
Open Letter to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees - happy-go-lucky
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Open_letter_to_the_WMF_Board
======
nsajko
There are many issues with the WMF T&S team's actions.

They completely bypass the community procedures in place, deal out arbitrary
sanctions without any explanation or justification and simultaneously refuse
to deal with real issues that the community(ies) really can not deal with.

Quoting a Wikimedia steward (Rschen): "I know for Croatian [Wikipedia] we
stewards point-blank asked T&S if they would do anything about it and they
said no."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram/Archive_2#Two_similar_bans_&_one_%22conduct_warning%22_on_Chinese_Wikipedia)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram/Archive_2#FYI:_Similar_incident_in_de.wp_some_months_ago)

~~~
the_duke
I don't have a skin in this game either way, but the discussion about the open
letter [1] has multiple, mostly unrefuted and partially acknowledged posts
claiming that the arbitration process was not working, lead to negative
behavior remaining unmitigated and is in need of improvement.

The open letter itself acknowledges this fact.

If processes aren't working, sometimes a shakeup and ensuing drama is required
to improve things.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Com...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Open_letter_to_the_WMF_Board)

~~~
nsajko
Sure, the Arbitration Committee and the processes associated with it are not
perfect. But is an unaccountable, invisible and all powerful judge, jury and
executioner institution like the T&S a good or fair thing? If you look at the
context apart form just the Fram case, you will see that T&S behaves very
strangely.

------
gjsman-1000
For more context:
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikiped...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikipedia-
ban-editor-culture-war)

~~~
iamnotacrook
"On June 10, the Wikimedia Foundation did something unprecedented in its
decade and a half history: It banned a user from the English-language
Wikipedia for a year."

No they didn't. From editing it, perhaps; and using one specific persona.
Anyone can read wikipedia without being logged in, and it's trivial to create
a new account on any site.

~~~
Grue3
That's nitpicking. When someone says they're banned from Twitter it means
their account can't be used to make tweets, not that they cannot read Twitter
while logged out, or that they can't make a new Twitter account.

~~~
alexandercrohde
Well, from where I sit, it's a huge difference in terms of how much I should
care about it. I have a limited amount of outrage and try to ration it to the
issues that are the largest societal problems.

~~~
saurik
The point isn't that there isn't a difference between the two ideas: it is
that _clearly_ the word "banned" means the latter, not the former, and so it
is strange that anyone could possibly have misinterpreted the sentence.

------
xref
Fram (wiki mod in question) is apparently the Linus Torvalds of the old-guard
Wikipedia community. “He’s a prolific genius!” vs “He’s a toxic asshole!” and
much like the Linux community there have been no effective systems to deal
with someone like that.

It’s telling that the Wikipedia community’s response is “How do we deal with
WMF” and not “How do we deal with this admin”

~~~
geofft
I am generally on the side of Linus being a toxic asshole, but,

1\. I would consider it inappropriate for the Linux Foundation to remove Linus
_without the involvement of the community_. They're there to be stewards of
the project, not to run it, and while I have problems with Linus, I also have
(different, unrelated, not directly comparable) problems with the corporate
control of LF, and it would set a precedent that other decisions are in the
hands of LF. And besides there's the practical problem that if Linus is still
wanted by the community, banning one toxic asshole won't change the culture.
If LF wants to advocate for the community to decide they no longer want Linus,
that would be fine (and I'd honestly support it) and they should implement the
community consensus if it emerges. (If they want to no longer pay Linus
upwards of a half million dollars per year, that would certainly be within
their rights, too.)

2\. Along those lines it seems difficult to believe that Wikipedia's culture
problem is a single dude. If we admit for the sake of argument that we do want
WMF to ban assholes (which I can see the merits of), that's likely to
translate to mass bans, which the existing community governance structures
should at least be consulted in. (Even if one of the possible conclusions is
"the existing community leadership are all asshole enablers and need to be
stripped of power," make that decision _after_ having the conversation.)

3\. From reading around
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:FRAM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:FRAM)
it seems like he's one of the most vocal opponents to new features being
pushed by WMF that the community seems to not be enthusiastic about. See the
comment starting "In the absence of any explanation, the cynic in me
guesses...."

~~~
unreal37
Quite clearly, Fram was told to stay away from a user named LauraHale (in
March 2019) - to avoid any interactions with her or her content completely.
Essentially, it's a restraining order.

So what did he do for him to get a Wikipedia "restraining order" against him?

AND... he broke that restraining order by mentioning her in some comments.

I mean, this isn't some statement about "banning all assholes" so much as
action against a single person who refused to stop harassing another person.

~~~
adolph
_Fram has also clashed with LauraHale who is the girlfriend of the WMF chair
and has made noises about going to the Trust and Safety people before. No one
knows if WMF chair was recused from decision to ban Fram. Pretty much everyone
sees an obvious conflict of interest._

[http://wikirev.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2222&start=10](http://wikirev.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2222&start=10)

~~~
makomk
I'm not sure there's any solid evidence that she's the girlfriend of the WMF
chair - that mostly seems to be a salacious rumor. However, there does seem to
be evidence that the WMF chair and Laura Hale directly worked together over at
Wikinews on the same topic area that Laura Hale and Fram ended up in conflict
over on Wikipedia (sports in Spain). That seems like a better thing to focus
on than juicy gossip.

~~~
belorn
The only solid evidence is that Fram used the word "fuck", as that was the
diff provided to him. Everything else, including the incident with LauraHale
or any potential relation between her and WMF is just speculation people are
rushing into in order to find an explanation to WMF action.

This is why the Open Letter is so elegant written. It does not speculate. It
addresses the core issue which is the lack of solid evidence and community
process.

------
jmull
I see this from a high-level.

There's a power-struggle going on where one body is taking an action another
body feels they should have control or at least input into.

That this power-struggle occurs and especially that it happens in public is
healthy, IMO.

But ArbCom should really be looking itself in the mirror right now. The fact
is, under their watch Fram was free to be a huge asshole to contributors for
some 15 years. ArbCom suggests that someone should have told them they needed
to do something. But that seems like a very weak excuse for the senior conduct
body. _You_ are the ones who need to be setting and enforcing the rules that
allow for contributions!

IMO no organization should tolerate assholes, so they got the result right but
clearly did not do it the right way. I think ArbCom needs to handle these
cases, at least a decade quicker than in this case.

~~~
nsajko
But there are indications of corruption within WMF, capriciousness of the T&S
team, and no evidence against Fram was given.

~~~
jmull
I agree T&S did not handle this the right way.

My main point is ArbCom should have already handled this, perhaps a decade
ago.

So they are broken. If they want a healthy Wikipedia their first priority
should be fixing themselves. They should understand why a toxic asshole was
running free for many years under their watch and how they can prevent it from
happening again. Maybe they are doing this behind the scenes, but it's not
clear to me they even understand they have a problem.

(BTW, no one seems to be disputing that Fram is an asshole. Maybe I missed it,
but if true, then there's no question that in a community-driven site,
something needs to be done about it. Some people seem to want to believe that
it could be simultaneously true that Fram could be a big asshole AND be a good
editor. In the context of a community-driven site, those people are wrong.
Driving off potentially valuable contributors is cardinal sin.)

~~~
nsajko
I am not that well acquainted with Fram, and the term asshole is not precise
enough; but you really do need some well intentioned assholes if you want to
run wiki-style projects. The problem is that wikis are free to participate to,
but not everybody is well intentioned or capable of constructive and positive
participation. Those people are more harmful than "assholes", and Fram used to
take care of such people from what I gather.

Edit: I did not down-vote you, nor would I do it if I could.

~~~
DanBC
No. That attitude is incompatible with Wikipedia.

It's also wrong to suggest that fram was only abusive to people who shouldn't
have been on wikipedia. Read the thread and buzzfeed articles linked here:
even people on his side describe him as toxic.

~~~
nsajko
> It's also wrong to suggest that fram was only abusive to people who
> shouldn't have been on wikipedia.

Quite a claim, maybe give some evidence for that? I saw no example of such
behavior.

> even people on his side describe him as toxic.

I am tempted to call you "toxic". Terms like "brusque", "rude", "asshole",
"harasser", "toxic" are not equivalent, but you repeatedly try to assign some
of those labels to Fram based on others.

"Brusque, bordering on rude sometimes" is not even a bad thing for a Wikipedia
user. And "like Inspector Javert at times" is not really as strong as "toxic".

~~~
jmull
> Quite a claim, maybe give some evidence for that? I saw no example of such
> behavior.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-06-30/Special_report)

~~~
nsajko
LOL, I posted that link in a top-level comment in this thread.

Can you give an actual example where Fram was abusive, harassing, whatever?
This link contains (as far as contra-Fram material goes) only unsubstantiated
accusations (concerning a medium where public examples should be relatively
easy to find).

~~~
jmull
This is a link to Fram's own words. This link appears in the content of your
link.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=895438118](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=895438118)

Do you think that's good for a community?

Obviously words like "asshole" and "toxic" include value judgements". But I
don't think it's a very strong value judgement in this case.

~~~
nsajko
Do you think saying "fuck" is harassment?

Fram's edit you linked is on point criticism of the Arbitration Committee and
I think it may have been good for the community. It would have been better,
more efficient in transmitting its intended message, more influential if it
were written in a better style (the kind exhibited on HN).

I concur that there is danger of Fram's edits promoting bad style in other
Wikipedia editors; but there is a tradeoff here that must be made, because
good style takes effort and time (both for practice and execution), more so
when one lacks relevant education; and some things need to be said (often
saying something sooner is more effective than saying it later, too).

I guess some people place most blame on the use of the word "fuck", but using
it was warranted. Think about what such profanity can accomplish, it has the
power to give a certain tone to one's message. Those who wield language with
great command and effectiveness might think of ways to accomplish the same or
better tone without using profanities, but for the rest of us profanities are
a sometimes necessary shortcut through all the time and exertion needed for
better style.

Anyways, let us suppose you want to make Wikimedia projects more "civil", how
long of a ban/block do you think profanities should warrant? Two days? A week?
Certainly not a year, at least not the first time such a sanction is used.

All the scrutiny Fram has been given during this scandal really ought to have
found some more serious violations by Fram to warrant a year long ban.

But let us not forget that nobody outside the WMF employ even knows why Fram
was actually banned, nor what should they do not to be banned themselves. The
T&S is a complete unknown. They refuse to fix some huge issues (like with the
Croatian Wikipedia), but hand out apparently unwarranted unexplained
unappealable bans across some Wikipedias (like what happened to Fram). The
fact is that Foundation employees mysteriously attacked the community that
produces value for the Foundation, of course it is going to raise big
questions, which the Foundation is not even bothering to answer!??

The thing is, the community volunteers to produce valuable content for the
Foundation, thus trust in the good intentions of the Foundation employees and
governance is needed. Ironically the Trust and Safety team made that trust
implode and a shroud of fear rise by issuing unexplained bans that well may be
malicious or misguided or corrupted, but the community just can not judge the
T&S team's actions, because they are unexplained, not supported by any
evidence. Even as rulemakers the T&S team does not work, because their actions
are totally unexplained, they give no guidance as to how one should act in the
aim of not being banned.

It might turn out in the end that Fram was rightfully banned (maybe the issue
is something like child pornography), but that will not matter, because the
issue is not Fram, the issue is that Foundation employee (or contractor, which
is what most of T&S are [0]) actions are not accountable to the community.

[0] [https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/trust-and-
safety/](https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/trust-and-safety/)

~~~
jmull
I don’t care about the word “fuck”. I don’t think it’s useful to pluck one
word of it out and try to discuss it out-of-context, though.

Without stretching, IMO, the post is angry, aggressive, stupid, arrogant and
abusive.

Anyway, you asked for an example and you’ve been given one. If it hasn’t
penetrated by now I don’t think it will, but you have it.

~~~
nsajko
Fram was right to be angry. That it showed in his post is, as I said in the
grandparent comment, only bad for him and the message he was trying to convey.
And notice that you are calling him arrogant while saying "If it hasn’t
penetrated by now I don’t think it will" to me.

To be honest the fact that profanities themselves are not the thing that
bothers you is even more unsettling to me than if it were the case. Suppose
your standards (what they are is not at all clear to me) were imposed on
Wikimedia projects. Who would be capable of judging by them and making heads
roll? And what would be implications for free speech?

One thing that has not been noted up to now in the discussion, is that even if
T&S has, say, decided to impose standards like your's on Wikipedias (which
does _not_ appear to be the case, although as I have said already, everything
regarding their action is murky), how would it be fair to arbitrarily, without
notice or warning start imposing them on Fram specifically.

Again, while you are attacking Fram you are spinning the discussion away from
greater issue of a charity corporation being nontransparent to the extreme in
making heads roll in the community its value is based on. How are the
Wikimedia project communities (some call it a movement, actually) supposed to
keep their spirit necessary for volunteering with such arbitrarily capricious
and totally unexplained bans happening?

------
HarryHirsch
He did the same thing as Linus, he didn't mince words when he showed the door
to people who persistently wrote crap articles. It's the intersection of
academic entitlement (students _really_ believe that just showing up and
making an effort should be rewarded with good grades, no matter how good the
outcome is) and American discourse (no rude words, hurt feelings are more
important than substance).

~~~
noelsusman
The whole point of "professional" discourse is to keep emotions and feelings
out of it so the substance can be the focus. If you start insulting people
then it is going to trigger an emotional response. That's how most humans
work. If you choose not to be careful about how you word your criticism, then
you are also choosing to inject emotion into the conversation, thus
distracting from the substance.

You can be blunt and direct without being an asshole. It's not that hard.

~~~
anoncake
But sometimes professional discourse just isn't effective.

------
gtirloni
Hard data, please. What did he do specifically?

EDIT: For the downvoters, my question is because I'm tired of being
manipulated by parties on both sides of any issue only disclosing what
interests them.

~~~
GeekyBear
>Fram is also known within the community as an asshole. “He’s like Inspector
Javert,” one Wikipedian wrote of Fram recently, comparing him to the ruthless
and inflexible antagonist of Les Misérables. “Brusque, bordering on rude
sometimes,” another longtime admin, Floquenbeam, told BuzzFeed News. “He has a
reputation for almost always being right on the underlying merits in a
dispute, but going about it in a fairly obnoxious way.” Over the years, Fram
has clashed with other admins, with editors, with ArbCom, and with the
foundation itself.

Fram explained that he had received two previous “conduct warnings” from the
foundation’s Trust and Safety Council for his incivil style toward other
Wikipedians.

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikiped...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikipedia-
ban-editor-culture-war)

Personally, I'm reminded of Linus Torvald's "voluntary" leave of absence.

With great power comes a great need to act with civility?

~~~
microcolonel
The man is not going around stripping people of their rights because he's
upset about how people talk to him. I don't think escalation of "I don't like
his style" to "he should be banned from participating for a year" is
appropriate, no matter how much that style upsets the sweet-sounding passive
aggressive types.

I, for one, would prefer a world of people who act in good faith, even if they
address issues in a coarse and gruff manner at times; to a world of petty,
passive-aggressive crybullies who ultimately contribute nothing of value,
nothing but a veneer of shallow procedural "niceness".

~~~
GeekyBear
From the article, there seemed to be multiple instances where users reported
that they were harassed by Fram across the site after having a dispute with
him.

That goes well beyond merely being blunt or rude.

>BU Rob13, a former member of ArbCom who recently retired from administration,
said that Fram’s behavior toward him, including “taking shots” at him in an
edit summary and following him to unrelated cases, felt like harassment.

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikiped...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikipedia-
ban-editor-culture-war)

The statement the powers that be released would seem to bear this out.

>In a statement to BuzzFeed News, the organization said it had leveled the ban
to maintain "respect and civility" on the platform. "Uncivil behavior,
including harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism, is against
our Terms of Use, which are applicable to anyone who edits on our projects,"
it said.

------
adolph
Bye bye Wikipedia, it was nice while it lasted, looks like you got taken over
by the totalitarians.

 _[The Wikimedia Foundation’s (WMF) Trust and Safety team] have reiterated
that they are not willing to reconsider the ban, nor will they turn the full
evidence over to the community or ArbCom for review._

~~~
mlurp
I guess I'm not surprised. Articles on contentious topics have always had
people trying to control the narrative. As Wikipedia got more and more widely
trusted/respected, you'd imagine that people would pay money to do it.

I assume there have already been attempts at decentralized, more democratic
versions of it?

~~~
txcwpalpha
Wikipedia certainly has its issues in regards to bias on many topics, and I
can see the allure of decentralization, but I wonder if it's really the
solution. It seems to me like it would just make things worse Instead of each
side policing each other and helping keep bias to a minimum, it would likely
result in multiple extremely biased "versions" of the truth, with each version
treated as gospel by its respective fans while dismissing all others.

Imagine two people arguing about the validity of climate change, with one of
them citing ExxonPedia.org and another citing GreenPeacePedia.org. It would be
a nightmare.

~~~
luckylion
> Imagine two people arguing about the validity of climate change, with one of
> them citing ExxonPedia.org and another citing GreenPeacePedia.org. It would
> be a nightmare.

True, but one of them will be loved by Google, so their side will be widely
visible, while the other will not. I don't see any incentive for the side in
control of Wikipedia to not want this.

------
nsajko
It might also be interesting to read the today's articles in Wikipedia's news
magazine The Signpost.

Did Fram harass other editors?:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-06-30/Special_report)

A constitutional crisis hits English Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-06-30/Discussion_report)

Mysterious ban, admin resignations, Wikimedia Thailand rising:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-06-30/News_and_notes)

------
jancsika
Here's one of the accusations[1] that is posted publicly on Wikipedia:

> A troll on an offsite forum posted a graphic written depiction of myself
> engaged in sexual activity with another editor. Fram repeatedly posted a
> link to this depiction on Wikipedia, even after it was revision deleted.

If Fram did this then there should be a log viewable by a Wikipedia admin.

There are apparently over 1,000 admins. At least one of them should be able to
scroll back through Fram's activity, find the case cited, and report publicly
that they can corroborate this anonymous accusation.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-06-30/Special_report)

------
dreamcompiler
One of the hard lessons I've learned over the course of my career is that no
matter how "valuable" or "irreplaceable" an employee is, if they are toxic,
you should fire them immediately. The damage done to a company by keeping
toxic people always outweighs the damage done by firing them.

~~~
nsajko
How to get rid of someone that gets in your way, or you just do not like that
someone? Just label him "toxic"!

~~~
dreamcompiler
Everybody knows who the toxic people are in an organization. That's pretty
much the definition of toxic. Conversely as the old saying goes, if you think
_everybody_ in the organization is an asshole, it's likely the real asshole is
you.

------
johnchristopher
My, my... That's some legalese thrown in there. What a contrast with the
declaration of the independence of the cyberspace.

Snark aside, it really looks ugly from the outside.

------
mistrial9
if this letter amounts to support of status-quo for Wikipedia-en editors, then
"phooey" on that.

~~~
Firerouge
It's basically the arbitration committee scorning the trust and safety
committee of the wikimedia foundation for overstepping into what should of
been a case handled by them and the community.

~~~
teddyh
I am reminded of when the “weboob” package was removed from Debian (itself a
reasonable action)… by Debian’s _Anti-Harassment Team_ , not by the Debian FTP
masters or anyone who usually removes packages.

EDIT: I was misinformed, as geofft correctly point out in a comment below.

~~~
geofft
That is untrue:
[https://bugs.debian.org/914179](https://bugs.debian.org/914179)

Any member of the Debian community (even just a user) can file an RM bug
against ftp.debian.org, if they provide justification. That is the standard
procedure. The FTP masters perform the removal, but in the majority of cases
someone else (the package's own maintainer, a member of the release team, a
member of the "QA team" which is also everybody) files it, and says "request
of maintainer"/"QA"/etc.

It is clear from the linked bug that antiharassment requested the removal and
ftpmaster performed it. That's normal procedure. And the text was clearer than
usual that ftpmaster should make their own independent judgment about whether
it was justified (even though they always can).

~~~
teddyh
I stand corrected; I only knew what I had read about it.

Also, I now see that Wikipedia’s T&S committee had a plausible reason for not
referring the matter of Fram back to ArbCom: It could be argued that ArbCom
might be biased against Fram, considering Fram’s comments on record about
ArbCom.

------
unreal37
The problem when an extremely popular person (in some circles) needs to be
held accountable to the rules.

Like when OJ was on trial. Or Bill Cosby and Louis CK were found to be creeps.

So this Fram gets a few warnings about his behavior crossing the line, but
continues on. Who's going to take him on?

~~~
raxxorrax
This comparison isn't appropriate.

~~~
unreal37
I'm not actually comparing his alleged acts to those of those people. It's an
unfair comparison, and I didn't intend to imply there was equivalency there.

Just the difficulty of enforcing rules on people who are extremely popular.
Couldn't think of any better examples.

------
rasengan0
Sadly, it does not matter.

People read, get riled, takes sides and form poles.

Lots of wasted energy.

Fram. Banning Fram. Local vs central cabal governance. WWF can play the bad
cop and take the hit. There are more Frams, more ArbComs and more WWFs to take
their place.

Some day bots will rule, grafting in disparate knowledge graphs.

Is the internet gonna stop using Wikipedia?

If the humans are smart, best stick together and (start) build consensus and
trust networks.

