User talk:Fram

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Hello, Fram. Welcome to the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! This website is for coordinating and discussing all Wikimedia projects. You may find it useful to read our policy page. If you are interested in doing translations, visit Meta:Babylon. You can also leave a note on Meta:Babel or Wikimedia Forum if you need help with something (please read the instructions at the top of the page before posting there). Happy editing!

--Cohaf (talk) 06:34, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

A place for polite discussion of my enwiki ban, and related general issues with the handling of issues by WMF in general and Trust & Safety in particular. Fram (talk) 13:40, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Copy over Commons discussions?

Hi Fram. On the general matter, I am sure you have seen the latest update here. May I suggest taking taking time and taking advice before deciding what to do next. Maybe copy some of what is on your Commons page over here to meta? Carcharoth (talk) 15:26, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Permalink for reference. EllenCT (talk) 20:14, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Emails

Hi Fram. A quick question if I may. Reading what you originally posted here, you said: "I have not contacted anyone I was in conflict with in any offwiki way (be it through email, social media, real life contact, whatever)". Given the possibilities being discussed over at en-Wikipedia, my question is whether you have looked through the emails you have sent or received and considered whether some of those engaging in email correspondence may have considered you to be in conflict with them, even if you did not consider yourself to be in conflict with them? I am thinking here that maybe you said something in an email to someone (e.g. did you email ArbCom or WMF employees?) and something was said that triggered all this without you realising it? It would help to have that clarified. Carcharoth (talk) 11:43, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

A screenshot from my "sent items" from my wiki-emailaddress. I barely use this, and have not sent any emails from it between April 2018 and the start of the ban. I have also not contacted any Wikipedian from another account (well, obviously people I contact in real life may also be wikipedians, but none of the contacts were in any way wiki-relevant or as a result of wikiactions or so). Fram (talk) 12:54, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Thinking out loud

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'm reading all discussions at en:Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram with a lot of interest, of course. One of the main problems seem to be finding a good way to show your disagreement with the way the WMF handled this (no matter if you agree with the actual sanction or not), since most of you don't want to "destroy" enwiki to spite the WMF. I agree that letting in attack pages, BLP violations, ... is bad because it creates innocent victims. So I tried to think of something which wouldn't make enwiki worse (for factual credibility), wouldn't include BLP attacks and the like (or not more than usual), but would still, if widespread enough, cause problems or embarassment for the WMF. An added bonus is that is one of the topics I regularly worked on. So, what if enwiki admins made it clear that, out of fear of being accused of harassment, stalking, nah, simply persistence and looking at too many edits by one editor, they are no longer going to take any action against copyright violations? Mark G12 and CCI as "historical". If someone asks, tell them that enwiki is no longer feeling "comfortable" going after copyright violations and that contributors may feel persecuted if you remove their contributions simply because they are not written by themselves. Does that mean that I argue that copyvios should be allowed on enwiki? No, of course not, don't be silly (oops, attack phrase there!). It simply means that the WMF will have to pay some professionals to deal with this problem from now on. Which obviously they're good at, so that will be a walk in the park! Seriously, what's the actual harm to enwiki readers and subjects (apart from some minuscule monetary loss to whoever wrote the original?) Why do we even bother with removing copyvio's? Mainly to protect the WMF, not to get a better encyclopedia, as you don't necessarily get a better encyclopedia by rewriting and summarizing bits instead of simply copying bits. It won't make the WMF tremble in their shoes of course, but every small bit might help? Fram (talk) 21:29, 23 June 2019 (UTC) Fram, as you know I'm not your biggest fan. But wow, is this a really bad idea that's likely to cut off sympathy for your cause. I'd urge you to retract and apologize for suggesting this. (It was just posted on EN.WP:ANI). Hobit (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2019 (UTC) @Hobit: This wasn't posted on ANI, it was posted (by me) at en:WP:FRAM. * Pppery * it has begun 17:28, 25 June 2019 (UTC) Have you made the same demands for apologies from anyone suggesting this or worse? As there have been many much more damaging suggestions than simply not removing copyvios and letting WMF deal with these instead. Not removing copyvio's is about the least damaging thing we can do, no idea why you consider this especially a "really bad idea" and not e.g. calls to close down all bots or to simply go on a general strike. Fram (talk) 17:45, 25 June 2019 (UTC) Feel free to ignore it. Certainly not a demand. I'm trying to be helpful. My sense is you may have just shot yourself in the foot. But I could easily be wrong. The difference is that you're the person people are so upset about. If you make it "hurt the encyclopedia in my name" I think it tarnishes you and is just generally poor PR. But again, I could be wrong and probably should have just let it pass. Sorry to bother you with this. Hobit (talk) 17:58, 25 June 2019 (UTC) Most people aren't really upset about me, but about process, about principle. Anyway, thanks for your response, I understand your position a bit better now. Fram (talk) 18:01, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom

ArbCom apparently had some long, good, fruitful, ... conversation with T&S. Can they now at least answer the simple questions I and many others asked T&S quite a few times, but which were ignored each time?

• Please confirm that this is purely about on-wiki behaviour (by Fram)
• Please confirm that what I posted on my talk page (Commons first, now here) is correct (two warnings and now the ban, the only diffs or names given to me are the ones I reposted, excerpts from mails are genuine, ...)

If you don't even know these things, then I don't see how you can come to a conclusion about how T&S handled this. If you do know these things, then I don't see how answering these simple questions can be a problem. If I'm telling the truth and you know this by now, then how would confirming this endanger any other person? On the other hand, if the T&S claims I'm lying about either of these, then I'ld like to know this, as then at least it might explain the discrepancy between the sanction and the mails I received (and with the scrutiny multiple editors have given to my edits of the last months), as T&S then clearly based the sanction on something apart from my onwiki edits.

I don't expect ArbCom to have some instant magic wand to resolve this, but answering these questions might indicate to people that they can at least expect a bit more openness and cooperation from ArbCom than what we have so far gotten from T&S. Fram (talk) 22:03, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

• Hello Fram, this is what ArbCom member Joe Roe said [1]: We have asked, and were told a) there is additional, private and off-wiki information relevant to the ban; b) ArbCom doesn't have all of it; and c) they do not consider the ban, as an office action, to be overturnable by ArbCom. Starship.paint (talk) 03:53, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks. So, just like T&S, no actual answer to either question. A "no" would be a lie, and a "yes" would weaken the position of T&S even further than the current ambiguity does. Well, perhaps ArbCom didn't get an answer to these questions either, but then it's not much use that they are discussing things if that is the kind of trust the T&S has in them... Fram (talk) 04:26, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

    Wouldn't that statement be a "yes" to question 1? It specifically says "off-wiki information". Also, I've linked this talk page from near the top of your en.wiki talk page. If you don't like that, ping me. Starship.paint (talk) 04:36, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

    • That's the ambiguity they (WMF) have tried to create for weeks now. "Additional, private and off-wiki information" can mean "someone addressed a T&S member personally at a Wiki-event and claimed to have contacted a doctor about the stress levels they felt after Fram said the F-word against the English ArbCom" or a 1000 other things. They very carefully don't make any actual statements about me doing anything off-wiki which contributed to this ban, as there isn't anything they could use to back up that claim if they ever would be forced to show their hand (to ArbCom or people on the board or so). But they don't actually answer the questions either, so that enough people can continue to believe that there has to be something, or believe that they have actually said that they have taken into account offwiki behaviour by me. Fram (talk) 04:43, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

When I said "off-wiki information", I meant only information that is not currently publicly available on Wikipedia. I don't know the answer to either of your questions, Fram, and I agree, I/we don't have enough information to come to a conclusion about how T&S handled your case (I said as much in the case request yesterday). Joe Roe (talk) 07:15, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! Fram (talk) 07:16, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not a usable statement. We already know they were contacted off-wiki and won't say by who, let alone give us the full text of those communications, so we already knew there existed "private and off-wiki information". The relevant question was whether any portion of the ban was based on anything but Fram's on-wiki actions, and that response isn't an answer to that question. Seraphimblade (talk) 16:57, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Your enwiki admin rights

I don't know whether you have done something wrong or not. Maybe you don't either. I do know that in recent weeks you have been treated extremely poorly and that WMF has failed to extend to you the most basic of procedural fairness. I have restored your admin rights on enwiki for the reasons stated here. I wish you all the best. WJBscribe (talk) 23:52, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate it (even though it is only symbolic at the moment). Fram (talk) 06:00, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Ah, it only lasted for a few hours apparently... Fram (talk) 06:21, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Enough time for you to look at All The Deleted Revisions, no doubt. Please forget what you've seen. –xeno 13:02, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

:-) (I do assume you are joking?) No idea if view-deleted actions are in any way logged, but I haven't looked at any during my brief re-admin spell, if anyone wonders. I rarely if ever am online during those hours Fram (talk) 13:30, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

A development

[2] - thought you would like to know. Any response? Starship.paint (talk) 06:11, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Hard to reply to "I found something". I note that in the last diff you cite they is now claiming that ArbCom is lying as well, since Jehochman states "I believe ArbCom or at least some of its members are fully aware of what transpired with Fram." while ArbCom has just denied knowing anything... Anyway, "Fram’s explanation lacks critical details."? No, it has all the information I received and which I can base anything on (like, say, a change in behaviour in a year's time). I have no idea what I have done (apart from being critical about ArbCom) between the October warning and the ban this month that would warrant a one-year ban or the comments by Jehochman. Fram (talk) 06:20, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Okay. Another question: could you show us more of the emails? With redactions of sensitive parts? Reading through what I compiled that you said, I get the sense that the emails are incomplete. [3] Starship.paint (talk) 13:39, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Of course they are incomplete, that's what I said right from the start :-) I don't think it would be wise to quote even more from them, posting someone else's mails is normally not allowed and I only did this to give myself some chance at a defense, and the enwiki community some indication of the actual history. Like I said, the remainder of the posts doesn't contain further names, diffs, or pointers to what I should avoid after this year (or however long it lasts) is over. All I now is that the actual ban is for my "abusive communication", apparently towards ArbCom. So presumably not for edits made in 2016 or whatever else people are digging up at the framban discussion on enwiki. Fram (talk) 13:52, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Arb case

"Using publicly available information I have identified at least one user who appears to have been targeted by Fram in a way that felt like severe harassment. The incidents I found date back to 2016. I used the user interaction tools to find multiple instances of one way interaction where Fram consistently followed another user around causing that user distress, even after being warned to stop by other editors and administrators. " Without further information, it is rather hard to say anything useful about this. It is unclear whether Jehochman means a case which ended in 2016, or one which started in 2016 (which makes a serious difference of course).

" There are also a few recent instances of potentially problematic editing by Fram, such as [4]": that's not a remark I made, that's a remark by WBG where the redaction was too heavy-handed (losing not only the tone of the comment, but also the meaning, which was more important at the time). See my edit summary ("We are not the civility police. Restore deleted rude comment. If you want to redact it, then at least leave the meaning intact instead of just censoring like this"). I hardly see how something like this is ArbCom-worthy (note that the comment has since not been redacted again, nor reported to AN as far as I know).

"In May of this year, Fram used a racial slur on WT:NPA in an argument with another prominent editor. While he might argue it was used in a descriptive fashion, its use was highly inappropriate and paradoxically was not raised by anybody for further review. I will not go into great detail as to why this is not excusable. The diff speaks for itself. [5] I believe this particular diff, as well as the context in which the slur was uttered, further indicate a need for review at some level. I am sure others who make statements will point to evidence of why other dispute resolution has failed or is futile". The discussion was about things which are offensive but mislabeled (or not). E.g. if one would call female editors "lassie" or some such, that would probably be insulting (if it wasn't used in a more joking exchange, like in a reply to a comment about "boys and their toys" or some such), but it would not be "misgendering", which was what the dispute was about (basically, whether using gender-neutral "xe" instead of the preferred gender-neutral "they" was "misgendering or not"). Since Fae seemed to misunderstand my point, I tried a much clearer example, with an example which is clearly insulting in almost all cases (the N-word), but which wouldn't be "misracing". I believe it is important that we don't go around mislabeling things even if they are objectionable. I haven't had interactions with Fae before or since (well, none that I remember, it is likely that our paths have crossed in some discussions over the years but I don't think we were involved in disputes), and the comment was not reported on at the time. Using an example which some may consider too extreme may have been stupid at most, but actionable? Note that the N-word has been posted on the main page (DYK) multiple times...

Leaving apart the issue of whatever Jehochman may send privately to ArbCom, I fail to see how these two edits or discussions could form the basis for an ArbCom case (or even an ANI discussion). Fram (talk) 07:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

I copied your statements here to the case request page. You're probably best off not commenting on the most recently posted diffs regarding the editor the WMF wanted you to avoid, especially since the case looks likely to be declined at this point. 28bytes (talk) 17:07, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

The next Signpost

The next issue of the signpost will contain different sections about the SanFranJanBansFram saga. I have had the chance to give my comment about some points, but the following, which I proposed to link to in the comments section after the special report was published (later today normally), was deemed inacceptable (and even as possibly leading to a permanent global ban!) because it purportedly contained "outing". In fact, no one is even remotely outed in it, so I'll just post it here instead (it was in my sandbox).

Reply

Anonymous complaint

"It is difficult and embarrassing as a man to come to grips with being sexually harassed, as the culture has the expectation that you should ignore this kind of behavior and that it should have no effect on you.

A troll on an offsite forum posted a graphic written depiction of myself engaged in sexual activity with another editor. Fram repeatedly posted a link to this depiction on Wikipedia, even after it was revision deleted. A regular editor would likely have been blocked for this behavior, but since Fram was a powerful, influential administrator, ArbCom just shrugged and ignored it. Fram's behavior is a large reason why I barely ever edit Wikipedia anymore.

I can only imagine what he's done to female editors on Wikipedia.

— Anonymous, June 2019"

To start with the last line, what an utter non sequitur. The editor who wrote this complaint has access to all my edits, and if I did anything similar to what is described here towards female editors, it would long have been unearthed and displayed (and the logic of "is he was mean to me, a man, then he certainly has been more mean to women" is rather dubious and an example of the en:Think of the children fallacy). Of course, the major problem is that I didn't do this with this editor either. What in reality happened was that the anonymous admin used their tools to rev-del a link to an off-wiki site where their admin actions were criticized. In a reply to these descriptions, some commenter made a crude joke (the kind which wouldn't be accepted on-wiki), but this was not the reason the link was made. Worse, when confronted with this, the admin claimed that this wasn't true, and that the off-wiki page did not contain any criticism of their adminning. I then linked to (once only, IIRC) and quoted the actual relevant parts of the post (not the crude response): these quotes, made in ArbCom case pages, have not been removed, as they were not BLP violations or otherwise revdelable. The arb case ended without any comments about me, while the admin involved was admonished for his behaviour.

"since Fram was a powerful, influential administrator, ArbCom just shrugged and ignored it. " is a bit bizarre coming from an admin with probably at that time more onwiki "friends" and a "higher" position than I ever had. Perhaps Arbcom just "shrugged and ignored it" because it was not so vile as they try to make it here, but a small but correct piece of evidence about their behaviour?

BU Rob13 complaint

Following a contentious dispute over a recent ArbCom circular, Fram went to my user talk page and continued attacking me in rather personal terms. Very shortly after, he showed up at an unrelated ArbCom case and obstructed my ability to work as an arbitrator by reverting an edit asking a question of a party, while further attacking me in the edit summary. I felt extremely uncomfortable with what felt like harassment. It felt that he was signaling that I would be watched everywhere, that there would be no boundaries in his continued personal attacks. It made me feel unsafe. His actions, and the Arbitration Committee's failure to act promptly in condemning them, were the largest immediate factor that led to my resignation. That’s a major reason why I no longer believe the current Arbitration Committee can handle harassment, in any form. The Committee wasn't able to handle harassment directed at an arbitrator that occurred on a fully protected arbitration case page. If they can't handle that, how can they handle harassment in general? — BU Rob13, via email, June 2019

This is about one discussion, [6]. My first post is about all arbs, my second post is about all arbs, and so on. Only the last post, in reply to a block threat by BU Rob, was a reply about him personally. And why did he want me blocked? Because I reverted him at an Arb Case I was already involved in (the Rama case), here [7]. "The Committee wasn't able to handle harassment directed at an arbitrator that occurred on a fully protected arbitration case page." Perhaps because you could, just like everybody else, raise the issue at WP:ANI, just like I said at your talk page? You decided not to use the standard processes in our community (of which you were at the time an arb and admin), but instead tried to get your way informally among your fellow arbs. That this failed is probably because you were wrong here (since you had no business using that page to ask questions at that time, when no one else could do this or could respond), not because the arbs trembled before me and rather sacrificed you than taking action against me. These complaints are really ascribing power and influence to me that I don't have nor want.

Fram (talk) 06:22, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom open letter

Here. Thank you. I don't know if it will help bridge the gap between WMF and enwiki, but it certainly will help bridge the (much smaller) gap between ArbCom and some critical editors (like me). Well thought out, balanced, and clear. Fram (talk) 09:44, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Reply to BU Rob13

"You're preaching to the choir; I'm quoted in that Signpost article, and I'm not particularly positive on Fram. The first bombshell in that article is that Fram can immediately rattle off ten editors that likely felt harassed by him when given a conduct warning. The second is that multiple editors made reports to T&S and ArbCom over a duration of years without any community action being done. This upends the narrative of T&S doing some hasty, sneaky action and doing a complete end-run around community processes. The community processes abjectly failed here, and so in response to an apparent deluge of complaints, T&S eventually had no choice but to act. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 09:49, 30 June 2019 (UTC)"[8]

No, I can not "rattle off ten editors that likely felt harassed by" me. I can rattle of ten or more editors who have been banned, indef blocked, stripped of advanced permissions, or otherwise sanctioned because (at least in part) of actions taken by me, and who I could imagine would retaliate by claiming harassment. See e.g. Cwmhiraeth (noted at the start of that upcoming signpost article), but in general check my 12 years as admin and look for those cases at AN or Arb I started or significantly participated, and which ended in sanctions.

"The community processes abjectly failed here"? No, again taking the case of Cwmhiraeth as an example, the community processes didn't fail, they worked like they should, e.g. an unwarranted request was rejected (with some arbs even suggesting a boomerang instead). In your own case, you didn't even attempt to use community processes but first tried off-wiki discussion with fellow arbs (who rightly rejected your plea), and then went straight to T&S. "in response to an apparent deluge of complaints, T&S eventually had no choice but to act." Again, completely wrong. Sanctions shouldn't be decided by the number of complaints, but by their validity. If e.g. an editor gets community indef blocked at enwiki and then complains at T&S about harassment, then that shouldn't indicate that there is a problem at enwiki. Fram (talk) 09:58, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Please reconsider

...your refusal of a block on enwiki, solely to prevent accidents. Your immediately-self-reverted edit of a few hours ago is already being spun as a deliberate provocation. I'm willing to push the button, if you want (though I am going offline in about two hours). —User:Cryptic (talk) 14:06, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, please do. It wasn't a deliberate provocation, it was a stupid mistake, but I can't guarantee that it won't happen again. Can you (whoever pushes the button) please indicate in the block notice that it is a self-requested block to avoid the risk of a ban? Thanks! Fram (talk) 06:31, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Done. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:04, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! Fram (talk) 07:12, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

ANI post on Signpost article

I have some concerns about the new Signpost [9] Haukurth (talk) 22:57, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Apparently it's better to name and link the actual case than try to protect the identity of the anonymous poster. For all clarity, Smallbones has not given me the identity of the poster or anything else beyond what is in the Signpost article, so they haven't breached any confidentiality. The case the anonymous poster refers to (or at least the only case in all those years I can imagine to somewhat resemble the account) is [en:Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others/Workshop], and my comments there are in this section [10].

I did not object to Smallbones posting the Signpost article, but I do object to them then making false claims about me (and also the inflammatory claims he made towards me in mails). I have replied to this at lenght below, so no need to repost this here. Considering these actions by Smallbones, I presume it would indeed be best to simply pull the article as it is by now rather tainted and only leads to more drama, not less. Comments by Smallbones like "Fram has had lots of chances to respond and told me to go ahead with the story yesterday. Perhaps he likes the attention, I don't know why, but he was very cooperative with the investigation." (emphasis mine) are really way beneath what I would expect from someone presenting themselves as a neutral journalist. No, I don't like the attention (it is not really enjoyable to have anonymous complaints, correctly rejected arbcom cases from years ago, and already refuted claims repeated on a high-profile page, when one is restricted from replying in an adequate way), but I try to be open and honest, as I tried to do throughout this case (and throughout my enwiki career). But I do expect to be treated the same in return, which is e.g. a major failing with the WMF so far (failing to answer even the most basic questions, finding ridiculous excuses for inflammatory tweets, ...), and is now what I receive from Smallbones. For a reason I still don't get, they suddenly turned very hostile during our email exchange, and then started spreading lies about me at the discussions about the Signpost page. I hope they'll give some kind of explanation for this about-face. Fram (talk) 09:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Smallbones making baseless accusations

" There's another issue on what looks to me like an attempted outing by Fram on another website. I'm not going to accuse Fram of outing or speculate on his motives. I'll only say that at The Signpost we do not intentionally link to anything even close to outing, so we will not insert that link into the story. Please be patient for further responses from me - more emails. "

I'm not going to accuse Fram of what looks to me like attempted outing? No, please do accuse me, post the links, or retract the claims. I have never tried to out anyone, and I'm not active on "another website", unless you mean my posts here at meta? If you want to try your hand at investigative reporting, then go all the way, but don't drop unsubstantiated hints and then refuse to link to it.

Rest assured that this was the last time I tried to help you with a Signpost story. I don't like the kind of backstabbing you are practising here. Fram (talk) 06:55, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Megalibrarygirl

First there was this. Then there was the WIR "real crimes" twitter statement, where it is unclear how far you were involved with this.

And now you decide to continue the false statements by Smallbones, repeated by Bilorv but long since refuted, at ArbCom?

"I am in agreement with Bilorv. Fram had opportunity to dispute the content and declined as written here. This cannot be a BLP violation since the person in question did not dispute. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 13:48, 1 July 2019 (UTC)" I thoroughly disputed the content:

"To start with the last line, what an utter non sequitur. The editor who wrote this complaint has access to all my edits, and if I did anything similar to what is described here towards female editors, it would long have been unearthed and displayed. Of course, the problem is that I didn't do this with this editor either. What in reality happened was that an admin used their tools to rev-del a link to an off-wiki site where their admin actions were criticized. In a reply to these descriptions, some commenter made a crude joke (the kind which wouldn't be accepted on-wiki), but this was not the reason the link was made. Worse, when confronted with this, the admin claimed that this wasn't true, and that the off-wiki page did not contain any criticism of their adminning. I then linked to (once only, IIRC) and quoted the actual post: these quotes, made in ArbCom case pages, have not been removed, as they were not BLP violations or otherwise revdelable. The arb case ended without any FoF about me, while the admin involved was admonished for his behaviour.

"since Fram was a powerful, influential administrator, ArbCom just shrugged and ignored it. " is a bit bizarre coming from an admin with probably at that time more onwiki "friends" than I ever had. Perhaps Arbcom just "shrugged and ignored it" because it was not so vile as you try to make it here, but a small but correct piece of evidence about your behaviour? Fram (talk) 15:38, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

But the reaction of Smallbones was: "Fram, You do realize that you are apparently outing the admin you mention, don't you? You shouldn't be playing hardball with me like that. I'm pretty sure you could get permanently globally banned for that now. If you'd like to delete the meta page and say whatever you'd like as a response to the admin in the same number of words the admin used (125) without identifying him in any way, we could probably do that. The offer stands for 1 hour. User:Smallbones"

and they didn't reply to my next posts at all.

Please stop claiming that I didn't dispute this or anything similar, I clearly disputed it, and Smallbones was aware of this but instead of trying to accommodate this started threatening me with completely invented claims of "outing" someone and getting a permanent global ban.

If you have followed this episode the last few weeks, you may have noticed that I have not replied to anyone saying that my ban was well-deserved, much too late, too short, whatever. I have no problem with people feeling this way and expressing their opinion of me. What I do have a problem with is people, certainly admins who should know better, engage in the thing they claim to fight against, harassment. Not the kind of "harassment" which consists of dealing with policy-violating edits by some editors, but the actual harassment of trying to get editors into trouble by spreading lies about them repeatedly. Fram (talk) 14:19, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

And now this? "we see Fram basically outing the person who made the accusations" Have I posted any personal information? Or have I posted onwiki-stuff only? "I post a recognisable but badly-deformed claim about things that happened onwiki, so anyone pointing out that the claim is probably about onwiki case X is outing me?" That's a completely incorrect reading of what en:WP:Outing actually is, and the same mistake Smallbones already made. Smallbones may have promised the editor anonimity, but that doesn't bind me in any way or shape. If I can't post to the actual case behind this, then all we are left with is a meaningless, pointless "did / did not / did / did not" shouting match which has no place in an "investigative journalism" case trying to make it possible for the readers to decide on my block (which the article explicitly stated, it ended with "We’ll let our readers judge for themselves on the propriety of the block." based on false, anonymous information.

If you want to accuse me of real, actual outing, then indicate where I did this. If you only want to continue to spread misinformation to damage me though, then I don't think that is a wise thing to do in an Arb case where you aren't yet but likely to become a party. Fram (talk) 15:41, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
You know, Fram, what I am not seeing anywhere is you taking responsibility for how you have gone over the top in your attacks on other people, whatever their mistakes may have been. All I see is you engaging in sarcasm, concern trolling, and disingenuous "solutions" such as (and I am paraphrasing for brevity) "let's ignore copyvio". A person can exercise quality control without being a jerk, and you seem to have not understood this message. I guess this raises an open question: Do you think you are completely in the right? Or do you, sincerely and without sarcasm or excuse, acknowledge that there are legitimate grounds for people to be concerned about your behavior (even if you disagree with the action taken)? Montanabw (talk) 19:27, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Hey there pot calling the kettle black. How many editors have you and your crew driven away from horse related topics? I can count at least a couple. Mr Ernie (talk) 20:18, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Those who understand the feelings of frustration that arise over problematic editors and editing are actually in an excellent place to discuss where the line needs to be drawn, Ernie. This is about Fram's behavior and no one else's. He was the one who allegedly was reported to the WMF by multiple parties. And he is the one who still is not acknowledging that he did anything wrong. Montanabw (talk) 21:14, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for openly stating that, since I have been accused, I'm a free target for anyone to spout whatever imagibned grievance they may have, "this is about Fram's behaviour and no one else's". You consider me a serial harasser, so whatever nonsense is said about me is well-deserved and should not be sanctionable in any way or shape, something like that? Fram (talk) 04:36, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Fram, No, your twisting of words is part of your problem. You really have no idea what **I** think of you beyond what I have stated publicly, and you should know better than to use false paraphrasing of what I said. There’s a difference between “nonsense” and truth. At the moment, I suspect you have lost any interest in showing your throat, but you might want to start looking for a way forward (without sarcasm). IMHO, Your quest for quality control as you understood it seemed to turn into a grand obsession where you behaved as if your ends justified any means. ( Others go well beyond me, was it the writer for Buzzfeed who actually called you an “asshole?”) More to the point, You have many supporters but some of them are behaving very, very badly. So though this ban’s gotta sting pretty good, what you are dealing with is small potatoes compared to the things people alleged to have complained about you are facing. The solution is not to respond with sarcasm and exaggeration, but rather to seek ways to solve the problem. Montanabw (talk) 06:14, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

(Edit conflict.) Fram, I'm not sure why you include the twitter "True Crimes" under a section about me. Are you accusing me? Also, I stand by what I said that WMF wouldn't block you for no reason. There are reasons even if I don't know them. As for agreeing with Bilorv about the Signpost article written by Smallbones, the way you discuss the issue isn't clear at all. You do not make it clear exactly what needs to be removed. You write about the situation and ramble quite a bit. Make your point more concise. I'm willing to change my mind if I understand what's going on more clearly. As for outing, you make it clear that you were dealing with an admin, which narrows the possible suspects. That's part of the process of outing someone--learning a little more about them over time so as to reveal their identity. Also, please ping the people you want a response to. I don't watch your page, nor am I going to. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:25, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl: I struck the Twitter thing, I confused you with someone else. Anyway, if you had read this page, you would have seen that I already named the admin and linked to the Arb case above. Wrt the Signpost; I may be rambling and unclear, but most readers had no problem seeing that I had clearly responded to the Gamaliel accusations, and that Smallbones was falsely claiming that I had not replied to these accusations. But Bilorv and you decided to continue spreading these false allegations. And this wasn't the first time that you were happy to uncritically support any claim about me, no matter how disputed it had become. And then you continue with the "outing" nonsense as well, asa if there is any rule about not identifying an anonymous but clearly recognisable account. "I want anonimity" is not a get out of jail for free card, and it is not because Smallbones promised anonimity that the remainder of the enwiki community is bound by this in any way or shape. Identifying Gamaliel as the probable anonymous person is not outing and not bannable, and as an admin you should know better. Fram (talk) 04:36, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for pinging me. I did not think that was clear at all. Nor did I even guess that you were talking about Gamaliel--I thought it was one of a few candidates (not going to share my guesses). I don't even know how to respond right now. I believe that you think you're being clear, but it really wasn't to me. I do think that there was outing (in drips and drabs) and now, I think there's even more since you've given a name. I really don't know you. I've heard about you from time to time from other editors. I only got involved because I trust WMF and I wanted that voice heard on the WP:Fram page. Otherwise, everyone anti-WMF claims they have consensus, which they don't. I've had good experiences with WMF and generally trust them, even if they may have done things in a clumsy way this time, and that's where I stand. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:30, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl: I have struck through my incorrect statement about you wrt Twitter. Have you done the same with your claim "Fram had opportunity to dispute the content and declined as written here. This cannot be a BLP violation since the person in question did not dispute. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 13:48, 1 July 2019 (UTC)" " Or do you believe that I did not dispute this and that my mail correspondence with Smallbones was all made up? (In which case it would be weird for Smallbones to demand my removal of his posts for copyright reasons only, and not for the rather more problematic issue of me faking his mails). Or, as it looks like from your post, are you seriously claiming that User:Fram/Sandbox is not clearly an answer from me disputing the content? Smallbones claims (and you repeat) that I declined to dispute the content, when he was well aware that I had written that sandbox page (and called it global ban worthy). Fram (talk) 14:59, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

So you are saying that you did not want any of the parts that you claim are about Gamaliel published in the Signpost? Is that correct? Because I don't think you're very clear. I will strike where I wrote that you were OK with the publication if you say that here. Thanks. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:03, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl:No, that's not what I said (or meant). It was not up to me to decide what would be published or not, that was the job of Smallbones. What I did to is describe what was wrong with the statements by anonymous/Gamaliel, and by BU Rob13. Instead of either checking into this, or saying that he would post it regardless but would put a link to my comments in the article, Smallbones decided to suddenly attack me for "outing" the anonymous editor in a way that could and should get me globally and permanently blocked. He did not reply to any further communication from me, but instead posted the Signpost as is, and then went on record stating that "Fram was given several chances to respond to this quote and didn't." Which, since he claimed outrage at my reply to the quote, was a bald-faced lie, which he hasn't retracted or corrected at all, despite having seen (and not disputed) the mails I posted.

So no, I was not okay with the publication as is, I explained to Smallbones that the two main (or at least the two detailed) complaints were simply false, and that the "anonymous" one was easy to identify from his statement. I had no problem with the claims being published together with my rebuttal, as that would show the kind of "harassment" claims I was talking about, where people made up stories of harassment (and of ArbCom failing to act on them) when what really happened was quite different and that one shouldn't take the "victim's" story simply for granted. By denying me the chance to defend myself (and note that Smallbones still insists that every mention of Gamaliel, or even every bit of information that might be slightly more revealing than his own story already was, needs to be hidden from sight: "I'd like the Arbs to do everything in their power, including asking other bureaucrats etc., to stop Fram from currently trying to out an editor on another website." (in bright yellow, a nice way to get people to look for the information you want hidden)), and at the same time telling lies about me and trying all he can to stop me from bringing this to the light, Smallbones has shown his true agenda (in as far as it wasn't clear by the overall tone of and the conclusion to his post, or his repost of a Gamaliel gender-gap post in the Signpost as if the gender-gap and the Framban were related).

Smallbones knew of my objections, and posted it anyway. As far as I am concerned, the whole thing should stay deleted now and Smallbones sanctioned for his completely irresponsible way of proceeding here. Fram (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

So you wanted which claims specifically to be deleted? You do understand that Smallbones disputes that the information from harassed editors was false. In addition he says he checked into the claims. Therefore I'm stuck in a you-said, he-said situation. So what words exactly was he supposed to get rid of before publication that you say he didn't? Was it the entire section where the editor was identified as a man? Was it something else? You think you're being clear, but you're not. I had no problem with the claims being published together with my rebuttal you write. Where did Smallbones deny you the chance to defend yourself? He quotes what you're saying on this page at the end of the article as far as I remember. And I agree that mentioning Gamaliel by name is the wrong thing to do. You think everyone would have known who that was. Well, I didn't. Not everyone is involved with the same issues as you are. It's outing. I think Smallbone's true agenda is to get at the truth, something I hope we're all working towards. Assuming any other motives is unproductive. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:48, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl:, you are an admin you are able to actually check the information, compare the ArbCom case by Gamaliel with the quote from Gamaliel and the claims by Smallbones. You are not stuck into a he said / she said situation at all. Then again, you continue with the false claim that naming Gamaliel is "outing". So I think we are done here, and you should present that claim at the Arb Case instead. I can't help an admin who is not able to check the facts in a he said / she said situation where everything can be checked by them, and I can't help an admin who doesn't know what outing is. As for Smallbones real agenda, just read his statements at the Arb case, perhaps these will be clearer than my comments here are apparently. " Where did Smallbones deny you the chance to defend yourself?" For the last time, he started the ridiculous claim that I was outing Gamaliel and that I would get a permanent global block for this, and considered my statement (sandbox here) unacceptable. He then claimed at the ANI discussion that I never even replied to the Gamaliel quote at all. And still you claim that he didn't deny me the chance to defend myself? That's rich... Fram (talk) 21:08, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Despite what you think, I am stuck to a you said - he said situation because I haven't seen the emails exchanged with Smallbones. Nor do I know which case we're talking about or even if it definitively is Gamaliel, like you claim. (Also, I believe Smallbones already brought the issue up at Arb, so no need to be redundant). In addition, your sandbox statement is vague and confusing and that's why you and I have also been going back and forth. I'm happy to be done here since it's clear that you are unable to answer my question: which sections were supposed to go? So please don't ping me on this particular issue in the future (other issues are fine). Thanks. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:27, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl: - I’m not Fram and I will not discuss Twitter. You said Fram’s words narrows the possible suspects and is part of the process of outing. If that is true, then Smallbones has done the same. Smallbones reporting has identified that this editor claims to be male, claims to barely edit Wiki anymore, had an off-wiki site provide offen9sive content about, and apparently was either involved in an ArbCom case or reported to ArbCom about Fram repeatedly posted a link despite it being revdeled. Starship.paint (talk) 00:20, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Smallbones at the Arb Case

"That's right, the original agreement was that I could have printed the whole thing in the Signpost, and the current agreement is that I can summarize it, comment on it, etc. anywhere as long as I don't use identifying information (other than that it was from Fram)."

Uh, no. For clarity, Smallbones asked me if he could have my email conversation with the WMF (my posts, not theirs), and I agreed. But my condition (in my first post to Smallbones, 17 jun. 2019 11:01" was

"I will share my two posts from April 2018 with you, but please don't quote them onwiki (signpost or elsewhere) without first consulting me, as it discusses quite a few other editors who I don't want to unnecessarily drag into this mess."

Smallbones then asked for clarification, and I replied

"what I meant was that you would simply give me a heads-up with "hi, we plan on using these quotes from your emails "X" and "Y", do you see any problem with that? I obviously don't want to censor what you are writing or who you are contacting (and don't need to know any of this in advance). Oh, and if you do quote me, please make it clear that these are statements from April 2018, not statements I made now. I hope this is reasonable? "

How anyone can read that as "I could have printed the whole thing in the Signpost" is not clear.

Smallbones then says:

• "It was incredibly reckless and arrogant for Fram to give me that info. My reading of it is: here is a list of people who I harassed - I'm proud of harassing them. And something much more serious." That's news to me. First off, Smallbones is the one who asked me if he could see these mails, I did not approach him in any way to provide them. Apparently it was incredibly arrogant to reply in an open and cooperative way to questions of the Signpost (I know realise that it is indeed very reckless to believe that Smallbones would treat people fairly and present the facts in an objective and neutral way, as he seems intent as painting me in the worst possible way while ignoring the actual grounds for the Arb case completely).

The mail I gave was not of people I harassed, it was of people who had been sanctioned after an intervention by me and who I could imagine would be pissed off sufficiently to go to the WMF (this was before I interacted with the former BU Rob13, but one can see them as an example of how little is needed to be accused of harassment and have someone go to the WMF to ask for sanctions).

If it is in any way useful, I'm willing to send my mail conversation with Smallbones to ArbCom of course. Fram (talk) 04:53, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Smallbones, stating that the "anonymous" source is most likely Gamaliel is not "outing" in any sense of the word. They were the only ones involved in a case even remotely similar to what they are describing in yuor article, and used the same false arguments back then. As a wannabe journalist, you should have known that you could not protect their anonimity at all (I even told you what case this was talking about before the article went life, and you then accused me of outing as well), and as a wannabe journalist with some integrity you should have checked their story and seen what was the truth of it. That you failed at both hurdles is your problem only, not mine. That you still claim I can somehow "out" your anonymous source by matching their story with a real onwiki one. Fram (talk) 06:52, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

About the mails I sent to the WMF in April 2018: you claim "I couldn't have released that info in any case without hurting at least a dozen specific innocent individuals and the Wikipedia movement as a whole." I explicitly denied you permission to release any information about individuals named in those two posts just because there is no evidence that they have anything to do with this current situation (which doesn't mean they are "innocent" of course, no idea where you make that deduction from). Why you have to belabor the point that you wouldn't release something where you never had the right to release it in the first place isn't clear. In retrospect, I shouldn't have sent these mails to you, but I naively believed you to be fair and trustworthy.

• "The only way to deal with this info in Wikipedia is to have both Fram and I state that ArbCom can see the text and view it in private." Uh, I don't think I need your permission to send this text to ArbCom, no idea why you would need to state that ArbCom can "see the text and view it in private".

• " This isn't a lightly sourced article." And did you "check" any of these sources? Or did you simply reprint their statements "as is", without any care about correctness? With BU Rob13, who at least had the courage to be open about his testimony, people can check for themselves. But with "anonymous" reports, it is the responsability of the "journalist" to make reasonably sure that the testimony is truthful and to the point (e.g. the final sentence of Gamaliel's quote was simply a very low rethorical fallacy, like I said to you). Giving people a platform to spout unverifiable accusations is not responsible journalism at all, and the reason the article got pulled (which you could have seen coming after the pre-publication reverts).

Main issues

The two most important issues though are these:

a) There is no rule, poliy, guideline, ... why I couldn't publicly identify the enwiki account of the anonymous editor you quoted. The action they describe is quite recognisable, the information is publicly viewable (not revdeled or otherwise removed), and the only way for uninvolved people to judge the information (and hence the reliability of that single anonymous source, and the quality and trustworthiness of your article as a whole) is to get the actual evidence in front of them, not the biased view one or other party may present. What I did is not outing, and is perfectly allowable. That this means that the only two concrete cases you have (Gamaliel and BU Rob13) turn out to be not cases of harassment at all, but two cases of sour grapes, is your problem, not mine. That this also means that perhaps you promised anonimity, and that said promise turned out to be of no value, is also your problem, not mine. Posting it in yellow on the Arb Case won't help you there.

b) Your Arb text is an interesting attempt at shifting the blame completely, and totally ignores the claims you made here [11] and which are patently false. Lying about the subject of your article to make a futile attemmpt to defend your journalistic integrity is basically making yourself unfit for the role of E-in-C (or collaborator in general) of the Signpost, and a refusal to correct or retract your false claims makes this a severe personal attack (not just the personal attacks by Gamaliel where you were used as a proxy, but attacks made by you directly).

These two points should be the main focus of the Arb Case, with secondary issues (the edit warring and admin actions on the article, the people who blindly or worse knowingly repeated the above two points by Smallbones) tacked on but of less importance. Fram (talk) 10:08, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Can someone perhaps post the above at the Signpost Arb case? Both issues seem to be ignored by Smallbones and the declining Arbs. The problem is not the false claims by Gamaliel, but the attempts by Smallbones to suppress my replies and claiming that I made some unforgivable error in my reply. Apparently the rule that anything goes at an Arb Case, including spreeading whatever falsehood you like, still goes. Perhaps Arbs (and clerks) can act more on that, and less on the oh-so-important 500 word limit (well, that limit seems to have gone out of the window as well in this case at least)? If you can't even act on (or judge) such simple things like the formerly yellow highlighted claims by Smallbones about outing (which were either correct, and then you should have contacted me or made someone act against my outing, or incorrect, in which case you should perhaps have instructed Smallbones that continuing with that false claim at Arb would not be tolerated?), then how are you going to judge on and act in more complicated cases?

Note that Smallbones is still rather selectively quoting me, my post about "no problem with the report" is the actual post Smallbones wants to suppress for outing, and is the same post he claims I never made, since I never replied to the statement by Gamaliel in the first place. It has to be some kind of first to have one person describing the same post as a) being non-existant, b) needing removal as outing, and c) a compliment and permission to post the article, all at the same time, no? Fram (talk) 10:46, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I can relay something to the ArbCom page if you want though I'd probably ask a clerk first about the best procedure. I am not your lawyer and you can say whatever you like but I offer the following for your consideration: The case page has so far operated on the polite fiction that the admin in question is anonymous. If you want to accuse Gamaliel of being the originator of the attack maybe you want to do so directly and pointedly rather than sort of as an aside. I think everyone is assuming that it is Gamaliel but he hasn't confessed to it and I guess in theory it could be someone else essentially pretending to be him (and him not correcting the record for some reasons of his own). Also, maybe you'd want to frame your statement as "ArbCom should accept the case because I have been mistreated in way X and I seek redress" rather than sort of starting in medias res with addressing some particular facts. But, again, these are just some idle thoughts and you have way more experience with ArbCom cases than I do. Haukurth (talk) 15:57, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Finally, ArbCom is clearly not impressed with Smallbones' accusation of you "outing" anyone so maybe there isn't a pressing need to further address that point. Haukurth (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Moot at this point, I suppose, with the case rejected. Unless there is another page where you want to chime in. Haukurth (talk) 23:29, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Signpost

Fram, several editors have suggested that a modified version of the Signpost article might be acceptable. I'm of a mind to leave it deleted until ArbCom rules. What is your feeling on this? Jehochman (talk) 18:27, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Seeing the comments by Smallbones ("Much (by no means all) of the evidence in harassment cases comes off as sounding like "He said, they said". "He said" in this case is being accepted without examination even though Fram's supporters often say (approx) "He can be very difficult to deal with." The "they said" side hadn't been heard at all during this "constitutional crisis", though they have been shamefully harassed (e.g. attempted outings) at WP:FRAM."), I think it needs to remain deleted and ArbCom needs to have th case instead. It is obvious from all statements Smallbones made since he got what he wanted from me, and started threatening and ridiculing me, that he is not an objective reporter at all but a highly biased one. Coupled with the continued falsehoods and his total lack of reply to those specific questions, instead going on and on about how he needed to right great wrongs, makes it highly undesirable to have his article back up.

The ArbCom should accept the case, the article should stay deleted. A Signpost that gives a voice to all sides is good. A Signpost that functions as the champion of one side, at all costs, is not acceptable though. Fram (talk) 21:02, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I expected you would hold this opinion, but wanted to ask to be sure. Most of the editors at RfAR supported my deletion; I received many thanks for it. However, Kirill Lokshin, a member of WikiMedia DC chapter, launched a multi-sided character assassination against me. I bet you can figure out why. When you return to Wikipedia, beware of users affiliated with WMF and its local chapters. An improbably large number of them seem to be gunning for you. Jehochman (talk) 22:37, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Arb Request

I've filed for a second time a request for arbitration based on the Board of Trustees document. I think you deserve to have your case heard by ArbCom, preferably in the open light of day. This time I'm not adding any evidence because other people will do that if they want to. I thought your statements in the section above suggest that you want your matter tried by ArbCom, not by the Signpost. Is that right? In any event, if you post a statement I or somebody else can copy it over the the RfAr page. Jehochman (talk) 05:49, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, no, my post above indicated that I think the Signpost case (the behaviour of Smallbones e.a.) should be an Arbcom case in itself. I also, but separately, have indicated that I am perfectly OK with ArbCom having a case about my actions and ban, based on whatever evidence they receive. I understand that not all of such a case may be public, but as much of it as possible should be in public, since it is all based on publlicly available information.

For the record, I have a thorough case of the common Arb-flu, i.e. I will be largely or completely off-line between 15 and 30 July, with probably reduced activity between 8 and 15 July. For those who may find this too "convenient", I invite you to check my enwiki contributions from the last few years; I made no edits to enwiki between 30 June 2018 and 29 July 2018[12], no edits between 7 July and 30 July 2017[13], and no edits between 11 July and 31 July 2016[14]. I usually have similar but shorter periods in August as well.

I understand that this may be inconvenient if a case were to start in the near future, but I'm not going to change my private life to accommodate my wiki-life.

As for the actual case request, I agree that it is rather pointless until the WMF / T&S have indicated how they will react to the Board letter and if they will transfer authority for the ban over to ArbCom. Fram (talk) 07:23, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Jimmy has indicated that they will transfer authority and that ArbCom is empowered to revise or remove the ban as they see fit.[15] I am sorry for pushing this ahead quickly, which could be an imposition on you. I have added a comment about your break and requested that they schedule the case at your convenience. To be clear I have two concerns (1) that you be treated fairly, and (2) that a case be accepted quickly to calm the community. There's been a too much collateral damage already (and this is entirely WMF's responsibility, not yours). Jehochman (talk) 12:52, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Fram (talk) 13:14, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Note: I have forwarded all emails about the T&S warnings and ban (mails from T&S and from me, not comments from others), and all emails about the Signpost article (mails from Smallbones and me, not mails by others) to ArbCom. Fram (talk) 09:44, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Fram. I am going to be posting less here now that things seems to moving towards a resolution of sorts. Enjoy your upcoming break (see above). If you have time, do you have strong views on the Board statement and the response from Maher (I am thinking here if there is further media coverage and you are contacted about this)? I understand completely if you do not want to say too much on that, as you may want to concentrate on the arbitration cases. Carcharoth (talk) 11:05, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm glad that there seems to be significant progress, I hope T&S will communicate their agreement with the statements by the Board, KMaher, and Jimbo Wales, and will present ArbCom with the necessary evidence. Fram (talk) 13:14, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

It looks like my request for arbitration will be shot down for a second time. It may be best for you to write a request on your own behalf if you have time before you leave for your break. I believe you interests are best served by having an open case request with comments from the community, and then an open presentation of evidence, as far as possible. Jehochman (talk) 18:38, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Just wanted to confirm that we've seen your note above, thanks. Hope you have a good break. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:26, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Did anyone ever figure out what deletions Jorm was complaining about?

Hi Fram, I hope you are well in exile. Is there any explanation for the deletions which spurned this complaint? I am inclined on AGF grounds to presume it was a case of mistaken identity clouded by tribal affinity drives. EllenCT (talk) 23:55, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

• Jorm holds long-term grudges against Fram at least since asking to desysop Fram in 2013, so you have to factor in some emotional response and not expect a tight connection to actual facts. Nemo 14:41, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm getting quite used to accusations without evidence in this whole situation. Fram (talk) 16:38, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

COIs and impending break

Hi Fram. Are ArbCom aware of your impending break (one would hope they use the time wisely)? A quick additional question, which you may or may not want to answer (the questions only make sense if you have connected various dots). If you have been following along at various places then you may be aware of developments relating to the Chair of the WMF Board (Raystorm/María Sefidari). You interacted with her (or to be more accurate, she interacted with you) here in September 2016. At the time, she was Vice Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board, and later (in 2018) became Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board. Were you aware of her roles and status when you interacted with her, were you aware of her likely motivation for intervening as she did, and if you had been aware of all this would it have made any difference to your actions at the time? Carcharoth (talk) 12:19, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

@Carcharoth: I wonder how this matters. Not seeing the deleted material in question, I am inclined to say that senior Foundation officials and long-term editors who conduct outreach activities based on their promotion of focus on specific content areas should be held to higher standards of BLP compliance, whether or not but especially if they are in a relationship with each other, because they are de facto role models for new and experienced editors alike. EllenCT (talk) 22:29, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Question about the Elisa.rolle CCI

Just curious, did she copy more from books or from online webpages? Asking because you seem to know the most about her vios. Hope to see you back soon. Money emoji (talk) 17:57, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Both. But when I see people like Ritchie333 misremembering things as badly as his: "About a year ago, I was managing the block with TonyBallioni and we agreed to drop it down to a fixed time so we could talk about copyright, before Fram popped in and reblocked indefinitely, causing Elisa to quit the project (and a truck load of off-wiki complaints about Fram landing in my mailbox). I am happy to unblock Elisa; she is a prolific content creator and published author and we need people like her working on the project - and if people find themselves putting Template:Db-copyvio on her work four days after unblocking .... well, blocks are cheap and easy for any admin to do if they know they have consensus between them. Elisa, if you want me to do a standard offer review at AN, respond in the affirmative and I'll get it done. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:45, 17 July 2019 (UTC)", then my appetite to discuss this is rather low.

Here people can see what actually happened: Elisa.rolle, who had been twice indef blocked for copyvio (once by me) and twice for disruptive editing (not by me), had her most recent block, for disruptive editing, discussed by Tony Ballioni and Ritchie333, and reduecd to one month with conditions. Neither that block nor the unblock conditions were about copyvio, so Ritchies claim that "we agreed to drop it down to a fixed time so we could talk about copyright" seems to be wrong. At least, there is no indication onwiki that they had been talking about copyvio at all at the time, nor that any discussion was ongoing then. The unblock discussion was finished by the 13th, and my unrelated indef block for copyvio was on the 22nd. To present this as if I was "popping in" on some discussion between Tony Ballioni and Ritchie333 and overruled them both by issuing an indef block is a rather peculiar reading of the situation, and "causing Elisa to quit the project" is, well, shifting the blame towards the admin upholding policy instead of towards the editor getting her 5th indef block for diverse kinds of problematic editing. That Ritchie then claims to have received "a truckload of off-wiki complaints about Fram" may or may not be true, but is not really interesting apart from the clear attempt to poison the well and smear me. If they complaints were valid, they could have and should have started an AN discussion or something similar (ArbCom, whatever). Letting such a terrible admin as me knowingly run loose on enwiki is rather a poor indicator of the judgment of Ritchie, certainly when they just had been witness to one such instance apparently. Or perhaps there wasn't much meat to the complaints, and then bringing them up now is just a very petty way of getting back at me without having to make an actual complaint. Oh well, probably this episode will appear (in summarized and anonimized form) in the Arb Case as well, as evidence of my poor track record. When there's smoke, there just has to be fire, isn't it? Fram (talk) 13:12, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Arb Case

So:

• I'm banned and desyssopped based on ... what? No one knows but ArbCom, and they don't consider it sufficient to ban or desysop me apparently.
• For some unclear reasons, it took ArbCom weeks to open a case with unknown support or oppose votes (not unprecedented that they accept things this way, but shown to be a very bad idea in the past already, and goes against all accountability we expect from them)
• People now get to post evidence until 7 August, and then, in just one week (7 to 14 August), they will summarize and anonimize it, post these things somewhere between these two dates, let me react in the remaining time, and post a decision? Basically, everyone holding some grudge (or, who knows, having a legitimate complaint) has had weeks to prepare their posts to ArbCom, and I get considerably less than a week to react to it, and then only based on summarized and anonimized results, not on anything concrete (will the summarized results even have any diffs?)
• The 2016 date seems totally arbitrary
• No reason has been given why the case needs to be held in private. Nothing happened off-wiki, all evidence is onwiki, and my contributions have already been checked by multiple editors over the past month+. When you publish the evidence summary, either you will need to summarize it beyond recognition, in which case no defense is possible (e.g. "we received multiple complaints that Fram targets vulnerable editors", well, all I or anyone else can say is "no", but no actual rebuttal of something so general is realistically possible); or you will need to publish recognizable cases, which will then get scrutiny from me and the community anyway, and may present unwanted comments about the supposedly targeted editors even if they have nothing to do with the complaint against me (since e.g. editor X may feel the need to take up the defense of editor Y, even if editor Y wisely decided to keep quiet if they realise that the fault is largely with them).

I don't know what the conclusion is ArbCom is aiming for, but this procedure has all the indications of being a show process trial to justify a foregone conclusion as if some actual openness and right to defend myself has been given.

Proceeding like this will only result in unhappy editors on nearly all sides, as anyone who disagrees with or doesn't understand the result will be reacting rather negatively to how the decision was reached. A lack of openness will only boomerang on the ArbCom, no matter if you indef siteban me or completely unblock and reinstate me.

"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. WormTT(talk) 15:52, 24 July 2019 (UTC)" This makes no sense, how can the weight of the report no one in the community has seen depend on whatever the community submits? No one is able to provide evidence countering claims in the T&S document, since we don't know what claims have been made, apart from the very limited info they gave me (which I already shared here). Let's say it includes info like the two more detailed complaints in the infamous Signpost article; it reads as if you would believe these complaints if some people made the same fake complaints directly to you through email. That's not a way to have a fair result, but an echo chamber weighted extremely in favour of those having complaints. If you don't have permission to share the T&S document, then you should simply toss it out. Any sanction which is, even partially, based on that document where I have no chance to defend myself (nor any way to avoid the same behaviour after a sanction would expire, nor any way for others to avoid the same behaviour), is not acceptable.

"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)" True.

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) Again, true.

"Yes, I believe that we intend to package up all the evidence at the end of the phase and send it to Fram. They therefore do not have 7 days to comment, and any extension would simply afford others more time to send in evidence and delay when Fram gets to begin responding to arbitrators. AGK ■ 21:33, 25 July 2019 (UTC)" Thank you at least for confirming that I won't even have 7 days to reply...

All in all, everything I have seen so far gives me very little trust in this ArbCom case. Fram (talk) 09:32, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Arb Case: Cwmhiraeth

Allright, it looks from comments made by Cwmhiraeth at the Arb noticeboard, and edits he made here, that he plans to submit basically the same request they already provided in 2016, and which was rightly rejected then ([16]: this case was also included in the deleted Signpost page as evidence of something or other).

Can Arbs perhaps indicate if it is useful to defend myself against the exact same rejected accusations again, or will they go with the "we already dealt with those, please don't try to relitigate the same issues"? Many of the issues on that page are from before 2016 anyway, but e.g. blocking Jaguar for a week for repeated copyright violations is hardly a case of harassment, or disagreeing with the C of E about an incorrect DYK hook they tried to insert into an article repeatedly and promote to the main page? Apparently, according to Cwmhiraeth, my revocation of talk page access to globally banned user Russavia is evidence of something as well, but since it is from 2014, he probably hasn't again included it now?

Who else... LavaBaron? Since indef blocked as a sock of another indef blocked user; but even without this: in this and other cases mentioned (Cwmhiraeth themselves, Nvvchar, LauraHale) I noticed them during my near-daily DYK checks, which I did for years (but severely reduced after getting tired of all the crap I received in return from disgruntled editors like Cwmhiraeth). If it becomes obvious that an editor repeatedly is responsible for incorrect DYK hooks, and shows no indication that they really care about this or understand the issues, then it may become necessary to ask for sanctions at ANI or some such. This is what happened with Lavabaron (and with LauraHale for that matter), and is what admins (or other concerned editors) should do. That some of these sanctioned editors then retire, blaming the admin who checked their edits and tried to reduce the number of factual errors on the main page, is to be expected; but this is not evidence that that admin (in this case, me) did anything problematic. On the contrary even.

Basically, if there are complaints about my 2016 (or earlier) treatment of LauraHale, LavaBaron, Sander v. Ginkel (also included by Cwmhiraeth, I invite the Arbs to check the ANI archives for what the community view of their edits was in the end), Cwmhiraeth, the C of E, Russavia, Kumioko, Nvvchar, Jaguar, ... then please treat them as "already dealt with at ArbCom" and don't waste more time (yours and mine) in rediscussing these. Or refer them back to the community so they can first agree on which edits may be problematic and which are perfectly acceptable ones, and then only take the potentially problematic ones into account. Of course, I suppose that this is what you could expect by accepting anything from as early as 2016 for some reason (because the T&S report started then? So what? If it had started in 2007, would you then open a case investigating everything from back then as well?). If I have to discuss all these cases in the few days that will be alotted to me, then it will be a rushed, incomplete job, and basically a pointless exercise in going over old stuff already brought up at AN(I) and ArbCom in many cases. If it wasn't deemed an actionable problem in 2016, then why study it in 2019, when many editors have commented that taken in toto, my behaviour has significantly improved in 2018-2019 anyway? Fram (talk) 16:43, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Cwmhiraeth is a lady. Raystorm is also a lady, although you were unaware of it at the time you interacted with her, and may still be unaware of it. 86.128.213.49 10:43, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't believe Cwmhiraeth self-identifies onwiki? I can't find it on their userpage in any case. I would rather not discuss Raystorm, I have no idea if my almost-but-not-quite interaction ban includes Raystorm or not. Fram (talk) 11:49, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Fram, I read your case and was disappointed that the office stepped in on what they called "harassment". Harassment appears to be handled on Wikipedia, at least that's how I parsed the guildelines on that. Then they didn't let you have a say or appeal whoever office is, and gave only boilerplate for answers.

Now arbcom wants to try you again ? You've already been tried once. I don't see any merit for this. If they aquit you, they can't rescind the office, if they side with the office are they going to ban you again ? This is a shit-show. (Arbcom explained that WP:Office gave them the authority to ban or unban you, so I take back what I said earlier )

Also - I realize you can't say yea or nay, but I think the ban was over Ms. Laura Hale, as her lover is part of the Wikipedia board (its all over multiple boards dedicated to Wikipedia). If so, that's pretty nepotic of them! Fight the good fight - many support you over at the Wikipedia! NecromongerWekeepwhatwekill 15:35, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Off-wiki

Oh dear...

"::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)"

"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)"

WTT, that's not what is meant by "nothing happened off-wiki", and you know it. If you can't answer straifght questions in such wikilawyering ways, then don't answer at all. If this is the kind of fair treatment I may expect, then just close down the case and indef me already, as this is really becoming a farce. I see that many others have objected to your statements as well.

Arbcom, if you may not even answer the most basic things about the T&S document, then you should just exclude it from the case altogether. One of the main complaints about the T&S action was the total lack of a right to defend myself, but you are doing the exact same thing if you include the T&S document in your decisions in any way. Instead of the independent board I (and most people) thought you would be after the WMF sent this back to enwiki to deal with, you look more and more like lackeys of WMF instead of an independent body.

You could have looked at the T&S document and made an independent decision on it. You could have started from scratch and created a normal case, with the standard procedures. But you have instead created some hybrid monster with rules, deadlines, secrets, ... all set up to reach some conclusion which seems predetermined. Such a conclusion, no matter if it postive for me, negative, or something inbetween, will leave many more people unhappy than if you had conducted a proper case, in the open, with equal rights for both sides. The conclusion reached might be the same, but the perception would be totally different. Now, we don't even know who proposed and supported this procedure, who objected, ...

Things may improve still, but with each passing day and with each prejudiced or poisonous comment by an Arb it seems more and more unlikely. Fram (talk) 07:38, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Is it possible that you and WTT are going by different definitions of "off-wiki"? For example, I recall a dispute on MediaWiki that led to you being blocked. (I recall this because I was asked for advice privately at the time by one of the people involved who was very upset by your behavior.) Do you consider MediaWiki "off-wiki" for the purposes of an ArbCom case? Would ArbCom consider if off-wiki? How about other various auxiliary sites such as phabricaror? So far I have no reason to believe either you or WTT would say something untruthful, so I am trying to understand if you are simply using different definitions of the same term. 28bytes (talk) 20:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Possible, but unlikely. I don't consider mediawiki as "off-wiki", but to be more precise; since 2015 or so, to the best of my recollection, the only times I have moved a discussion to another wiki-part was when I noticed an editor putting copyvio images in enwiki; in those cases, I went to Commons to start a deletion discussion (of the top of my head, this happened with Richard Arthur Norton a few years ago, and more recently with Rama and with Elisa Rolle). I have not edited phabricator ever (I have used bugzilla in the distant past), I haven't edited Mediawiki in years, I haven't edited Wikidata ever (my "edits" there are fake software entries, page moves made on enwiki which trigger an edit in my name but without my knowledge or support in Wikidata), ... The only other things I did were two replies to the first mail I received from T&S, a few posts to oversight for very serious BLP problems unrelated to any of the cases I was involved with (so not posts about established editors, but e.g. a newbie with serious cross-wiki defamatiory articles), and a post to legal about a website falsely claiming to have an agreement with Wikipedia. My reply to contacts through wiki-email is usually that I prefer to have my business onwiki, my only longer mail discussion concerning another wikipedia editor was with Bishonen in 2017, and they can confirm if necessary that it was a) not about anyone I was in conflict with, b) with the best of intentions (and results!), and c) necessarily private. I have never used wikimail to harass or otherwise annoy other editors. Fram (talk) 07:24, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Trickles

"*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)"

No, but letting out evidence in trickles is how we do things normally, and would be fair to all parties. And I don't think anyone wants to speed up the process even more now that the case has finally started. What people want is a fair case, and some answers to very, very basic questions the WMF refused to answer, and WTT answered in a very misleading and troubling way. Acting as if answering such a simple question in an accurate way would be slowing down the process is bizarre...

If you are only going to answer questions like "has there been off-wiki activities by Fram leading to the WMF ban (or to new arbcom sanctions)" in the proposed decision, then you will not even honour your own promise to release a summary of the evidence to me and the enwiki community in general to react to (or that summary will be utterly meaningless). If that summary doesn't make it clear if there has or has not been offwiki activity by me which lead to complaints and/or sanctions, then it should not be in the proposed decision either. Fram (talk) 08:58, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this is an unusual case and it's unfortunate that we can't be as open with the evidence as normal. We will definitely release summarised evidence to you and the rest of the community as promised.

But it's one thing for things to presented as evidence by a party or commentator, quite another for an arb to state it as fact. The latter creates the impression that the committee has made up its mind on that point, when in fact we are still gathering and looking at the evidence, and there is also a lot to be said for the importance of drafting and re-drafting by multiple people to make sure that FoFs are communicated clearly. The confusion created by different arbs' understandings of and answers to SchroCat's question I think illustrates why asking us to individually comment on specific matters, while the evidence phase is ongoing, is a bad idea. Joe Roe (talk) 07:44, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, but you've had the T&S document for what, 3 or 4 weeks now? You looked at it rather thoroughly. You also have received all mail communication between T&S from me and from T&S (I presume). Confirming (or denying) that there is no claim of off-wiki issues in the T&S document, and confirming (or denying) that my posts about the T&S communication were all correct, should surely be possible by now? I mean, there must have been something you did in the weeks between your reception of the T&S document, and the final opening of the case, and I would hope that that would include reading the document, reading the mails, and checking whether I had been making up stuff to diabolize the WMF, or not? And if I had been making up such stuff, one would suppose that you wouldn't need a kind-of case to sanction me, but could just have said so and be done with it?

If the T&S document contains no claims of offwiki problems, then it should not be a problem for an Arb to state this as fact. If the document has claims of offwiki conduct, but you aren't sure if they are truthful or not (or if they are by me or by some joe job), then how are you going to determine this if you don't even ask me or the community to check into this? You will have to include this in the summary of evidence anyway, if you want to base a FoF on it.

I can't see this case ending well with the way you (collectively) are proceeding now. If you are not even allowed to answer the most simple questions about the T&S document (not "Has Fram done this or that?", but "Does the document contain allegations of this or that?"), but still insist that it may be used as evidence, then I don't see how these positions are in any way both tenable in a fair case.

What the purpose is of keeping me banned, desysopped, and without even talk page access for (at least) two months, while allowing me to communicate from here anyway, is completely unclear as well. If the full authority for the case has been handed back to enwiki and arbcom, then you have the authority to proceed in a normal way with this; under enwiki rules, there is no reason to ban and summarily desysop me, and even less reason to deny me talk page access. Either this is now an Arbcom decision, and then I would like some explanation of the reasoning; or this is a WMF requirement, and then you have not been given free rein but the WMF has imposed requirements from the very start, without they or you disclosing these (as far as I know at least). Fram (talk) 08:09, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

This case or no case?

"Please bear in mind that the effect of supporting this will not be to give Fram full access to the private evidence in his case, because we are contractually prohibited from giving it to him. What it will do is stop ArbCom from having a case, sinking the only compromise solution we have yet found to this deadlock between enwiki and the WMF. I don't think we are breaching ARBPOL: we are making every effort to give Fram a reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about him in what is a complex and exceptional circumstance. This is a process we have had to put together quickly, with little precedent and no time to consult the community on alternative formats. As WTT has said, it won't be the template for how private cases will or should look in the future. – Joe (talk) 07:57, 1 August 2019 (UTC) "

No. Unless you have been given rather precise instructions by the WMF (and if so, then please say so and either reveal these instructions or tell us you are not allowed to do this either), you should be able to hold a case in whatever way you (ArbCom) see fit, within the arbcom policy. Why you would have a case where you not even allow pubolic evidence, only private evidence, is completely unclear. Why you would not have a regular workshop phase after you have published the summary of the evidence is again completely unclear. There is no reason at all not to consult the community if you are going to publish the evidence summary anyway (unless you believe the summary will be so generic and meaningless that it wil serve no purpose to have a discussion about it at all, in which case there is little point in sending it to me for a reaction either). You claim "we are making every effort to give Fram a reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about him", which is not the impression I get (nor many others it seems). The timeline you have decided on is not tenable if you really want to give me a "reasonable opportunity" to respond and will take that into account when making your proposed decision.

In a case like en:Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland, you gave yourselves 14 days after the workshop closed, and that deadline is already more than 2 weeks in the past. So you need at least a month to post a decision in that case, but here you will, in one week, summarize the evidence, give me a chance to respond, and post a proposed decision? And I have to believe that that proposed decision isn't already written and just needs to be signed and dated, and spiced up with some juicy bits of evidence you received, and some token acknowledgment of my responses? Because, from where I am sitting, it surely starts to look like this a bit more with every passing day and every deflective response by the Arbs. Fram (talk) 08:38, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Private information

A lot of discussion currently is about private information, and whether I and/or the community should get access to all information or not. What no one expects is that you indiscrimnitaely reveal everything that has been mailed to you or T&S. If e.g. someone includes "outing" information on themselves or others in mails (accidentally, or because they think it is relevant to you), then I would not expect you to distribute such things of course. I also don't think many people are waiting to see what kind of nonsense "evidence" you get from cranks which you simply discard in the trash bin anyway.

What I (and I guess others) object to, is the withholding of evidence that a) you will consider in your verdict, and b) is available onwiki anyway. This includes deleted stuff. If e.g. you would in your summary include things like "Fram is banned because they deleted too many articles from one editor", then it would be impossible to reply to this as it is way too vague. If you in such a case don't name the editor (the article creator, not the editor who provided this evidence), then no one can check whether this was harassment or just good admin work. The same goes for warnings, reverts, blocks, ...

This applies as well to vague accusations like me targeting "vulnerable editors" or "sexually harassing people". Without some concrete evidence, this is again impossible to confirm or deny. For e.g. this accusation made in the deleted Signpost article, it was only because the circumstances were somewhat recognisable to me that I was able to effectively rebut this. But if the accusations would be even more obscure (or the siutation described differed even more wildly from reality or was less prominent), then all I could have done was react with "I don't recognise myself in this description and have no idea what you are talking about", which would be truthful but hardly an effective method of defending oneself, nor would it be useful to anyone else to judge whether I really was acting in such a way.

Now, imagine that the T&S report or your summary / FoF will not include one such pseudo-anonymous story, but something like "25 editors have complained that Fram is doing these horrible things", would that make them any more true? We have already seen that some people are more than willing to repeat such accusations, even when they could check for themselves if there was any truth to them. But when stated as a dry bit of evidence, it looks rather damning to uninvolved watchers.

Private evidence may mean that more victims are willing to actually tell their true story, but it also gives much more power to others to fabricate or (more likely) twist and exaggerate their story. It happened in the Signpost story, so it is likely to happen even more in this case where they get more privacy and secrecy.

TLDR: I (and others) don't need to know who made accusations (although I would expect ArbCom to treat blatantly false evidence given in private the same as blatant personal attacks onwiki would be), but I (we) do need to know as precisely and completely as possibly what exactly I am accused of. And of course given enough time (i.e. a true workshop phase) to discuss these things, after which an acceptable, fact-based proposed decision can be written. I have not seen a good reason from the ArbCom why this approach is not possible here. Fram (talk) 14:28, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

SilkTork

• "I have said previously, but I don't mind repeating it for clarity, that we intend to hold a case on Fram."

Uh, that case is ongoing, so this is a really strange start...

• "We will have a workshop, and will publish findings and reach a public decision."

We will have a workshop? When will that be? The time between the closing of the evidence phase and the closing of the workshop pages is exacty ZERO seconds. I would urge the committee to truly have a workshop phase here, but then make this a lot more obvious and change the posted timeline. As it stands, your comment contradicts everything else said about this case so far.

• "If there are any off-wiki activities that are a cause for concern that will be revealed as the case unfolds."

The ban is nearly two months old (and kept in place without good reason), you have had the document for nearly a month and the evidence phase is nearly closed: perhaps you could finally have "revealed" if so far, there are any "off-wiki activities that are a cause for concern" instead of treating this like some blockbuster with a cliffhanger?

• "I understand that there is still frustration over T&S banning an enwiki contributor for one year, but we are past that stage."

Which "we" is that?

• "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."

Apart from Arbs saying that their opinion is already tainted by the document, or that they will take the document into consideration depending on other evidence. Apart from the fact as well that T&S basically dictated the terms under which this case should be held, including that I needed to remain banned (or why else have I not even been at the very least given access to my enwiki talk page to have these discussions?)

• "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."

I thought it was about harassment? or are you equating harassment and incivility now?

• "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."

Yeah? Did they contact anyone to perhaps shed some different light on things? A "gathering of information" only based on what protesters post to the WMF is not "fair".

• "SilkTork (talk) 02:50, 4 August 2019 (UTC)"

The remainder of your post again seems to indicate that this whole case is about incivility, not about harassment. I already indicated in 2018 that I would change my approach and avoid incivility, and in general editors seem to agree that my behaviour since then has markedly improved. Still, here I am desysopped and banned since nearly two months before any evidence has even been presented that such drastic action was or remains necessary at all. Fram (talk) 07:25, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Geo Swan (an example of how this is supposed to work?)

As an example of hos this is supposed to work (or more likey, not) after the evidence summary is provided and I get the chance to reply for a few hours or so:

Geo Swan posts [17]: "The invitation requested evidence from the last three years. If I feel recent incidents show Fram is continuing a counterpolicy focus on my activities that dates back a decade should evidence I submit include or disclude diffs that document instances that are older than three years? Geo Swan (talk) 14:59, 3 August 2019 (UTC)"

I have just checked my posts to his talk page, [18] and the most recent ones are from January 2016, asking him to deal with his countless user space articles kept their for many, many years. Many of these were deleted as BLP violations (as were many BLP violations) around 2010, ending in an RfC/U in early 2011 (here). After 2012, I mainly left Geo Swan alone, as people were claiming (mostly incorrectly) that others would deal with it.

In January 2016, I noticed Geo Swan's name again (don't recall where now), and checked on his userspace drafts. Noticing that not much had changed, I asked him about these here in the section "old userspace articles. I got no reply, and dropped the issue even though these userspace articles contain many serious BLP violations, as I pointed out in the AfDs and the RfCU, and in the talk page comments.

Something like en:User:Geo Swan/Amir Hamza (Balkh) was created in April 2012 (i.e. after the RfCU), and has never been edited since (so more than 7 years old). It contains the claim "X, a police chief in Afhganistan who was accused of atrocities" (with X an actual redlinked name which never had an article associated), a typical serious BLP violation.

I did, at the time, not act upon this uot of fear of being accused of harassment, even though the right thing to do would have been to take up that cause again, delete that user space draft immediately for BLP reasons, and bring the general issue of these Geo Swan drafts to ANI for discussion.

Even so, I apparently have somehow harassed Geo Swan in 2016 or more recently (no idea where, I have checked AfD but can't find interactions in the last 5 years).

So I ask again from the arbs, will anything be done about frivolous, meritless complaints? Or can anyone post privately to the Arbs whatever they like without any consequences, where I will have to spend hours to defend myself from this kind of claims? From here, it looks as if I will get a torrent of editors ho have had articles deleted or other problematic editing revealed and now try to get revenge, no matter that the actual problematic enwiki editing is usually theirs, not mine. Someone like Geo Swan should have his userspace and mainspace articles thoroughly checked and lots of it deleted, but I will probably be accused of harassment simply by posting this, even though I left him alone for years even when I was aware of ongoing BLP problems, and when it was obvious that they had no plans to do anything about this at all. A public workshop phase would seriously help with all of this, where other editors could deal with the obvious revenge posts and I could focus on the cases where my edits truly were problematic. Fram (talk) 09:48, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Ritchie333

I'm not helping myself here, but I'm beyond caring frankly. The current discussion at en:Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration motion regarding Ritchie333 and Praxidicae shows how totally out of sync ArbCom is, and makes me fear for what I may expect (ceryainly when coupled with the way my case has been handled or not so far, with many contradicting statements but in the end still a completely impossible timeline).

As far as I can see:

• R and P have haed troublemsome interactions for quite a while now, but an AN case 8 months ago decided that an Iban was premature
• Things continued in the same vein, but instead of asking An again for an Iban considering the continued situation, someone went straight to ArbCom (or to T&S?)
• R was asked to give his reaction to some diffs, but without any indication that this was the full evidence/workshop phase of a secret case, and not just some preliminary questions to e.g. decide if a case was needed.
• R received no further questions, reactions, proposals...
• Two weeks later, R gets topic banned as the aggressor; this comes for him and for the community at large completely out of the blue, and R retires

Then follows a lengthy discussion at the noticeboard, with people mainly arguing over the way the Arbs handled this case (both the general situation of a secret case, and the poorly worded announcement).

Of the 8 currently active Arbs, we have

• One complaining that "By re-posting his emails here weeks later, it only accomplishes two things: (1) places a considerable amount of pressure Praxidicae to make their statement and evidence public; (2) it forces a private dispute resolution process to become public without the consent of the others involved. It sends the message that anyone who comes to the Arbitration Committee with privacy concerns should expect the other party to go public with anything they receive if they do not like the outcome. It also says you can continue to potentially talk about another person with whom you have an IBAN as long as you're continuing to litigate your case even if a final decision has been reached. Mkdw talk 22:20, 7 August 2019 (UTC) "

Oh no, weeks later, truly? Because from where I stand, it looks as if Ritchie was notified on 6 August, and posted the emails the very next day.

And again, oh, no, "forces a private dispute resolution process to become public without the consent of the others involved."; has R given his consent to a private dispute resolution process in the first place?

• Two others saying (well, one said it and one agreed): "I am incredibly disappointed by the community's reaction to this situation. This kind of public circus of speculation was the exact kind of thing we were trying to prevent by handling this situation privately. The response here has now confirmed for anyone who wishes to report any kind of harassment that they will receive nothing but scorn and scrutiny until they are driven away entirely. For anyone who made the argument at the FRAMBAN discussion that the WMF should leave en.wiki alone to solve its own problems, this is conclusive evidence that we not only cannot constructively handle complaints of harassment and misbehavior, but that we, as a community, actively choose not to. Instead, we nitpick over the meaning of common-sense wording, complain that the behavior can't possibly have been that bad, and dredge up everything negative we can find to make involved parties look as bad as possible. This could have been a good opportunity to show the WMF that we are mature adults who can handle our own problems; this discussion has demonstrated exactly the opposite. As a community, we failed here today, and there is no doubt in my mind that the WMF will take this situation into account when making decisions about the future governance of the English Wikipedia. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:41, 8 August 2019 (UTC) "

As others have pointed out, the lengthy discussion is not about P, and the only editor driven away by this whole mess is R, and his retirement is not due to the discussion but due to how the Arbs handled this. "conclusive evidence that we not only cannot constructively handle complaints of harassment and misbehavior, but that we, as a community, actively choose not to." Not really, no. It is only evidence that the Arbs, in the wake of my situation, seem to have no clue any more how to deal with bog standard cases, and are panicking and trying new and worse ways to solve things. If the WMF will take this discussion as a pretext to make decisions about enwiki, then it should be about the dysfunctional current ArbCom, not about the community. Fram (talk) 11:35, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Fram, that's a pretty good appraisal of the situation. I can't see myself editing Wikipedia mainspace again, and that's not out of anger or "screw you, community" but simply that I'm doing other things in my life. I can't think of what article I'd write next, I have to force myself to make time for editing these days, and if I don't think I'm welcome it makes it very easy to do something else - particularly if I get paid for it. I don't really give a flying monkeys who produces WP content as long as the end result looks good for the reader; if an article's worth writing, somebody will eventually do it.

To answer another conspiracy theory floating around (FWIW I've known about Wikipediocracy for years and occasionally been "head hunted" to join the forums; while some of it is puerile "har har isn't admin x a total douchebag", other stuff can be seriously insightful and illuminating), no I didn't complain about you to T&S (as if I could be bothered to do that!) and I haven't sent any evidence in the Arbcom case because it sounds too much like hard work.

I will say this to those claiming I've been guilty of "harassment" and "mysogony". I've disclosed on-wiki that I'm mostly asexual and "a bit queer" (but only a bit) and am suffering from depression. I've been fortunate enough for women to confide actual harassment to me (such as the person who opened up in a pub and told me she'd been raped as a teenager, and another one who said sexual abuse towards women is more common than you think - that was an eye opener). I've also met people who I think are actual mysognoists (when you go around gigging in pubs you run into them) and I think they're all fucking scum. I don't think anyone realises who profoundly upset I am to be tarred with that brush. Ritchie333 (talk) 06:58, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Re: Two weeks later, R gets topic banned as the aggressor. Has ArbCom imposed a topic ban on R? All I see is a 1.5-way interaction ban (Tryptofish’ coinage). I’m not defending ArbCom’s handling of the R-and-P case here, or their wording of their decision; I’m just checking whether I missed something. (Maybe you reclassified the interaction ban as a topic ban because R and P share mutual topical interests. That’s just guessing on my part.) — Adhemar (talk) 12:31, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

I think that must have been a typo. It was a clear and unambiguous semisymmetric interaction ban with R as the no-fault aggressor. And there wasn't any secret case, it was just a preliminary investigation as to whether a case regarding the sysop bit was needed, followed by the unrelated i-ban out of the yellow, if I'm understanding the latest clarification correctly. Cyp (talk) 13:36, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I meant "interaction ban", not "topic ban", thanks. Fram (talk) 06:46, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

New timeline

Thanks. Fram (talk) 06:23, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Have they sent you anything yet? Did they provide proof of any transgression at all? Jehochman (talk) 14:46, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Nothing yet. "Proof of any transgression at all" won't be too hard, I have made e.g. in the last years two blocks which were overturned by community consensus as either just wrong or way too harsh, and I have stated at ArbCom that at some point I started too often crossing the line between being blunt and being a dick about it; but these issues were out in the open, dealt with by the community, and in general my approach was a lot better since then. It wil be interesting to see which issues will be raised, and from when. And if that will include any guidance for me (and for others) where they draw the line between checking the edits of problematic editors ("problematic" as in having some specific issue they struggle with, like e.g. good editors with too many BLP violations, or "problematic" as in just lacking the competence and/or the necessary basic knowledge of English to contribute in a generally positive, productive way) and "harassment". Fram (talk) 07:22, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrator Opabinia regalis stated yesterday, Thursday, August 15, 2019, 08:21 UTC: Still wrapping up the evidence, but almost finished; should be out in a day or two. diff — Adhemar (talk) 07:48, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Evidence

(text copied from the mail I received from ArbCom, some layout and numbering added by me)

The following is a public summary of the evidence passed to the arbitration committee by community members. In addition, we have received copies of emails sent between Trust and Safety and Fram, as well as another individual and Fram. Information which was significantly out of date has been removed, as has anything which has been significantly dealt with elsewhere.

Administrator actions

1.1 Earlier this year, Fram blocked Martinevans123, which was then quickly reversed as "excessive" by Floquenbeam: Log: [19] AN/I: [20]

1.2 August of last year, Fram's block of GorillaWarfare was criticized and then immediately reversed: [21]

1.3 Block of Mathsci: [22]

1.4 Fram threatens to block Martinevans for having YouTube links on his user page.[23]. He follows through. The block was seen as vindictive and transfer to ANI for a community discussion was recommended (Note past history with Martinevans)

1.5 Excessive block length of Martinevans [24]

Incivility

2.1 "Fuck off" in both edit summary and revision text. [25]

2.2 "F off" in edit summary [26]

2.3 Fram accuses Cwmhiraeth of using personal attacks, tells her to "fuck off". Fram remains confrontational, but shrugs it off.

2.4 "I couldn't give a flying fuck about how I come across"

Harassment / Bullying

3.1 Laura Hale retirement [27] (NB Nov 2012 Jan 2014)

3.2 "I'm an admin, you are not. You may have your own stupid opinion". Fram causes Ybmlanter to resign

3.3 Hounding Gatoclass [28][29][30]

Past attempt to be dealt with by the community

Arbcom declined

4.1.1 The committee declined to hear a Fram case in October 2016 [31]

4.1.2 Also in February 2018:[32] (including not asking for more evidence when told Fram often assumes bad faith here: [33] )

4.1.3 More recently, an arbitration remedy against Fram was not passed by the Commitee: [34] Noting also multiple cases raised by Fram, some of which considered his behaviour [35][36][37]

ANI threads

4.2.1 Wikidata and fallout [38] (raised by Fram)

4.2.2 User Fram and incivilty [39]

4.2.3 Misuse of tools by Fram [40]

Individual editors

4.3.1 Ritchie333 advising Fram to be more civil [41][42]

Disputes highlighted to look at

5.1 Here's Fram's full interaction with Magioladitis and Izno from September 2017: [43]

5.2 Signpost article (deleted content - [44])

Other notes

6.1 There's one instance where Fram undid his own mistakes, like one block on one editor: [45] [46]

6.2 Fram has a history of commentary on various software projects, which was not appreciated by a few WMF employees, who were ready to use their tools to block him for that reason: [47]

Evidence passed to us from over 3 years ago

7.1 Richard Farmborough case, Fram was prominent in pursuing the named party

7.2 Nvvchar, Fram targeted, leading to him quitting - evidence at Nvvchar's talk page first copyvio discussion, DYK for Carrie A. Tuggle DYK for Anil de Silva, second copyvio discussion, Tracy Edser, discussion at WT:DTK, Good Articles review, immediate delisting of two just-passed GAs: [48] and [49], immediate delisting of another recently-passed GA

Replies

• Martinevans (1.1, 1.4, and 1.5, which is identical to 1.1). The first block of Martinevans followed multiple warnings over a long period, with no improvements. After this block, they seemed to have stopped posting links to copyright violating youtube pages all over the place (to his own user page, but also to many other talk pages), and I left them alone. The second block happened when they reposted a page I had deleted as a copyvio (by another editor where Martinevans, as far as I know, had no history with). While my block was justified (they had been warned about copyvio often enough), the length was excessive.

• Gorillawarfare (1.2): blocked for a personal attack, but it was too harsh to block for this kind of comment which happens all the time all over the place. No prior or later negative interactions with Gorillawarfare as far as I know, and no hard feelings remain from either side (see [50]

• MathSci (1.3): no idea what this is evidence of; yes, it is an administrative action, that's what admins do.

• Fuck off and similar: yes, I sometimes use this, though not as often as it may seem from this section; 2.2 was a "F off" towards myself, as I was struggling to get the page right (both the edit before and after this one were mine as well). 2.3: the first diff[51] is hardly an example of me being incivil or using "fuck off" or so, is it? And the last diff[52] is me talking about the use of fuck off, and that it is uncivil but no a personal attack. For 2.4 I apologized the next day at the user talk page[53].

• 3.1 LauraHale diffs are from 2012/2014, so not in scope for this case. Statement on her page is not about her retirement at all.
• 3.2: see 4.2.2, diff is completely taken out of context and summarizes something said by Ymblanter, not by me!
• 3.3: What's the problem with these diffs? I went to the talk page of an admin who I thought was out of line, they didn't see a problem with their statements, so I posted it at ANI, which concluded that "Gatoclass should back down"[54]. I thought the lesson we were supposed to take from this whole Framban thing was that we shouldn't let "bad" behaviour by admins go unchecked for too long?

• 4.1 to 4.3: how are they evidence of problematic behaviour by me? If the cases were incorrectly declined, then that is an issue with the arbs then. The actual issues with me should be in the other sections here (e.g. some parts are about Gatoclass or Ymblanter, so things already raised elsewhere), but this part is just filler. That a statement by Ymblanter about me is removed as a clerk action[55] is supposedly a diff of problematic behaviour by me ... how?

In February 2019, two arbs supported an admonishment (or reminder) about my conduct, 8 others disagreed[56]. This is the most recent diff in this whole evidence page, as far as I have seen, yet 4 months later I was banned for one year and remain so two months later. It is clear from the evidence that my conduct has significantly improved and that my conduct in 2019 was in general not a problem (apart from the MartinEvans block of course). The reward for improving one's behaviour is banning?

• 4.2.2 (see also 3.2): [57] concluded with no action taken, and if you read the actual discussion, it looks as if every single commenter saw no merit in the section at all and agreed with my comments: "I entirely concur with Fram's 'interpretation'.", "Fram really didn't do anything wrong in this situation", "I would have interpreted the first two sentences of this diff exactly how Fram did", "it's clear that Fram has done nothing wrong", "what I'm seeing is Fram quoting you and offering their interpretation, most of which seem resonable.", "I'm not seeing any civility problems here. I think Fram's paraphrasing of what you've said is reasonable.", "I don't see any intentional incivility or gross misrepresentation on his part. " How such a section can be used as evidence of ArbCom-worthy misbehaviour by me is quite incomprehensible.

• 4.2.3; [58] basically the same problem as 4.2.2, i.e. a title included in the evidence against me which makes the list of problems longer and more impressive, but which in reality closed as "withdrawn" because again no one agreed with the original poster that any misuse of tools had happened.

• 4.3.1: the two diffs have nothing to do with "Ritchie333 advising Fram to be more civil" as far as I can see? No idea what this is doing here, the whole section 4 should probably be removed (or kept as evidence of the fact that many complaints are simply invalid)

• 5.1: isn't this the same as 2.1?

• 5.2: this was deleted as a BLP violation against me, and the two actual identifiable issues were exposed to be complete misrepresentations.

• 6.1: I mistakenly blocked, immediately self-reverted, and apologized. This is a good thing, no?

• 6.2: this is on another project, in 2014 (so out of scope anyway).

• 7: old stuff.

It would have been nice if ArbCom had used that week+ they took to summarize the "evidence" to actually weed out the wheat from the chaff, and remove duplicates, things out of scope, and things which are not evidence of anything problematic, so that this case could have focused on a fair, accurate summary of what I actually did wrong, and how this has improved (or not) more recently. ArbCom just reposting whatever nonsense accusations someone posted on the Internet without checking if the claims about me had any merit at all is disappointing.

I see that most of the above "evidence" (the actual evidence and the ridiculous bits) all appear on [59] so it seems as if whoever posted to the Arbs took it from there (and it also seems as if not too many people bothered to post evidence, which would have been obvious with an open case instead of this hopefully never repeated experiment). Fram (talk) 07:35, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh god I see the Ymblanter thing is on there. I see the tradition of taking a series of events and taking exactly the opposite thing away from it they should have is alive and well at T&S. Only in death (talk) 08:51, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

@Only in death: The above evidence does not stem from T&S; it only contains an anonymised summary of whatever the heck was mailed to their mailing lists, after opening the case. The arbs have rejected divulging the contents of T&S report in any minimal manner and WTT has even declined to answer an elementary query about the %overlap between this evidence and the T&S one. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 09:08, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Ha, good point. Well I can take an educated guess as to which bits originated with T&S. Today's Sesame Street has been brought to you by the letters 'L' and 'H'. Only in death (talk) 10:26, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

(ec)Well, the evidence given to me through the Arbs didn't come from T&S, but from unknown members of the public. The above "evidence", apart from a few more recent things, is basically a repeat of this failed attempt to desysop me which included the exact same nonsense accusations (Mathsci, my supposed "you're not an admin" quote, previous AN threads which found no fault at all, ...) and which was dismissed after people started actually looking at the diffs. How many times do I have to defend myself against the same bullshit accusations before the people raising them again and again are perhaps reminded that such actions are, truly, harassment? People raising issues with my behaviour is totally acceptable: people reposting "issues" with my behaviour which have already repeatedly been shown to be false claims should get a boomerang from ArbCom though. Fram (talk) 09:09, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

• So, the first line of evidence is about a block by you that was undone by .. User:Floquenbeam, the very admin that .. unblocked you? Is this supposed to be ironic or what? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 11:12, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Ironic and completely fitting into the reversed chronology we seem to be headed for. If only there was still time to prevent it from ever happening. EllenCT (talk) 02:47, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

WTT

• [60]

"I've made it perfectly clear that I cannot give more information about what is contained in the T&S document, I've been as forthcoming as I can be. There is a clear statement about the document which is on the evidence page. I've also stated that I understand T&S's decision to ban, based upon it - whether Arbcom would have made the same decision with the same evidence, I don't know. Worm^TT(talk) 14:23, 20 August 2019 (UTC)"

I don't quite get it. "whether Arbcom would have made the same decision with the same evidence, I don't know." Um, you are on ArbCom, and you have been sent the T&S document. So why then don't you know whether ArbCom would have made the same decision? What have you been discussing all these weeks? I (and I think many others) presumed all along that if you would have made the same decision based on the evidence in the T&S document, you would have said so, done. Instead, you eventually opened a case to ask for evidence in the widest possible way (anonymous, going back three years). But when the feedback you received from this was insufficient to support a one year ban or a desysop, you suddenly switch back to "well, maybe the T&S document is good enough to ban Fram anyway"? In which case this whole ArbCom case was a time-wasting charade.

It looks a lot as if you want to ban me, but hoped that you would get enough community input to make a clear-cut case with public evidence (or at least a public summary). When that failed, you had to fall back on the T&S document anyway. But of course, many people looked at my contribs during the past months, and everyone with a grudge or a valid complaint had the perfect opportunity to raise all kinds of issues with ArbCom, yet none of them found that bannable offense the T&S document refers to???

Whatever sanction ArbCom would apply now, based on the T&S document, would be utterly pointless. I then don't know what I did I was sanctioned for, and have no way to avoid the issue once the sanction has expired (no matter if that is after one year, or some "time served" resolution). Other editors are still left in the dark as to what kind of edits are suddenly bannable. All you and T&S will have done is create an atmosphere of fear and anger, not one of trust and safety.

The way you are approaching this (or at least how you are communicating about it) gives me very little confidence in a fair result. Fram (talk) 14:43, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts, which I'll certainly take on board. With regards to the case, can I suggest you mark a sub-page or a subsection for clerks to watch and copy across to the workshop page? As you're the only party, you have a convenient spot in each section for them to copy to. Worm^TT 18:34, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

How about instead you just unblock me with the indication that this is only for the duration of the case, and only to edit case pages? This has been done in the past with people who had an actual enwiki block, and worked fine. Having me comment here instead of on enwiki serves no discernable purpose and only gives the impression that this whole case is still being ruled over by the WMF and not by ArbCom, and that you are very limited in what you are allowed to do (but apparently can't disclose this). IF you are truly allowed to take over the whole case, all aspects of it, then there should be no reason not to let me participate directly on enwiki. Fram (talk) 10:03, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

There are afraid to let the beast out of his cage, apparently. Jehochman (talk) 06:27, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Sneaky evidence addition

I see now that the evidence you posted to me is not the same as the evidence you posted on the evidence page. I got

"The following is a public summary of the evidence passed to the arbitration committee by community members. In addition, we have received copies of emails sent between Trust and Safety and Fram, as well as another individual and Fram. Information which was significantly out of date has been removed, as has anything which has been significantly dealt with elsewhere.

Administrator actions[...]"

On the evidence page, you posted[61]

"The following is a public summary of the community evidence passed to the arbitration committee by community members. In addition, we have received copies of emails sent between Trust and Safety and Fram, as well as another individual and Fram. Information which was significantly out of date has been removed, as has anything which has been significantly dealt with elsewhere.

Although the identity and related content of initial reports was redacted, we understood after review of the 70+ page Trust and Safety document that there were over a dozen reports to the Foundation. The report detailed long-term disputes with several community members, Arbcom as a body and its membership, and Foundation staff members. We did not see any evidence of off-wiki abuse.

Administrator actions[...]"

Any reason you couldn't post the same thing to me, or at least drop me a note that you had added those lines? I was supposed to reply to the evidence you posted, not to the evidence minus the most extensive summary of the T&S document you ever posted. Again, perfect communication. Fram (talk) 14:50, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

• As the sentence concerned the T&S document, which was still being negotiated when we sent the email to you. I had intended to forward it on to you once we had it, but you decided to move straight on. I had the final nod on Monday morning and included it. If there's anything you'd like to add to your response, please do, I'd be happy to copy it across for you. Worm^TT 18:34, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
  • So you negotiated with the T&S from what, 5 July or so until 19 August, and you just received the "final nod" the same morning I posted the evidence and my replies? What an unhappy coincidence, reminds me of the time Legacypac wasn't allowed to post directly to cases, and when after two days I posted it instead, you just happened to arrive within the hour while no one bothered to respond the two days before this. Karma is a bitch sometimes. Fram (talk) 07:19, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Let's bring in some random unsupported "evidence", shall we?

So, WTT, you are now using statements not in the Arb case, without any supporting evidence, as the basis for your upcoming support of a siteban?[62]

The text by HJMitchell is

"Fram has an ugly habit of railroading good-faith but somewhat troubled editors like this by taking a legitimate but relativley minor issue, then subjecting an editor to levels of scrutiny nobody could withstand, then blowing the issues out of all proportion, all the while badgering the editor incessantly so that they feel they can't breathe without Fram coming down on them like a ton of bricks. Of course, I do not wish to make light of copyright issues, but the solution in this case was clearly discussion and education, not enforcement and blocks. If Fram can't or won't discuss and educate, they should bring the matter to a noticeboard where other editors can assist. Yes, he may be within the letter of WP:INVOLVED, but the spirit is surely that if it isn't an emergency, there are ~1200 admins who can share the load. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:17, 30 January 2019 (UTC) "

And you use this as justification, even though it contains no evidence of this observation at all, and wasn't even correct in this particular case (where I had first tried to steer Martinevans in the right direction multiple times, then blocked them when nothing changed, and then left them completely alone until they decided to repost a copyright violation I had just deleted (made by another editor wher Martinevans had no prior involvement in the situation)? I did not "badger the editor incessantly", I did not contact them at all between the end of the first block (February 2018) and the (too long) January 2019 block.

You can actually check such things, e.g. by using this, where you can see that the "incessant badgering" was some posts in April 2017 explaining the problem (to no avail), then some posts in February 2018 about the same issue (still to no avail), and then a block two weeks later, which solved the problem. "If Fram can't or won't discuss and educate", well, this was exactly what I did in this instance...

This is why we need to handle situations like this in the standard manner, with a normal evidence and workshop page, where people can see, check, discuss the actual allegations: instead we get a secret evidence page, but when that doesn't produce the results you like, you indicate that the T&S document will be the basis for your decision anyway, and that you also consider throwaway comments outside the actual case as evidence.

"the document establishes a pattern in the way Fram behaves towards people - one that has been picked up on Wikipedia": as shown above, if the evidence of such a "pattern" is as good as it was in the case of Martinevans, then this is again a clear indication that there is no case to answer (at least not a case of this magnitude), and that you (and T&S) are grasping at straws to justify the contuning ban and desysop.

People were free to send you (anonymously!) all the evidence they wanted to establish such a pattern of behaviour, and yet they failed to do so. And still your conclusion is that such a pattern exists, that it justifies the sanctions, but that sadly you cannot share it with the community. Fram (talk) 07:51, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

For the record, I repeat - I did not submit any evidence for this case, the diffs in the section marked "Ritchie333 advising Fram to be more civil" don't appear to have anything to do with me, and I can't help thinking that if I did directly complain about another editor saying "fuck off", it would be a superb case of the pot calling the kettle black. Ritchie333 (talk) 11:44, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't think it came from you (and I don't think an advise to me to be more civil is problematic anyway). The diffs have indeed nothing to do with you, so no idea why ArbCom kept them like this in their summary. They have not really responded to any comment about duplicate or wrong inclusions, instead shifting the message to "but the T&S report is so bad that the lack of actual damning evidence here is not a problem". Fram (talk) 12:04, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

More

" indeed, I believe that would be a helpful principle to make. The fact is that Fram did not just make comments about the committee as a body (that diff above), but also directly against committee members, within cases. Worm^TT(talk) 06:56, 22 August 2019 (UTC)"

Then you (or anyone) should have added this to the evidence during the evidence phase, no? Are you considering using these things (see also the section above) during the workshop and decision phase or not? Because if you do, then why did you bother with an evidence phase at all if you will add whatever pleases you anyway? And if you do plan to use these, then at least have the decency to use actual diffs to support your statements, not just vague accusations (here) or hearsay (above). Or am I now making "comments directly against committee members, within cases" again and do I need to be punished for this? Fram (talk) 07:16, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

The statement can be cited to the cases themselves, which are linked, or to the T&S document - where the one line summary mentions it. However, I will do my best to pull some diffs through on the analysis of evidence section, so you can see what I'm referring to. Worm^TT 07:37, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

As an Arb, you should now that that is not how evidence in an Arb case works.

"The parties and other interested editors are encouraged to place evidence on the case's Evidence subpage, in the form of diffs demonstrating contested behavior along with explanations and context. Be clear and concise. The parties should be aware that argument is not evidence, and that thirty words and five well-chosen diffs may speak more eloquently than a 500-word diatribe.

Serious allegations require serious evidence, with each aspect of the evidence supported by illustrative diffs. An arbitrator or clerk may remove statements which are not adequately substantiated. "

And from en:Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram/Evidence

"Supporting assertions with evidence

Evidence must include links to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. "

Please don't now try to use inadmissible evidence (full cases), nor invisible evidence (the T&S document). There are already very few rules remaining in this case, it would be appreciated if you at least stuck to those rules and not proceed any way you want.

Now, looking at the fundamentals: you refer to the 2019 case, where you have a remedy about me failing 2 to 8, probably because the one finding of fact about me, which was not about comments towards arbitrators, failed as well (again 2 to 8). Your reply to Beetstra[63] refers this FoF (the "Fram" section in [64]. Your original statement was about me making comments against committee members in cases, but the FoF (and thus the comments about "exhausting", "less than ideal", "I went back and forth", "I have concerns" were not about comments against committee members in cases, but about comments towards others, and not even in the case.

This is why we normally have a full evidence phase, to make sure that evidence can get scrutinized before it is erroneously used in the workshop. Now we have an Arb including evidence willy-nilly, to support their claims even when these claims are not supported by the evidence they use.

Conclusion

It is very exhausting having to check every statement you make in this case to see if it is actually supported by the evidence (usually it isn't), or if you are dragging in "evidence" which wasn't included in the evidence phase in the first place, and doesn't support your claims in the second place. It very strongly gives the impression that you have long made up your mind about what the outcome of this case should be, and do everything in your power to assure that said outcome will happen. Now, this impression may be way off base, and I may be attributing intent to what are simple mistakes, but there comes a point when the number and direction of the mistakes makes it hard to continue to AGF. I hope you will rethink your position, look back at how cases are supposed to be handled, and strike all claims not supported by actual admissible evidence. Fram (talk) 08:02, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Addendum

If you don't strike your comments, then at least copy over my replies to them please (also about the martinevans case above). If you want to present new "evidence", then you should allow the accused to have his reply posted there as well. Fram (talk) 08:04, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Certainly, which comments and where. I did suggest you start a subpage for the clerks to copy comments from and to, but I haven't see you do that as yet. Worm^TT 08:33, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

And I said that you could, as is often the case, unban me with the sole purpose (or permission) to edit the case pages, nothing else (or open my enwiki talk page, which would make things considerably easier as well). But I haven't seen you do that as yet (or answer to it) either. So I gather that you are not goind to strike or correct your comments, even when they are demonstrably incorrect? Any good reason for this? Fram (talk) 08:40, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Things to post

I still would prefer it if you just struck through all your uses of inadmissible evidence (too late, no diffs, doesn't support your point), but if you won't, then please post the following:

• Here (in the comments by parties section I suppose):

"And you use this as justification, even though it contains no evidence of this observation at all, and wasn't even correct in this particular case (where I had first tried to steer Martinevans in the right direction multiple times, then blocked them when nothing changed, and then left them completely alone until they decided to repost a copyright violation I had just deleted (made by another editor where Martinevans had no prior involvement in the situation)? I did not "badger the editor incessantly", I did not contact them at all between the end of the first block (February 2018) and the (too long) January 2019 block.

You can actually check such things, e.g. by using this, where you can see that the "incessant badgering" was some posts in April 2017 explaining the problem (to no avail), then some posts in February 2018 about the same issue (still to no avail), and then a block two weeks later, which largely solved the problem. "If Fram can't or won't discuss and educate", well, this was exactly what I did in this instance...

This is why we need to handle situations like this in the standard manner, with a normal evidence and workshop page, where people can see, check, discuss the actual allegations: instead we get a secret evidence page, but when that doesn't produce the results you like, you indicate that the T&S document will be the basis for your decision anyway, and that you also consider throwaway comments outside the actual case as evidence.

"the document establishes a pattern in the way Fram behaves towards people - one that has been picked up on Wikipedia": as shown above, if the evidence of such a "pattern" is as good as it was in the case of Martinevans, then this is again a clear indication that there is no case to answer (at least not a case of this magnitude), and that you (and T&S) are grasping at straws to justify the continuing ban and desysop.

People were free to send you (anonymously!) all the evidence they wanted to establish such a pattern of behaviour, and yet they failed to do so. And still your conclusion is that such a pattern exists, that it justifies the sanctions, but that sadly you cannot share it with the community. Fram (talk) 07:51, 21 August 2019 (UTC) "

AND

• here as a reply to your post:

"WTT, as an Arb, you should now that that is not how evidence in an Arb case works.

"The parties and other interested editors are encouraged to place evidence on the case's Evidence subpage, in the form of diffs demonstrating contested behavior along with explanations and context. Be clear and concise. The parties should be aware that argument is not evidence, and that thirty words and five well-chosen diffs may speak more eloquently than a 500-word diatribe.

Serious allegations require serious evidence, with each aspect of the evidence supported by illustrative diffs. An arbitrator or clerk may remove statements which are not adequately substantiated. "

And from en:Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram/Evidence

"Supporting assertions with evidence

Evidence must include links to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. "

Please don't now try to use inadmissible evidence (a section of a case which wasn't linked to in the evidence phase), nor invisible evidence (the T&S document). There are already very few rules remaining in this case, it would be appreciated if you at least stuck to those rules and not proceed any way you want.

Now, looking at the fundamentals: you refer to the 2019 case, where you have a remedy about me failing 2 to 8, probably because the one finding of fact about me, which was not about comments towards arbitrators, failed as well (again 2 to 8). Your reply to Beetstra[65] refers this FoF (the "Fram" section in [66]. Your original statement was about me making comments against committee members in cases ("The fact is that Fram did not just make comments about the committee as a body (that diff above), but also directly against committee members, within cases."), but the FoF (and thus the comments about "exhausting", "less than ideal", "I went back and forth", "I have concerns") were not about comments against committee members in cases, but about comments towards others, and not even during the case but before it started.

This is why we normally have a full evidence phase, to make sure that evidence can get scrutinized before it is erroneously used in the workshop. Now we have an Arb including evidence willy-nilly, to support their claims even when these claims are not supported by the evidence they use. Fram (talk) 08:57, 22 August 2019 (UTC) "

What an utterly impractical way to hold a case. Fram (talk) 08:57, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty to copy this. Threading becomes a mess now in these discussions ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 10:08, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! Fram (talk) 11:40, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Since Meta doesn't have wikilove or barnstars

Here, have a molehill, it's versatile. EllenCT (talk) 21:56, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

@EllenCT: versatile maybe. But you can't hide an elephant in there ... the elephant does not fit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 06:11, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@EllenCT: my mistake ... it does fit.

Incivility

At the workshop, most attention seems to go to the "incivility" section, and probably rightly so. A few points (some of them already made, but repeating them perhaps won't hurt):

• In general, these four cases precede my "self-admonishment" from 7 March 2018 [67] (one from 2016, one from 2017, one which wasn't incivility, and then one from 5 March 2018). If people want to change this to a formal admonishment / reminder, fine by me.

• In 2016, I told Cwmhiraeth to "fuck off". While I shouldn't have phrased it like that, let's look at the "why" perhaps? This was a thread about Cwmhiraeth (again) showing that they don't have even the most basic knowledge of German (following a similar case where they didn't know the meaning of "er", which is a truly basic aspect of German), but deciding to change a hook they promoted to "improve" a translation anyway, and then refusing to accept that they might have been the wrong person to do so (and using Google Translate to defend themselves). When everyone agreed that Cwmhiraeth wrong in both the factual aspects of the case, and in their approach to it, they replied with "Thank you Fram and Gerda, but not TRM. I still think the word "of" should be changed to "for". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:13, 19 December 2016 (UTC) ". The only thing TRM had said in that discussion so far was "Quite why anyone would consider Google Translate to be preferable to a native German speaker's version is beyond me. How insulting. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:50, 19 December 2016 (UTC)". So in that response they not only decided to take a potshot against TRM out of the blue, but to insist that their translation was better than the one provided by people who actually know German (as a native speaker, like Gerda Arendt, or to a much lesser degree through school and reading, like me).

Anyway, discussion continued, and was finally closed by EdChem, resulting in this. Cwmhiraeth then decided to reopen this closed thread more than a day later[68] and next explained the reopening: " to give @Fram: a chance to respond to Kevmin. TRM has already responded (hidden above) and need feel no obligation to respond on Fram's behalf." [69]. Another unwarranted potshot at TRM (who was pinged by Kevmin, so had every right to answer anyway), and another indication of the lack of self-awareness displayed by Cwmhiraeth in that thread. I have little patience for editors unnecessarily trying to prolong a thread which had ceased to be productive, and where they caused the problems in the first place.

• My 2017 comment against Izno was clearly over the top. While they were rather rude in telling me "I'll save you the burden of saying it: Don't reply to me again unless obviously invited. --Izno (talk) 17:46, 27 September 2017 (UTC)" in a thread I started on the user talk page of a thir person, where Izno was the one to butt in uninvited (which is not a problem) and with wrong information, my reply escalated this unnecessary.

• The "F off" comment has been shown to not be a problem at all.

• The March 2018 comment against Iridescent again was too strong, which is why I apologized the next day at Iridescent's talk page[70], and as indicated above posted my "introspection" or self-admonishment the day after that.

F. Arbcom

Could you comment on the "Fuck ArbCom" incident of May 4? You can find my discussion and diffs in the workshop. AGK’s responses seem weird and I’m not sure I understand why he’s talking about. It looks like he or another observer may have gone to T&S, triggering the ban. If that’s the case, it is very worrisome from the perspective of ArbCom using T&S to banish a critic. If that’s not what happened, can you identify any other possible final trigger for the ban? Jehochman (talk) 11:55, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

To start with the end, no, I don't know of other potential triggers, and the "fuck arbcom" one is the only one provided by T&S. AGK was the main author of the "use 2FA or else get desysopped" note which had to be retracted. Criticizing the problems their shoddy writing created is a "personal attack" apparently. This is the page history of the text ArbCom sent around. "The notice was written on a public wiki page by several editors." is AGKs defense, but as had been pointed out, 90% or so is written by AGK. I previously had clashed with AGK during en:Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GiantSnowman, so apparently I was no longer allowed to comment about AGK. Note that at the May incident at least two others commented on AGKs writing skills, and at the GiantSnowman case multiple other editors had serious problems with AGKs writings (then about me) as well.

AGK was the drafting arb (together with WTT) at the GiantSnowman case, and felt the need to first add me as a party, and then to propose a FoF and a Remedy about me, which both clearly failed (8 opposes, 2 supports). Coupled with the prejudiced comments at that case, and then the reply about me ("Fram is overlooking that fact in order to take unwarranted shots at an editor who is on Fram's "blacklist". It's something Fram does with shocking regularity") seems to indicate more the fact that I'm on AGKs blacklist than the other way around. Criticising an Arb for producing shoddy writing when they themselves claim " And I was elected as an arbitrator whose record is one including clear, plain questions like the ones I asked you.[...] AGK ■ 11:56, 8 January 2019 (UTC)"

But whether AGK or ArbCom had anything to do with my ban is something I know nothing about. And since this whole episode isn't even part of the actual evidence in this case, I see little point in rehashing it. Fram (talk) 13:27, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

I've tried to get ArbCom to deny that AGK or somebody else ran to T&S to have you banned. AGK gave a straight up denial.[71] Were there any other events between May 5 and the ban date that could have been a trigger? Was there an incident with BU Rob13? Did you have any clashes with WMF-DC people, or with WMF-UK people, or other WMF chapters? I'm just trying to understand what happened and why. It's very frustrating. People should be proud of their actions and own them. Jehochman (talk) 23:04, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

BU Rob denied going to T&S before the ban as well. No one else has come forward (even for the case, I think Kusma is the only one who has said that they provided evidence, which is appreciated). Fram (talk) 04:31, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Rob has said that he was in contacts with T&S about you prior to their action but was not the complainant -- something like that; need to dig the diffs. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 09:33, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I believe (but haven't checked) that it was between the time T&S informed ArbCom that they were planning an action against me, and the moment they actually executed their, um, protective action? Fram (talk) 09:44, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Didn't you have a conversation with somebody in late May where they accused you of mis-gendering them (or using the wrong pronoun). Do you recall that? Jehochman (talk) 12:23, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

No, someone else was accused of misgendering when what they did was use the "wrong" pronoun but without it indicating a wrong gender (using "xe" instead of "they", IIRC). The person in the discussion has repeatedly said that they didn't contact T&S (and I don't think there was anything worth contacting T&S, ArbCom, or AN over in that discussion anyway). Fram (talk) 12:26, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

There needs to be more pronoun tolerance, especially for any pronouns other than the standard English ones (he, she, they). People make mistakes. I suspect you may have been the target of an organized attack that is working down a list of editors to be banned. Eric Corbett is in the cross hairs at the moment. Jehochman (talk) 13:02, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

@Jehochman: - I suspect you may have been the target of an organized attack that is working down a list of editors to be banned Indeed. And that is why I am concerned about my own position and have massively reduced my input recently; unfortunately, my bad temper as a consequence of these recent "attacks" is actually making me a worse contributor than previously even on a reduced input. Any such cull will indubtiably be sacrificing quality for quantity and making up policy etc on the hoof to achieve the goal. It stinks and I'm sorry that Fram and Eric are in this situation. - Sitush (talk) 20:31, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

@Sitush: Watch yourself or you may be next. What's really curious is that Jorm and Gamaliel came out of the woodwork to slag me at en:WP:AN when I called out the unfairness of Eric's ban. Jehochman (talk) 02:22, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

user talk page deletion

@Yamla:, or anyone else, can you please undo the deletion of en:User talk:Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr. This deletes all entries I (and others of course) made to that talk page, which is a part of an ongoing ArbCom case. User talk page deletions are normally not done, precisely because you are deleting contributions by many others (there are talk page archives, but these are cut-and-paste archives: there is nothing wrong with this, I use the same method, but this means that one should only delete these archives, but not the original, which should be courtesy blanked if needed). See en:Wikipedia:CVUT for the policy behind this.

And if anyone wonders; I have a 40K watchlist, including most yser talk pages I ever posted on. Seeing a user talk page getting deleted is rather unusual. Fram (talk) 11:30, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Done :-) Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 14:23, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! Fram (talk) 14:27, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

There are only one or two (irrelevant) deleted revisions, so either they have been oversighted or shifted to en:User talk:Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr/Talk page history archive. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:18, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

How to deal with criticism

[72]. Great timing too, less than an hour after a controversial indef block following a series of controversial or badly handled cases and actions. Fram (talk) 15:24, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

And this is what the addition of that text was meant for. We are no longer allowed to criticize ArbCom on the ArbCom noticeboard, and they don't even have to dirty their own accounts to keep their noticeboard clean! Time to rename this board to something without ArbCom in the name, then the clerks can't claim it is under their purview. When a "government" gets criticized, and it feels the need to use repression to silence the criticism, then you know that your "country" really is in trouble. That the WMF did this was expected, but it seems to be trickling down now... Fram (talk) 04:35, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Just linking to en:User_talk:Bradv#Was. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 15:23, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Farce

Apparently (dropping a note here was too hard?) the proposed decision is being posted. And lo and behold, what do we get?

Findings of fact including evidence never disclosed, never sent to me (or the communoity) for review, comments, ... Basically, inadmissble evidence, the kind of things the ArbCom could not disclose at ant time in the proceedings until now.

This is an unacceptable way to proceed, and simply shows that this whole arb case was a farce right from the start, and that the decision was made before this started.

Do whatever you please, you have turned yourself into a handpuppet for the T&S anyway.

Utterly, totally ridiculous waste of time. I hope the community shows their displeasure with the way the Arbs have handled this case.

This

"6) The Office provided case materials to the Arbitration Committee, upon which they based their conduct warnings and ban. The materials were partially redacted, notably removing the initial complaints as well as other information within the file. These unredacted materials show a pattern of borderline harassment against multiple individuals, through hounding the individuals and excessively highlighting their failures. In the period after receiving their second private conduct warning, Fram was abusive towards the Committee as a whole and specific members. The Office subsequently enacted a 1-year ban and desysopped Fram. "

should have been posted at the start of the workshop phase, or earlier. To post it now, after claiming for months that no, you couldn't disclose anything from the case at all, just shows how for you are willing to go with your lies over and over again to get the result either you wanted from the start, or where instructed to get from T&S right from the start, or both.

A farce and an utter discgrace.

Fram (talk) 18:28, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Examples of nonsense at the Proposed Decision

" appropriate correcting or commenting on the edits of a fellow editor making problematic edits, which is acceptable and in some cases even necessary"

No, it is always necessary. When is it not necessary to correct problematic edits someone else makes? Oh right, when they "feel" harassed, boohoo.

" relevant factors include whether the subject editor's contributions are actually viewed as problematic by multiple users or the community; whether the concerned editor raises concerns appropriately on talkpages or noticeboards and explains why the edits are problematic; and ultimately, whether the concerns raised reasonably appear to be motivated by good-faith, substantiated concerns about the quality of the encyclopedia, rather than personal animus against a particular editor. " So, in which cases of supposed harassment did I not raise my concerns on talkpages and noticeboards, and in which cases did you not find other editors agreeing with my concerns. Which only leaves us with you claiming that my actions were not done "in good faith", which is, oh irony, of course deeply uncivil and a personal attack.

"If an administrator finds themself in repeated disagreement with another good-faith but allegedly problematic editor, or if other editors disagree with the administrator's actions regarding that editor, it may be better practice for the administrator to request input or review from others, such as by posting on the appropriate noticeboard, rather than continue to address the issue unilaterally. " Which I did with LauraHale, or (to take older examples raised on the evidence page) Rich Farmbrough or Geo Swan. Thank you for outlining that the way I acted was perfectly aligned with what you expect, and is probably the reason that no good evidence of supposed harassment by me has been found at the workshop.

FoF 4. "I would weigh the community evidence higher than the Office evidence." 5. " does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response. "

Remedy? Desysop. Er...

As I said above, FoF 6 suddenly contains much more details about the T&S document than ever before provided. Is there any reason that you were not allowed to post these things earlier, but now that it is too late to discuss, support, reject, ... these (for me and the community as a whole), they suddenly are the key things which warrant a three-month block and a desysop (because otherwise "time served" means that you find a three-month block a correct first sanction for my offenses, i.e. three cases of incivility over three years, one too long block, and one wrong block)? How convenient.

"As noted in the principles, "harassment" and "abuse" carry a deal of subjectivity. Personally I would not call the conduct in the T&S report harassment, rather incivility or possibly wikihounding, and I don't consider his comments towards arbs/ArbCom abusive, at least in the context of the dismally low standard of civility which the community currently appears to consider appropriate when offering 'feedback' to the committee. But semantics aside, I can support the substance of this finding of fact: that Fram sometimes takes his criticism of other editors too far, that multiple people have experienced this as harassment, and that he consistently fails to assume good faith in ArbCom and other 'authorities' within the movement. – Joe (talk) 15:53, 5 September 2019 (UTC)"

Remember, people, if you want someone removed, just claim that you "feel" harassed when your constant problematic editing is pointed out repeatedly and correctly by the same editor.

Since when is "consistenly failing to assume good faith in ArbCom and other 'authorities'" a problem? And what other authorities? I have not, as far as I remember, criticized bureaucrats, oversighters, stewards, ... I have often criticized the WMF, usually with very good arguments, and these criticisms were usually at general noticeboards or discussion places, and lead to actions by "the community" against these "authorities within the movement", or more precisely against there bothced software implementations.

Basically, you are here siding with "the movement" (WMF) against the enwiki community. Or am I again not assuming good faith of ArbCom here (or worse, harassing you by criticizing you)? Feel free to report my to T&S then.

And so on and so on, I'll probably find more of the same if I continue reading that page, but why should I bother wasting even more of my time with this charade? This stinks, just like too many other decisions and actions of this ArbCom. Fram (talk) 20:49, 5 September 2019 (UTC)