User:Testingthisthing/Fram

My statement about Fram
The MediaWiki block log shows a great pattern of problematic behavior by Fram. I thought it was just a one-off incident that led to the one-year ban by WMF but it looks like the decision is not that terrible after all. Unless the Arbitration Committee is biased by preferring to not take action for incivility by admins, I think they're going to endorse the WMF ban. According to the message left on Fram's talk page, Worm That Turned stated Fram might have a week to review the evidence sent to him through email and after that, the proposed decision would be posted publicly. From that message, it seems the ArbCom is going to endorse the ban. If they aren't then there would be no reason for them to request Fram to 'review' the evidence since they could just close the case as 'no action'. The outcome from this whole saga is net negative because it caused the alleged victims to vanish and/or retire. One Arb has resigned and I'm guessing it's very much to do with the Fram saga or the recent Richie333's case. Basically, I think if the WMF wanted to properly deal with this case, they should've gone with a global lock instead of a enwiki block, because that way the community and/or attention-seeking admins literally cannot reverse them and the discussion would just die out after a couple of days. Also, the WMF could've just noted in the edit summary that Fram was banned for ambiguous reasons, stressing its seriousness but not precisely what it's about. That way the community would not argue too much. I think Fram's behavior on enwiki had been really troubling and intimidating. His approach to discussions is aggressive and causes the other editor to feel belittled. Not only is his behavior troubling, his conduct had not been suitable as an admin. The WMF's intervention was not only necessary but very much needed. The community is incompetent at understanding important things like that. All they care about is having the final word but there's more to things than just that. Do you not think Fram's behavior is troubling?

Are you more active on MediaWiki than the English Wikipedia? I invited two-three more users to this page to join in on our discussion. I think it is detrimental to Wikipedia in the long term if something like this isn't resolved or fixed. The stewards really can't do anything, they're like a rubber stamp and their authorities are typically limited to non-self-governing Wikis. Many of them like Revi, Ajraddatz, etc, try to act as if they have control over the English Wikipedia, regularly and unnecessarily reminding people that they are stewards in unrelated discussions as a show of power but that's about all they could do. The Arbitration Committee on the other hand is assigned with quasi-governing enwiki, although as written in the criteria they have limited powers such as resolving disputes and hearing appeals from banned users. The way I see it, the only reason Framah became a thing was because Fram is a long-term and highly-respected admin. If he was some random nobody who only started editing two years ago, no one would even pop the question on why he got banned in the first place. The community is using the reason of self-governance as a reason to why the ban is illegitimate. However, they are incompetent and do not get the fact that WMF has total control over the WMF. I understand if they lose volunteers Wikipedia will collapse but again that is a matter of diva-ish behavior within members of the community rather than a problem with the WMF's handling of things. This is one of the cases where the community has seriously shown a lack of competence. They literally caused both the harasser and the harassed to abandon or get kicked out of the project and still have the audacity to suggest they're capable in handling incivility and harassment. It is a total disgrace. What do you think about that?

That is one way to look at it. However, since Fram was a case of an active toxic editor from their own project, the correlation of an upsurge of inactive editors coming from other projects and the fundementality of the recent events of enwiki infers improbability. It's true that the local processes are unable to deal with cases involving incivility and harassment especially those primarily with a background contextual to gender, sexuality or other factors. As seen in the discussion page, the community places greater priority on upholding community processes rather than protecting victims of harassment. I believe they are more concerned with defending an experienced admin with whom they've been more familiar. If a regular non-admin had performed the actions of Fram or said what he said that led to the ban, the banning of that editor would not even be challenged or brought up at the relevant noticeboards. It would be treated as a run-of-the-mill case. But because this happened to a long-term admin, everyone is losing their minds over it. I think this kind of discrimination is extremely unhealthy to Wikipedia and it would eventually cause the editors who are aware of the environment there to either stay away from the politics or entirely, Wikipedia. This is a problem that absolutely requires the WMF's intervention. A precedent like this is what could actually instill awareness into the regular users who assume servantship to the disgraceful dictatorship of discriminative admins of Wikipedia. Yet they're trying so hard to shut it down. I agree 100% with your fourth point. Administrators, by principle and the five pillars, are not supposed to establish some kind of supremacy over the commoners of Wikipedia but they are doing so anyway because they know very well that no one can stop them. Take them to ANI and another uninvolved admin would close it as 'no action'. The most recent example to demonstrate this hypocrisy is Brownhairedgirl who had been belittling, insulting and personally attacking editors but was not sanctioned. If a regular non-admin editor had behaved like her, they would be immediately blocked for an indefinite period (take Legacypac for example, whose use of the word 'bitch' gained him an indef, for which many have argued as being excessive but it was never overturned), for violation of the non-personal attacks policy and for being w:WP:NOTHERE. I also agree with your final point and believe the WMF should continue to intervene and not bow down to the community which is ruled and controlled by dictatorial admins who believe they can abuse the system without consequence.

It seems blatant that Fram had been harassing many editors as seen in the histories of the pages from various namespaces. I don't know if it was intentional or whether he thought that kind of behavior merely resembled a flex of administrative authority, or he thought it wasn't a problem at all. But one thing is clear, he has successfully managed to drive away many editors off the project. The commoners of Wikipedia may just brush it off and call it "pointing out troublesome behavior" but it has been disproven in the many discussions on and off wiki. The fact some people don't think Fram's abhorrent conduct is problematic is really concerning and is taking the 'pedia backward. Editors do not deserve to be treated abusively or get told to "fuck off". The T&S, being unfamilliar with the norms of the community, thought taking an action against a long-standing admin like that would not gain that much attention. However, from the community response, it seems clear the kind of toxicity and obnoxiousness Fram has displayed is very highly tolerated in the community and especially by admins who consider him a friend. This has set a precedent that no experienced admin can get punished for insults and personal attacks, which establishes an us-vs-them atmosphere that is obviously not a good sign of what should be a collaborative project.

Yeah they definitely should let T&S to handle things in the future... but looking at the current situation and all the resignations, they'd rather quit than let T&S take over. If that happens WP will lose editors to write and maintain articles which would eventually lead to the death of Wikipedia. Although the Foundation could replenish the void left by diva-ish editors by hiring actual writers, the atmosphere will then change forever. The only way to resolve this is if the WMF bring in pro-WMF admins to help silently shape up the hierarchy from within, slowly kicking out the toxic admins. Many commoners of Wikipedia usually have no minds of their own, they take the side of those who have more authority.

The Rivselis one is an interesting case. I just looked and saw that they are a 2006-registered account but was blocked for sock puppetry despite there being no enwiki checkuser data and it is based on the conclusion a steward has drawn. Stewards are not necessarily always correct and since they know their intervening brings zero to little scrutiny, they could forge data and draw a conclusion on something involving user behavior. TonyBallioni has been wielding his checkuser pistol so much for the most trivial reasons and I think people like him are actually problematic to the long-term essence of Wikipedia since he is one of those who literally eliminate good-faith users using the mask of CU, and he is going to keep doing that. I haven't bothered to go through the Fram ArbCom case pages because the ban would likely get overturned after a long period of the Committee pretending to exhaustively review each and every piece of evidence. I am certain the outcome is going to be based on the opinions of the Committee rather than the actual evidences suggesting if Fram actually deserves the ban or not. What do you think about the bias of admins getting special treatment compared to non-admins?

Although the stewards hold a greater degree of accountability, they often lean towards going by whimsical tendencies by falling back on their egos. Stewards try so hard to be "relevant" on enwiki and try to do things that are unnecessary relating to enwiki just to show off their authority. I get that the English Wikipedia is the main hub of all Wikis and that all other Wikis are boring and have nothing special for stewards to do but it is a self-governed one and they have their own policies and structure for doing things. So in this case, when a Steward gives CU information to a local CU, the likelihood of foul play or disobedience to policy is high. They really didn't need to intervene and show a local user who probably was a good-faith editor their temperament. They would've left it at the local level but because of a steward the 2006-registered account was given an indefinite block for sock puppetry. I think it's not fair at all. Whatever the outcome of the Fram ban, one half of the Wikipedia community will be upsetted. If Fram gets unbanned, there will be people who think the ArbCom is incompetent, and if Fram's ban is endorsed by the Committee, there will be people who think ArbCom was being puppetted by the WMF. There will never be a win-win scenario. I agree with you that admins have a higher reputation, mostly due to their being more technical capable than the average user and their egos boosted by the amount of people who supported their RfAs. However, there is a policy and the five pillar suggesting that all editors on Wikipedia are equal and no individual editor is greater than any other. I don't think it was meant only for non-admins, because if it was they'd have clarified as such. Just as how people claim Wikipedia is nothing without volunteers, dictatorial admins are nothing without the "lowly" non-admin editors who write and maintain articles. I think Wikipedia will be so much better if the rogue and condescending admins are suspended immediately upon bad behavior. I read that such an idea would cause great abuse, but I think it's only those dictatorial admins who would worry about such "abuse". It's not like other kinds of abuse are not happening presently. Rogue admins are protecting each other by shutting down those who criticize them. Do you not think this situation is really concerning? How do you suggest the community gets rid of rogue and condescending admins?

I am also on the side of the WMF for this particular case, because mostly I believe, as you said, they have the total control over Wikipedia and sister projects. They pay taxes, they hold the servers, they control the system and everything about the site, they have the founder of Wikipedia working with them on the Board of Trustee, a few community-originated persons are also on the Board and they literally have the full authority over Wikipedia. Yet these bunch of 20-30 community people who lead and make proposals to other 300-500 people from the community consider themselves as the ruling party of Wikipedia. When they signed up for an account, they agreed to abide by the ToS but by doing all these public stunts they are violating it deliberately and blatantly. They show no remorse because they believe they're right in standing up against an office action taken against one of their long-term users. They are only fighting it because they know it could happen to them (rogue admins). I respect that the genuine members of the community want Wikipedia to be self-governed but there are difficult situations where the WMF needs to intervene and this was one of them. Fram is one of the most troublesome admin I've ever seen on Wikipedia. He took actions unilaterally and decided they were right without consensus. He has a "do as I say not do as I do"-attitude, through which he has shown extremely-abusive behavior to editors, but at the same time considers similar behavior against him as uncivil that he would proceed to take administrative actions against. He has exhibited great hypocrisy.

Agreed. Although the number of stewards are not near as much as the amount of admins on the English Wikipedia, they possess a great deal of responsibility towards non-major Wikis. And sometimes I wonder if it's a good idea to keep that steward number small, because maybe more stewards could place more eyes on the abuse of other stewards. It is not a definite solution but a suggestion that definitely has cons such as abusive stewards protecting each other or lacking interest in scrutinizing actions. As for ArbCom, it could be true those types of editors are considered rogue if they refuse to accept the stance of the Committee especially when it favors the WMF. The idea that only either the WMF or the ArbCom could handle political business on Wikipedia is a black-or-white fallacy. There are other options that could be explored but no one has put forward any such views yet. The Arbitration Committee is a flawed system. It is basically the second WP:AN which offers nothing more than drama, incompetence and greater secrecy. Joe Roe is probably the only arbitrator who has a clue on handling issues like this, the rest are incompetent and shouldn't even be on there. They were elected for their experience on Wikipedia, but experience does not always translate to competence or intelligence. I would really love to see the Arbitration Committee abolished and replaced with a more efficient system with qualified individuals, or at least limit the scope of the Committee to something less. How do you view the Arbitration Commitee system?

Yes! Perhaps the members view it like that as well with total levity, but I think more serious individuals are needed. The folks on ArbCom do not really take being a member seriously. This year alone they have screwed up at least 5 cases and caused many experienced editors to cease editing. Why do you think DGG is a competent member of the Arbitration Committee?

The fundamentals of maintaining a healthy community is self-governance. The Arbitration Committee has at many times tried to take this role and attempted to speak as a representative of the community. Not only is it disgraceful, it is totally out of scope per policies. It is really baffling the amount of editors on the many discussion pages saying that Fram doesn't deserve this banned and an apology should be issued to him. This is essentially the part that highlights the idiocy and total incompetence of those who spoke about that in the case. The fact they overlooked all the evidences of abuse, patterns of harassment and blatant incivility by so-called "one of the most reputable and respectable" admins on Wikipedia, shows these folks have no qualification to handle the case. Might as well drop it and give the case to a kindergarten kid who would do a better job at telling if Fram is "naughty" or not. I am truly flabbergasted. What about you?

Good-faith editors are becoming increasingly blasé to all the bastardism in the decision-making of those in power. This is not said only about the Fram saga, but also for the general habits of roguish administrators. Instead of voicing out against scoundrelism of such persons, the commoners are playing along to see what happens. You're right it's completely ridiculous but that is the status quo. People don't understand that common sense and logic should prevail over bureaucracy. W:WP:IAR exists for this reason, its main principle serves to show to people that common sense is needed. I doubt Fram would apologize to anyone after all the damage he has caused. The number of users harassed by Fram I believe exceeds ten or twenty. I agree that ArbCom isn't very effective in handling such issues, they are all regular people anyways. They are not individuals with professional or academically qualified backgrounds. Bring together a clique of friends and get them to support an action for or against another editor at w:WP:AN and there you have a binding consensus through which actioning is quasi-valid.