is.”

Hi Editor, or @Megalibrarygirl:,

Could you kindly share the link to where this statement comes from? I'd like to add a "citation needed" but not sure if it's appropriate to a Signpost. I am interested in understanding the reasoning of the statement and under what circumstance some of these governance approaches will fail

Thank you!

Xinbenlv (talk) 17:27, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not able to spend the time to create a diff just now, but if you look for the word "army" in WP:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram/Archive 7, you will find it. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:10, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Xinbenlv did you find the source that Bri pointed out? If you want to know where I was coming from, is that I was thinking of how our regulations for the unit came from up top. However, while we couldn't remove any of the up top regs, we could still add to them. So individual units had their own specific regulations, and therefore their own individual culture so to speak. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:15, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This is an interesting aspect of military culture, that is, unit identity is persistent across time even though individual members are guaranteed to rotate through on a fairly short time interval – including leadership. How does identity and mission orientation relate to tradition and other intangible aspects of culture in addition to formulated policies and regulations? WPedians not familiar with this culture may be shocked to know that there is a great deal of small-unit latitude in interpreting orders, and demonstrating initiative is highly valued in the best units. Rigid uniformity across a force, though a popular stereotype, isn't really a thing. I think it's great that our perspectives on organization, leadership, and reward systems demonstrate our diverse backgrounds. MLG has offered hers, which I thank her for. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:01, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Megalibrarygirl:， I was able to find it, with help from @Bri:. Thank you! I think @Megalibrarygirl:'s comment makes quite good sense: an overall code of conduct plus local code of conduct. In conflict, follow the overall, just like how national-level laws vs local level laws etc. Xinbenlv (talk) 17:21, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]


It's your Signpost. You can help us.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-06-30/Discussion_report&oldid=1193878609"