Discussion on this page must be sectioned. Unless you are an arbitrator or clerk, create a section for your comments and comment only in your own section. For the Arbitration Committee, – GoldenRing ( talk) 15:31, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

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

Word limit on comments (outside of Arbcom proceedings)
If the Arbcom wishes to place an increased emphasis on civility, that goal is not furthered by artificial word count limits. In many cases, Fram correctly views the position of another participant in a discussion as wrong. Rather than curtly pointing out the error, a more polite approach would be to provide reasons, examples and perhaps a more wordy phrasing. Regardless of Fram's writing style, this would be a dangerous precedent to set, because once the word count limit is applied more broadly, talk page, ANI and other discussions would go from being a collegial discussion to a telegraphic tweet war. We do not want that, and civility involves the potential of wordiness, including phrases like "with all due respect..." and "I hear what you are saying but..." and "I understand your position to be X, but Y is a better view." Perhaps the ArbCom should impose a minimum word count requirement rather than a maximum in order to assure more polite modes of communication. However, since there are no findings of fact related to Fram's word count conduct, I am not in a position to judge what was intended. Thank you for your consideration. Hlevy2 ( talk) 14:54, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Redacted Materials and Objectve Standards
FoF6 says, "These unredacted materials show a pattern..." If Arbcom never saw the unredacted materials, you probably mean "These redacted materials...." I am also troubled by evaluating redacted materials where the name of the complainant is withheld. It is impossible to find "harassment" without evaluating the conduct of both parties and whether the wikihounding was centered on related matters or following an editor to unrelated matters. If BLP are involved, then Fram and other admins are held to a higher standard to act quickly to prevent harm to third parties. Also, if the editor or subject matter is the subject of special enforcement, discretionary sanctions, or other restrictions, that would be relevant, although potentially hidden by redacting the names. Finally, all FoFs should be framed in terms of the Arbcom looking at the facts objectively, rather than from the subjective point of view of the unnamed party feeling harassed. The finding of facts and principles should be consistent and emphasize an objective standard for evaluating an admin who tries to solve the problems created by a chronically problematic editor. Many thanks. Hlevy2 ( talk) 23:09, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

To your first sentence: the unredacted portion of the partially-redacted materials shows this pattern. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 23:31, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Taking over the desysop decision

I agree that the T&S action should not be allowed to stand. However, as a matter of fundamental fairness, Fram should be allowed to see all of the evidence against him. T&S accepted a complaint from an editor who then posted a warning box on the top of her talk page specifically addressed to Fram and specifically naming T&S Staff members. Fram in turn has posted the text of his email from T&S on his meta talk page. So, it appears that the editor has waived any confidentiality claim regarding her complaint. If I were Fram, I would consider making an argument that the other subsequent complaints were from her known allies, but because the timing and names of those complaints are not known, the current state of the record merely leads to speculation. So, Remedy 2d is inherently unfair.

If there is an RFC on harassment, I recommend that the new policy establish safe harbors so that an admin or editor knows when to pursue an persistent problematic editor. Safe harbors could include correcting BLPs and removing copyvios. It would be regrettable to remove Fram's bit today only to discover that his alleged past conduct fits into one of the safe harbors that comes out of the new harassment policy. Fram should not be a victim of retroactive policy making. T&S went to certain special interest groups to launch a new policy initiative on civility instead of coming to the enWP community to adopt a new policy. Fram did not have reasonable notice that T&S was changing the rules, but he will have notice of the new rules after the RfC, and the community will expect that he will follow them. So, the problem will be addressed prospectively, and there is nothing to be gained from addressing Fram's past conduct through a double dose of retroactivity. Hlevy2 ( talk) 10:11, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Need Finding of Fact Re: Hounding

The proposed decision states principles about Hounding / Harassment. Without a Finding of Fact, the implication was that Arbcom feels that Fram has hounded somebody (who I will not name.) The evidence does not support that and I would ask Arbcom to make an express finding on the point:

Fram had a series of interaction with a user making problematic edits. When Fram could not resolve the problem with the user, he correctly brought it to the attention of a larger group via WP:AN and WP:ANI. Later, this user complained to T&S claiming that Fram had harrassed or hounded the user, and T&S asked Fram to cease interacting with the user without imposing a formal interaction ban between the two in April 2018, and a reminder of that warning in March 2019. The user also posted a box on the top of the user's talk page asking Fram to deal directly with named T&S staff members. Fram complied with these requests and has not hounded this user.

A good argument can be made that the user waived confidentiality by posting the warning box, but I am willing to settle for leaving the user unnamed. However, this case started out as a harassment/hounding case against an editor, and Fram deserved a finding of fact clearing him of those charges. Many thanks, Hlevy2 ( talk) 20:17, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Finding of Fact #12

I believe that the Arbcom meant "no off-wiki misconduct by Fram". Certainly, there is a lot of misconduct in the world, and some will say that the materials showed was misconduct by others. The finding should be narrowed to just Fram. Many thanks, Hlevy2 ( talk) 00:41, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

old stuff
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Remedies 2b and 2c - clarification? These sections seem to make slightly different findings of facts (which don't belong here anyway), but isn't the remedy the same (confirmation of desysop, allowing RfA)? Or does 2b say that a Fram RFA should start immediately at the close of the case, and 2c says Fram is free to start an RfA at a time of his choice? — Kusma ( t· c) 15:26, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply I hope that my comments on the case page answer your question, but the idea was 2b is "refer desysop to full community " - effectively enforced reconfirmation RfA, whereas 2c is "confirm desysop, allow RfA". 2b doesn't require immediate RfA - Fram would be free to start it at the time of his choice, if ever. WormTT( talk) 08:43, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply @ Worm That Turned: I don't see that as a fundamental difference, as we do not have a "community desysop" procedure that Fram could be referred to. — Kusma ( t· c) 09:45, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply Scope of ArbCom's authority I believe it would be a lot better for ArbCom to fully own the outcome of this case and to demonstrate independence from the WMF. By not resysopping while some are admitting they would not support an ArbCom desyop (see SilkTork here), ArbCom is endorsing the T&S decision as "correct", no matter whether this is called 2b or 2c. Shouldn't WTT's argument "If we take the WMF out of the equation, a ban would likely not have happened - therefore the correct decision is to vacate the ban completely" also be applied here to mean "If we take the WMF out of the equation, a desysop would likely not have happened - therefore the correct decision is to vacate the desysop completely"? If it is not, then ArbCom should say clearly state that they are desyopping and be more precise in their reasoning (if it is for "behavior that is unpleasant, uncollegial, and arrogant" then a lot more admins need to be desysopped). — Kusma ( t· c) 09:45, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply Closure for Framgate and another WP:RFA Independent of the question whether a desysop and RFA is fair to Fram, ArbCom should consider what is likely to happen in any future RfA. The community does not really know whether Fram has been desysopped for a cause the community finds convincing or because of (insert WP:ABF here). It is highly likely that the issues dodged by T&S not revealing anything will resurface again during RFA. Is it really wise to start another community discussion of this while keeping most of the underlying issues swept under the rug? — Kusma ( t· c) 09:45, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply Learning from this case: When does hounding start? It is rather sad that we don't get any more concrete guidance on what is and isn't hounding out of this case, so we can learn how to be better admins and editors. Did Fram hound LH? Did Fram hound Cwm? Did Fram hound Jaguar? Did Kusma hound Jaguar? On a more constructive note, how can we support admins when they find issues in an editor's contributions so they don't get hit with unfounded accusations of hounding? Can we turn scrutiny of an editor's contributions into something more collegial than adversarial? — Kusma ( t· c) 09:45, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply Some good questions on WP:HOUNDING. The wording "This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance, or distress to the other editor", is probably not useful, and could be tightened up. The aim of following someone who is editing inappropriately may not be to cause distress, but to make and keep them aware of their inappropriate edits, but if repeatedly making someone aware of their errors is not making them change their editing pattern, then continuing to make them aware is now becoming counter-productive and simply turning nasty. Any issue which cannot be resolved by one individual (admin or otherwise) within a reasonable space of time should be brought to the attention of others, otherwise it can appear to be hounding (willfully causing distress) rather than usefully attempting to address the problem. SilkTork ( talk) 10:17, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply It seems that the hounding type issues (not commenting on their context here) have stopped (in the sense that Fram's approach has been less harsh in general, and there have been no interactions with Problem Editor A) a year and a half ago, and the only problematic conduct since has been frustrated comments directed at ArbCom and its members. I could understand warnings / topic bans / short blocks for those, but I don't really see a justification for a desysop here (and a desysop for hounding at this point comes too late and after the problems have been solved in other ways, making it unclear what the remedy is supposed to achieve). Please clarify. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:30, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply Related to the comments of FPaS, I think one facet of Fram's Wikipedia career hasn't been examined yet: he does not seem to network. I am not aware that he has been gathering friends or has engaged in any offwiki or onwiki networking. Many of the other users involved in the case have done a lot of networking, onwiki and offwiki, and very often there have been friends acting for each other instead of for the best of Wikipedia or defending their friends against Fram. In the present case, we know that Fram's opponents have used offwiki means, but their behaviour has not been scrutinised to put it into context. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:05, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply I share the confusion of WJBscribe as to why there are no diffs relating to the 2019 behaviour towards ArbCom. When I heard about the evidence phase being done by e-mail instead of onwiki, I thought that the point was that this method would make it impossible to determine what evidence was taken from the T&S dossier and what evidence was provided by the community. Instead, we now have two types of privately submitted evidence, some where ArbCom knows who submitted it, but has disclosed the diffs and some where ArbCom doesn't know who submitted it and does not disclose the diffs. Perhaps you could just unblock and resysop Fram and then restart the case with a proper onwiki evidence phase? Any missing evidence could also be supplied by a recused clerk, or by a recused ArbCom member. — Kusma ( t· c) 14:21, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

To praise the Committee as much as I can: FoF 15 and the desysop are lame. I have significantly more trust in Fram's ability to correctly use sysop powers than I have in some members of the Committee to use Arb powers. Sysops have to explain why they block, Arbcom has to explain why they desysop. In the most recent case of a sysop with a long-term pattern of "excessive focus on minor issues", ArbCom did not desysop GiantSnowman, although the problematic conduct of GS involved the sysop bit, unlike Fram's. And onlookers could learn from that case. Here, all we learn is to be afraid of people connected to T&S and to respect the authority of ArbCom. As I said, that is lame, and this case has been a pointless waste of time, especially the evidence and workshop phases. — Kusma ( t· c) 11:48, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Moved from Hlevy2's section

• It's a horrible idea no matter how you slice it. Enforcement will be a nightmare, especially when it comes to litigating what constitutes an "issue". Lawyers lick their lips at something so pregnant with fact issues, because this is something that will net you lots of billable hours. —/ Mendaliv/ ^2¢/ _Δ's/ 14:58, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Moved from Kusma's section

My take is that 2c is an endorsement of the desysop, while 2b is a "no decision" on the desysop. Think of reviews of umpire decisions in sporting events: 2b is saying "umpire's call" or "ruling on the field stands", 2c is saying "decision confirmed". You're right though, the difference is something that belongs in a FoF. —/ Mendaliv/ ^2¢/ _Δ's/ 15:28, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• You've got to be kidding me. This page has had posts for weeks without this sectioned discussion enforcement. —/ Mendaliv/ ^2¢/ _Δ's/ 15:37, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ Mendaliv: Welcome to the proposed decision phase of the case. Sectioned discussion on the talk page for this phase is the norm. My apologies for not enforcing it for nearly an hour after the PD was posted; I was in a meeting and didn't get the email. GoldenRing ( talk) 08:32, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The new additions

I thought I'd comment on some of the newer additions. I'm not a fan of "The Arbitration Committee accepted a case outside of policy". This roughly corresponds with my concerns raised in the Workshop phase: The acceptance of a case without the clear mandate of policy is illegitimate. If you believe policy prohibits this case, you must decline, or (having accepted and subsequently discovered that the case is prohibited by policy) close the case by motion without a decision on the merits. Taking an illegitimate case out of "necessity" harms this Committee's legitimacy far, far more than a poor decision ever could.
The principle, "Purpose of sanctions", could be better.

While Wikipedia sanctions are not criminal penalties in nature, the principles underlying Wikipedia sanctions are derived from the penological principles of incapacitation and rehabilitation. These principles go hand-in-hand, and while sanctions that incapacitate without a goal of rehabilitation are permissible in extreme circumstances, the community expects that sanctions will not be permanent without good reason. Therefore, absent exceptional circumstances, the propriety of a sanction will often rest on the sanctioned person's ability to learn from his or her misconduct. Additionally, when the person sanctioned and the greater editing community are aware of why a sanction was levied, there is an educational benefit because they can now better anticipate the limits of acceptable conduct in the future. Furthermore, when considering a request for relief from sanctions (often imprecisely termed an "appeal") the Wikipedia community and Arbitration Committee generally require that the person sanctioned display an understanding of the sanction, why the the sanction was levied, a commitment not to repeat the conduct that led to the sanction, and that the person sanctioned has learned from his or her experience. In order for a person to achieve these goals and succeed in a request for relief from sanctions, it is necessary that the sanctioning party have made clear to the person sanctioned what behavior caused the sanction.

I actually view this principle as achieving two goals: First, restating the principle that sanctions aren't punitive but preventive (i.e., not aimed at retributive justice but aimed at incapacitation) while expanding it to include principles of rehabilitation. Second, the "appeal" bit seeks to bake a " notice" requirement into our sanctioning principles as a form of due process through the rehabilitation concept. I think these both are laudable goals and not only entirely legitimate interpretations of standing policy, but critical in the present case. I think it's also important to speak of this by reference to the legal concepts because it's clear that these principles informed the policies as they exist, and continuing to pretend that law had no role in the formation of Wikipedia policy does more harm than good. —/ Mendaliv/ ^2¢/ _Δ's/ 16:21, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Moved from HLevy2's section

• I agree; this is a pointless restriction that will do little or nothing to improve things, and in some cases may make things worse. ~ ONUnicorn^{( Talk| Contribs)} problem solving 15:17, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• The last part of this comment by SilkTork is a very good idea. "Could we do this PD in two stages? Agree to unblock him in stage one. Then get him involved here to discuss workable solutions in stage two that would lead to a resysopping." That takes care of several problems that have been evident in the way the committee has handled this case so far. Unblocking Fram now, then opening an new workshop phase and inviting Fram and other community members to participate in seeking solutions to the underlying issues; perhaps as part of the RFC referred to in Remedy 4 (since the underlying issues have as much to do with the broader community as with Fram personally) would benefit everyone. ~ ONUnicorn^{( Talk| Contribs)} problem solving 16:43, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Fram said, "So it feels as if the only reason for a desysop is to appease the WMF, [. . .]". SilkTork interprets that as "an accusation of bad faith to some of the people who played a key role in getting [Fram] unbanned". I think this interpretation of Fram's comment is erroneous. Fram did not say, "The only reason for a desysop is to appease the WMF," he said, "it feels as if the only reason [. . .]". Fram is expressing what it is like to be Fram, what Fram sees and thinks and feels. An accusation of bad faith is an expression of what you think the other person is thinking and feeling. Fram did not say Arbcom acted in bad faith. Fram did say that is what it feels like from Fram's POV. In a similar vein, it seems as if a large part of the underlying problem in this case is a mis-match between one person's intentions, and another person's interpretation of those actions. There is a difference between saying to someone, "your actions made me feel XYZ" and "you did XYZ". Saying the former is an important step in fostering understanding and furthering productive discussion. Saying the latter is unproductive casting aspersions and making assumptions of bad faith. Fram's statement falls in the former category. ~ ONUnicorn^{( Talk| Contribs)} problem solving 14:44, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

So, two things. First off, the Committee should not punt on whether Fram's desysop was warranted or not. Either uphold it and formally desysop him, or find it wasn't warranted and overturn it. Second, principle 2 ("Wikimedia Foundation role") contains a factual error when it says The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), sometimes referred to as the "Office," is the legal owner of the English Wikipedia website and infrastructure. While the Foundation does indeed own the physical infrastructure, contributors own both the social infrastructure and content, and each author owns their own contributions to it. The ToU have always been clear that, while contributors agree to license their content under a free license, they retain their ownership and copyright interest of that content. The WMF does not own Wikipedia, just the servers it currently runs on. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:45, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Seraphimblade, I hope I've made my thoughts clear on the pd page on why I'd prefer to pass it to the community. From a process point of view, Fram hasn't had a fair shake. Yet, reconfirmation RfAs can allow the community vote individually on their own standards. If they haven't seen actual evidence of misdemeanor, they can chose to ignore it. Arbcom doesn't have that luxury, we've seen it, but should not be taking it into account under our processes. Worm^TT( talk) 08:47, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

WTT, thanks for the clarification. I do understand the very difficult position ArbCom has been put in with this matter. However, the factual problem with the principle in question is still a more major problem. Essentially, several arbitrators are saying that WMF "own" Wikipedia, when they don't, and shouldn't. They just own some hardware. Saying WMF owns the actual website would be a fundamental change to our licensing policies; as of today, while contributors agree to irrevocably license their contributions under a free license, they do still own them. WMF does not own the site, it owns some computers. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:48, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

A remedy restricting Fram's participation on noticeboards seems off the mark to me. It both hampers discussion and doesn't get at the heart of the matter. If the problem is that Fram is being overzealous in their investigation and enforcement of behavioral problems with specific editors, why not simply prevent them from taking multiple admin actions against the same user? If that's not enough; require Fram to disengage from any long-term behavioral issue they find, and to instead bring any such to the community's attention? Vanamonde ( Talk) 16:21, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Opabinia regalis: since this seems to be the intent of your proposal, I'm wondering why you're not trying to enforce it in its most direct form, ie "Fram is required to disengage from any long-term behavioral issue they detect, and to bring it to the community's attention", or equivalent. Vanamonde ( Talk) 18:50, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

FoF #4 (Community-provided evidence) says The Committee was not authorized to post, and therefore did not post, the case materials provided by the Office or a summary of that evidence. Separate from the issue of public posting of evidence, I think it is important to state explicitly whether Fram was given any opportunity to respond to this evidence.

FoF #6 (Evaluation of Office-provided case materials) is unclear on the issue of whether any of the alleged "borderline harassment" occurred after the "second private conduct warning". The phrasing suggests not, and that the ban was enacted because the abuse of the Committee was seen as a violation of the warnings, but it is not stated explicitly. I understand that the Committee is treading a fine line here in terms of revealing the content of the Office document, but I think this point cuts to the heart of the case because it bears directly on whether this was an issue that the Committee can and should handle.

Remedies #1b (Fram's 1 year ban is disproportionate), #1c (Fram's 1 year ban is justified), and #2c (Removal of sysop user-rights) are implicitly supported by FoF #6 (Evaluation of Office-provided case materials). This is important to note for a number of reasons:

1. As I understand it, Fram has had no opportunity to respond to the underlying evidence.
2. Per ARBPOL, basing decisions on such secret evidence is arguably outside the remit of the Committee.
3. At least one arbitrator has indicated (as part of a support) that the summary provided in FoF #6 is overstated.
4. Another arbitrator supporting FoF #6 has indicated that the public evidence should be given greater weight.

Remedy 3 (Fram restricted) seems unsupported by any finding of fact, or any evidence I have seen. In my experience, arbitrary restrictions of this type often lead to "gotcha" enforcement that does not serve the project. I'd rather see Fram reminded or even admonished about specifics.

Bovlb ( talk) 18:02, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

We weren't allowed to give Fram anything more than the brief summary of the T&S evidence posted on the evidence page. I believe we've stated this publicly multiple times during the case. They responded to the summary in the evidence phase.

If your point 3 is referring to me, I don't think the summary is overstated. I think that terms like "harassment" and "abuse" are contextual and subjective. Personally I think they are little too strong in this case, but I can understand why others might see it differently, and more importantly some targets of Fram's behaviour did consider it as harassment. –  Joe ( talk) 18:31, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Joe Roe: Thanks for responding.

I believe we've stated this publicly multiple times during the case. — No doubt, but I meant that it is important to state this explicitly in the FoFs, analogous to #4's the Committee posted a summary of the community-provided evidence, as well as Fram's reply to that evidence.

I don't think the summary is overstated — You are, of course, the ultimate arbiter of what you meant to say, but I feel that phrases like "I would not call", "I don't consider", and "a little too strong" support the idea that the summary is overstated, in the sense that it is stated too strongly or is exaggerated.

Cheers, Bovlb ( talk) 18:59, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Regarding the "borderline harassment" that occurred after the second conduct warning - I believe the argument is that Fram's actions towards the committee and members in that period constituted similar behaviours - however, I don't recall any actions towards other users in that period, I'd have to double check. Worm^TT( talk) 08:53, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ Worm That Turned: I think that's a really important point, and well worth double-checking. Is there any evidence of "borderline harassment" after the second warning other than towards ArbCom and its members? Bovlb ( talk) 15:59, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I see a lot of comments here that suggest that an action that appears correct when viewed in isolation becomes less defensible when it forms part of a pattern. In particular, an action that is reasonable in response to a problematic edit can become the wrong thing to do if it is repeated, especially if it clearly didn't work the first time. This is a difficult issue and I think it cuts to the heart of this case, so I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. In trying to work it out, I wrote this essay. It is not directly about this case, but I offer it for anyone else trying to wrestle with this issue. Bovlb ( talk) 18:40, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare: Regarding "Evaluation of community-provided evidence (2)":

Out of the evidence that was allowed to be made public to Fram and the community, there were two incidents following Fram's pledge to improve their behavior and the WMF conduct warning in which Fram was disrespectful or uncivil ([3], [4]).

There is also evidence that some members of the community have ongoing concerns with Fram's behavior (some expressed in past discussions examined as evidence: [5], [6], [7], [8]; and some expressed in conversations following the Office action, for example: [9], [10]).

• The way this is phrased has the potential for a serious misreading because it looks as if "following Fram's pledge" might have some relevance to the second paragraph, whereas everything discussed in the second paragraph appears to concern behaviour strictly before the pledge. I suggest that you add "preceding the pledge" to the second paragraph to remedy this.
• I also echo Fram's comment that seven out of the eight pieces of evidence cited here do not appear to be in the community-provided evidence.

Cheers, Bovlb ( talk) 02:13, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Bovlb: I've answered Fram's comment at Meta, so I'll refer you there as far as the question of inclusion in community-provided evidence. As for the phrasing, the diffs 9 and 10 in the second paragraph did occur after the pledge—it is being used to demonstrate that there are ongoing concerns about Fram's behavior, even recently, that may need to be examined. That's it—as I've said elsewhere in the PD, I do not think this case was set up properly to examine the issue of a desysop, and so I would rather we resysop and then separately examine their behavior. The other four were from right around the same time as it. I tried to make that clear by adding the "following the Office action" portion. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 04:44, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare: Thanks for responding. Regard diffs 9 and 10, I agree that the comments themselves are post-pledge, but the three pieces of evidence they cite are all pre-pledge. Hence it is my interpretation that, while they may indicate post-pledge unhappiness with Fram, they do not establish that this unhappiness is based on post-pledge behaviour. I stand by my claim that "everything discussed in the second paragraph appears to concern behaviour strictly before the pledge". ETA: Sorry to harp on this point, but it has been claimed both that Fram's behaviour improved and did not improve after the pledge, so clarity on the timeline of behavioural evidence seems important. (Edited to make phrasing more neutral.) Bovlb ( talk) 16:15, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The point of that portion of the FoF is that there are still plenty of people who currently have concerns about Fram's behavior, as was expressed at WP:FRAM in a handful of places. It may well be that those concerns are based on old behavior, and Fram has behaved just fine since the pledge, but the fact of the matter is that the framing of this case hasn't allowed us to examine that very well. I think it's worth acknowledging that concerns have been heard, and either opening a separate case ourselves or leaving the option open for someone to bring their own case addressing that specific point. The fact that people have concerns is not itself supporting any kind of sanction against Fram—it's simply meant to say that we have heard these concerns, that our return of Fram's sysop tools is not to say that their behavior has been flawless, and that Fram's admin status may warrant further examination. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 21:55, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare: Please forgive my ignorance, as I don't usually follow ARBCOM cases this closely, but is it normal to use evidence that people "have concerns about ... behavior" rather than evidence of concerning behaviour? Bovlb ( talk) 13:39, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

No, but this is also an abnormal case in that we have evidence that we cannot release to Fram, and some of us (myself included) do not wish to use that evidence to decide the desysop (and so would rather revisit the question with a more normal evidence phase). GorillaWarfare  (talk) 14:32, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Replacing comments with the only important thing left to say
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Would the Committee explicitly cite the evidence on the basis of which they support the de-sysop of Fram? This can be used as the (incredibly low) new bar for which cases regarding admin behavior can be brought before the committee. I've in mind half a dozen or so admins who should expect to be de-sysop'd quite quickly. Mr Ernie ( talk) 18:19, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply As always, remedies follow from the principles and FoFs. Speaking for myself, I'd highlight principle 1, 5 & 6 and FoF 1, 5 & 6 as the reason for supporting remedy 2b/c. Not to be pedantic, but we are also talking about whether to resysop Fram. They've already been desysopped by the WMF and we're now asked to consider whether to overturn that action. I've seen enough evidence of incivility that I'm not comfortable doing that without confirmation they have the community's support via an RfA. I'd have a higher bar for desysopping on ArbCom's initiative. –  Joe ( talk) 18:57, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply The well is too poisoned in this case for Fram's reconfirmation RFA to have any chance at succeeding. ArbCom needs to make the statement that the WMF desysop was not valid, and that it is up to the community to make the case Fram should not be an admin. You can't say the 1 year ban was unwarranted and vacate it, but uphold the WMF desysop. If Fram runs a reconfirmation RFA there would be many oppose votes saying the WMF removed the tools and that's good enough for them. If you want to proceed with upholding the desysop then please explicitly cite the behaviors from the evidence phase that support such an action. Citing a few generic FoF's isn't good enough. Mr Ernie ( talk) 08:51, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply Mr Ernie, there are some very broad strokes in that comment - The WMF removed the tools as part of a ban, which has since been vacated. They've made very little song and dance about the tools, and have seemed far more concerned about the ban in general. At the same time, having spent far more time reading discussions around this issue than I'd like, I've seen a general feeling from the community that the issue was far more about the process than the outcome. There have certainly been some editors who believe Fram to be an excellent admin, but equally there have been many who do not. The community should be able to make this final decision we saw it with Floqenbeam - the community has it's ability to make a considered decision, and it shouldn't be left to a few individuals. WormTT( talk) 08:59, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply If 2c passes The behaviour shown in the case materials, combined with the overturned decisions mentioned in the community evidence, fall below the standards expected for an administrator., then you need to show Fram, and perhaps the community at large, this material. It is fundamentally unfair and irresponsible to include this if you as Arbcom are not able to fully investigate (due to the redactions) and if Fram is not shown this to aid in self-improvement in case he ever wants to do RFA again. This is a critical flaw in this proceeding. If you are not willing to fight that this material should be released, you should not be citing it anywhere in a decision. Again, you yourselves, due to the redactions, have no idea what the context or surrounding events are! T&S obviously built that dossier not to use as a neutral piece of work, but to support their view that Fram should be sanctioned! Mr Ernie ( talk) 11:06, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply SilkTork you said If someone is to be desysopped for something, whatever it is, they would need to show understanding of the reasons for the desysop but in remedy 2c the committee cites the case materials as a reason for the desysop (see my comment just above). Since this will not be revealed, Fram is by definition unable to understand the reason for the desystop. Indeed many in an RFA would cite such unseen evidence as an oppose vote, saying if it's good enough for the WMF it's good enough for me, and Fram would have no way to respond. Mr Ernie ( talk) 11:31, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply The elephant in the room here is that Fram is abrasive. He is generally correct in identifying causes for concern, but is too strident in dealing with them. There is evidence presented in this case to indicate that, and it's not exactly a secret. The WMF document is simply more of the same. There is nothing in it that is any different to what people who know Fram already know about Fram. And if people don't know, they can look at the Evidence page and follow the links to get a feel for people's views on Fram. The case request in 2016 has these statements: "Fram targets certain editors, bullies them, harasses them and sometimes hounds them, following them around and undermining their contributions."; "I have clashed with Fram, and remain of the view that he can be abrasive and I wish he could moderate his behaviour and attitudes at times whilst staying true to his strong and laudable views on quality."; "Fram's responses were less than polite, to be sure, but as I've said before in this venue we are not here to elevate polite discourse over encyclopedic accuracy."; "Like me, Fram can be short and brusque, but I really have to confess I have never seen his conduct fall down to such a degree that an ArcBom hearing is warranted."; "Fram could probably use a bit more diplomacy at times, but most of what is being called harrassment above seems to simply be on-point criticism." The case request was declined. This year in the GiantSnowman case I opposed a finding that Fram had "unnecessarily personalised this dispute with other users" by saying: "if someone is a little strident when uncovering admin abuse, I am a little more forgiving. Punchy, personalised language is not acceptable, but can sometimes be understandable when put into context". The links lead to other links which give examples of Fram's language. I'm just giving a flavour of the opinions about Fram, which Fram and others are aware of. Borderline stuff. Fram is usually right. But people are aware that he can be abrasive, and have communicated that to him. Many of us who are aware of it have overlooked it or even forgiven it. Accepted it as a necessary evil. Whatever. The WMF document was composed of several complaints from several users which reported the same sort of stuff. It was the cumulation of these reports over a number of years, coupled with Fram's attacks on ArbCom which led to the ban. The evidence is onwiki regarding conduct, and Fram himself is aware of this, so I don't think there is anything secret or unknown, and people can use the available evidence to make their own evaluation of Fram, and to ask him questions. It is the borderline nature of Fram's conduct, and that it is within Fram and the community's scope to dial back some of the intensity of Fram's conduct, which leads me to feel a RfA is the best way to look into reinstating Fram's admin tools. SilkTork ( talk) 13:04, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply It's really disappointing to see the Arbs ignore well-reasoned comments by many contributors here and push ahead with this bull-headed approach to desysop Fram. The community resoundingly told the WMF that their involvement in this type o was unwelcome, yet here you are partially endorsing it. It is a shame that nobody is willing to at least put some diffs in the desysop remedy. Mr Ernie ( talk) 16:19, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply GorillaWarfare please cite the diffs or evidence in your remedy for taking over the desysop that leads you to that decision. Mr Ernie ( talk) 19:20, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply The remedies follow the principles and findings; remedy 2d is based on principles 1 and 3–7, as well as finding 6. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 19:25, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply That’s not good enough. Please put the diffs in the decision that lead to a desysop. Your finding of fact #5 says they don’t exist. Mr Ernie ( talk) 16:27, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply Do the arbs who voted for FoF 5 before the wording was changed need to re-affirm their vote for the new wording? How can you change a wording that's already been voted on, without having a new vote? Mr Ernie ( talk) 11:50, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply Let's look at what Fram regularly dealt with regarding editors he found issues with: Here's a random conflict with a now vanished user (the first one I came across on their talk page) - [1]. Those speaking against Fram included Victuallers, a user with an undisclosed COI regarding the vanished user, and Raystorm, a user with an undisclosed COI regarding the vanished user (um, a HUGE PERSONAL COI). What on earth is Fram supposed to when an editor is making problematic edits but other powerful and influential editors with conflicts of interest protect them? These users and others with undisclosed COI's regularly showed up to give Fram a hard time in threads Fram started to try to solve some of the problems. This is exactly why you as Arbcom need to fully investigate this case and not rely on a cherry picked, out of context, redacted dossier from T&S who desperately wanted Fram gone. Mr Ernie ( talk) 18:01, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply Of the two diffs linked in FoF 9, one is Fram responding to a sarcastic comment with one of his own, and the other is the infamous "Fuck Arbcom" comment. This is hardly evidence that Fram somehow went back on his pledge to improve. Regardless of all the magic wordsmithing you do in proposals and findings of fact, the actual evidence in this case is weak. From what's been revealed out of the secret dossier, well I have a hard time taking that seriously too. Mr Ernie ( talk) 06:35, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

To the arbs voting for a desysop - please create a finding of fact, with diffs from the evidence phase of the case, that outlines the behavior leading you to that decision. There are only 2 actual diffs listed at the moment - a sarcasting response to a sarcastic talk page post (which is NOT on the case evidence page), and F Arbcom. If you are desysop'ing over the secret evidence in the dossier, then at least say that. You can not manipulate this process to get a desire you want. Mr Ernie ( talk) 14:25, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Pinging the arbs who support a desysop @ AGK, Joe Roe, Mkdw, KrakatoaKatie, Premeditated Chaos, and SilkTork:. Please create such a FoF with diffs from the evidence page, or point to the secret evidence, to show why you support a desysop. Or reword the remedy and define what "case materials" means. As multiple editors have requested. Mr Ernie ( talk) 14:32, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

We have already said we are working on this, multiple times. Also, we all watch this page and read it regularly, so no need to ping. –  Joe ( talk) 16:30, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Unresolved problems with the case:

• FoF 1 - regarding the WMF conduct warning - can we have a link to the wording or see it as a diff? I don't know where that warning is or what it warned about.
• FoF 8 - the wording was changed after most of the supporting arbs voted for it. I don't automatically assume arbs still support things after wordings are changed in a major way.
• FoF 9 - you are citing diffs that were not submitted as evidence. Additionally, who cares that some editors had concerns about Fram? I'm sure a certain number of editors also supported Fram's actions, but you do not link to such comments. Finally, some of the diffs you linked by editors having concerns were not in the case evidence.
• FoF 10 - the T&S dossier seems biased and cherry picked. Further context that came out regarding one such editor in the dossier revealed that Fram's actions were widely supported by the community. This context is crucial, and is missing.
• FoF 15 - issues already highlighted by Carcharoth need to be resolved. How shameful to hide behind the dossier, which as discussed likely has major flaws (how many of the complainers for example were indeffed by Fram, actions supported by the community?)
• Remedy 1d - what does "case materials" mean? You also state "They may regain the tools" but there is nothing prohibiting Fram from simply asking directly for them back at WP:BN.

Kudos to the Arbs voting against the desysop. Shame on the Arbs voting for it and hiding behind private evidence. If you think a Fram's next RFA will be a healing or any sort of normal procedure you are being naive. This case and the T&S action has irrevocably poisoned the well against Fram. You had a chance to do the right thing, the fair thing, and the calming thing but you've instead now thrown additional fuel on any fire. Unfortunately I've lost respect for some of you based on how you have treated this case and the community concerns around it. Mr Ernie ( talk) 08:14, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Mr Ernie,

• FoF 1, the warnings were by email and have been provided to the committee in the case materials and by Fram directly. They are not on wiki and we cannot provide the wording.
• FoF 8, 4 of the 5 supporting have actively commented that they were fine with the new wording, which was less strong than before . I don't see an issue.
• FoF 9, I understand the concern, and spent a bit of time tallying up. The diffs themselves may not have been there, but the evidence was and the diff points to a specific part of the evidence. Unfortunately this is due to the nature of the case - no open evidence phase.
• FoF 10 I cannot comment further
• FoF 15 I've resolved some, and will comment in Carcharoth's section in a moment.
• Remedy 1d - "case materials" has been used throughout the decision to refer to the T&S document.

Hope that helps. Worm^TT( talk) 08:58, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Shameful behavior on display here. Do not silence critics voices. Mr Ernie ( talk) 17:25, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Bradv I refactored the comment and toned it down a bit. Did you miss that? You act as if I directly copied it. This comment [2] contains a lie. Please remove your uncivil comment containing a lie and point out where the personal attack in my removed comment is. Thanks! Mr Ernie ( talk) 19:37, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Is Remedy 3 (Fram restricted) meant to be 500 words per issue, or 500 words per issue per venue? It seems to me that both readings create perverse incentives - if the former, it encourages a malfeasant editor to stonewall Fram on user or article talk until he's out of words, so that he can't escalate to ANI; if the latter, it encourages Fram to escalate prematurely. Plus, either way, there'll be admins lining up to include the mandatory {{ ANI-notice}} as counting against the 500-word user talk limit, not to mention the abhorrent and unreadable practice commonly seen at WP:ARC of keeping under 500 words by removing previous statements. — Cryptic 18:21, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

If arbitrators are genuinely offended by "So it feels as if the only reason for a desysop is to appease the WMF, as if a 100-days ban and an admonishment isn't enough.", then I very much doubt they're ready for what's going to be said about them if they continue on their present course and desysop Fram on no stronger evidence than the "fuck arbcom" diff. — Cryptic 18:06, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Clerks: please do not change this section into a "Statement by Fut.Perf"

Where has this horrible fashion sprung from, of enforcing comments in personal section format? This is a talk page, not a statements page. We talk here. That's the way this community chooses to provide feedback on things, by talking them out, in threaded dialogue. I can see no advantage in enforcing this exceptional format, other than as yet another demonstration of power by the arbs and their clerks. If the committee doesn't want to hear the community talk, they'd better say so up front. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:24, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Hey Future Perfect at Sunrise, I appreciate your concerns about the format. I also saw a comment above by Mendaliv about sectioned discussion, and it's clear that there's some frustration about the change, so I hope I can be somewhat helpful in my explanation.

Proposed decision talk pages are normally sectioned in almost every case. The reason it wasn't before here is that there wasn't a proposed decision. Arbitration pages exist to help the committee reach a fair, well-informed decision; in that process, community comments are highly valuable and deeply appreciated. We also know that these disputes can cause tempers to run hot; almost by definition, arbitration cases are centered on disputes that the community has been unable to resolve. The sole purpose of the PD talk is to provide comments to arbs to help them reach the best resolution possible; true debates serve no good purpose here. Non-arbs aren't your audience – I wager you'd agree that arguing with and convincing non-arbs on this talk page of your positions doesn't do you all that much good, since it's the arbs who'll be voting on this. And over many years of doing this, the committee has found that the most helpful comments for the arbs do not come in the form of threaded discussion. Is it possible to have unproductive heated arguments with sectioned discussion? Sure, but in our experience, it's much harder.

I think I speak for the clerks and the committee when I say that we don't give a damn about "power". It's an internet website, for Pete's sake; you must have a really low opinion of us if you think this is the only way we can get some sort of power rush. The arbitrators and clerks I've had the joy of working with over the last four and a half years have been good people, dedicated people, who do this difficult job because they believe in it. From what I can see, the job of an arbitrator is deeply unpleasant and the members of the committee do it because they think the work is important; anyone who wanted to do it to feel power wouldn't last a moment in the position.

Please know that out of respect for your request, I will not be changing your section title name. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 18:53, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm here now reading this page because I value the input of everyone. As Arbs our role is to make a final, binding decision. How we reach that decision is up to the individual Arb, but I don't think any of us reach a decision without taking the community's views into account. And we may change or amend a decision based on comments made by others: other Arbs, other community members, parties to the case. Having sectioned comments works better. As Kevin says, having a threaded discussion which can dissolve into an argument is not helpful. Folks can comment on each others' comments within their own section, so there's no censorship going on, just a method of organising feedback that has proved to work well. I hope that satisfies your query. Also, I hope as we move forward on the civility front, such comments as "yet another demonstration of power by the arbs and their clerks" will be universally found to be unacceptable. SilkTork ( talk) 20:54, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Echo SBlade that the Committee should not punt on whether Fram's desysop was warranted or not. Either uphold it and formally desysop him, or find it wasn't warranted and overturn it. Joe's reply in the regard to Ernie is awful. ∯WBG ^converse 19:13, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  Happy to note relevant progress, despite wherever individuals arbitrators stand. Thanks, GW! ∯WBG ^converse 16:10, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Hey incisive arb, can you try a bit harder to write coherent non-legalese English? The other user then feels the need to answer each aspect in turn, which creates this bizarre paradigm where making ten times the noise about something than was deserved is, coming from Fram, something other than counter-productive and unprofessional - LOL. ∯WBG ^converse 14:52, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

If there was a serious point here that the restriction does not deserve support, then I was unconvinced by it. AGK  ■ 16:54, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The sole serious point is that we have an incisive arbitrator who cannot write coherent non-legalese English. And going by a Meta-t/p and my thanks log, at-least two others seem to agree. ∯WBG ^converse 17:39, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• "Incisive"? As in "Intelligently analytical and concise"? Quite the compliment, no? Hyperbolick ( talk) 18:56, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Please comment in your own section (since that seems to be the procedure); I have nothing to reply, at any case. ∯WBG ^converse 19:01, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ SilkTork: - Have you read some of your fellow arbitrator's statements, over Mkdw's recently posted FoF? Do you still hold that Fram is casting aspersions? ∯WBG ^converse 17:32, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

(Comment removed) – bradv 🍁 19:03, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Clerk here. Strange, but this is an almost word-for-word copy of what Mr Ernie posted above, only three minutes later. Did you mean to make this a quote from him? I'm not officially clerking this case but I'll check out the closing, for you and Mr Ernie. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:55, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

And, Ernie took it from someone. Hi, clerks! was directed at two specific clerks, who (I guess) have understood the reasons behind my framing, very well. ∯WBG ^converse 19:01, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Older discussion
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why are there desysop PDs but no admonishment or reminder PDs on offer as alternatives? 28bytes ( talk) 19:06, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply There are 3 levels of desysop PD, restore, pass to community, desysop. This isn't the same as a normal "Desysop or oppose", where an alternative should be put forward. That said, I have been seriously considering an admonisment / warning remedy, which I may throw up soon. WormTT( talk) 09:02, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply Thanks Dave. 28bytes ( talk) 20:58, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply I encourage everyone, and especially the arbiters, to read and consider Newyorkbrad's comments below. NYB's workshop proposals were excellent and the committee is really missing an opportunity to bring this mess to a satisfactory conclusion by diverging from the sound principles, findings of facts, and remedies he offered there. I urge the committee to avoid any remedy that references "time served", as that would imply a 3-month siteban is an acceptable sanction supported by the public evidence, which it most definitely is not. Vacate it. 28bytes ( talk) 22:46, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply Given finding of fact #5 ("...does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response"), the only way remedy #2c ("Removal of sysop user-rights") makes any sense is if the committee intends to desysop Fram (or "decline to resysop" him) based in large part on the secret T&S report that the community cannot vet. I sincerely hope the committee will not use this case to prop up the T&S desysop while at the same time acknowledging that the public evidence does not support such a sanction. 28bytes ( talk) 02:43, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply I'm also not thrilled with GorillaWarfare voting for a desysop, the entire public justification for which is the overturned blocks of two editors, one of whom is GorillaWarfare. (Remedy 2c lists only "The behaviour shown in the case materials" (which I presume is all private/secret) "combined with the overturned decisions mentioned in the community evidence", of which only Martinevans and GorillaWarfare are listed.) Considering that Fram's ban is widely considered (rightly or wrongly) to have been at least in part the result of having scrutinized the edits of someone connected to the WMF, it seems like preserving the appearance of impartiality could be given a little more consideration here. 28bytes ( talk) 03:29, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply I was a bit torn on whether to abstain on that FoF or not, because I happen to agree that Fram's block of me wasn't desysop-worthy (or worthy of any other sanction). I would have preferred it not have been included at all, especially since it's explicitly not supporting any remedies, though I do understand that the drafters wanted to be clear that tool misuse was no factor in the outcomes of this case. I had hoped that my comment about WP:ADMINCOND would make it clear that my vote was based on the conduct issues and independent of any tool use, as would my longer comment on the ban remedies. As for recusing on that particular remedy, it would be bizarre to feel impartial enough to vote on whether to impose the strongest sanction (siteban) but not so impartial that I could vote on a less severe sanction (requiring RfA before regaining sysop tools). GorillaWarfare  (talk) 03:54, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply Re it's explicitly not supporting any remedies; it's used to support remedy 2c, though, unless I'm misunderstanding? 28bytes ( talk) 04:14, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply The FoF mentions the two blocks specifically to say that they are not factoring into remedies. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 15:16, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply But the remedy (2c) that's currently passing specifically lists them as factoring into the decision to desysop: "2c) The behaviour shown in the case materials, combined with the overturned decisions mentioned in the community evidence, fall below the standards expected for an administrator." 28bytes ( talk) 15:52, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply I've struck my vote and asked a clarifying question of Worm, because you're right that that is contradictory. I've also elaborated a bit on my comments at the ban vote to explain that a desysop would likely have been the kind of remedy we'd have placed for the hounding type of behavior that Fram has displayed, and that is why I am supporting the remedy to require Fram to go through a new RfA. Once that's clarified I'll adjust my vote properly; thanks for the questions. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:21, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply Resolved—I've proposed option 2d and my votes are up-to-date. Thanks again. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:53, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply Thanks GW. 28bytes ( talk) 20:58, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply I appreciate much of what the committee is doing here, and in particular the vacating of the siteban. I really think the committee is making a grave mistake in not also vacating the desysop, especially as it has acknowledged that the public evidence does not support a desysop. Without that public evidence, the committee is forced to desysop on the basis of private evidence which apparently comprises only actions Fram has taken on-wiki and which therefore should be reviewable by the community. Endorsing a desysop of this type is, I am sure the committee can see, deeply divisive and will serve to entrench that division further. After months of acrimony, punting this to an RfA, which is guaranteed to ramp up the division and discord, will only have a corrosive effect on the community. As DGG says, many of us would be forced into a "support" position simply as a means of registering our unhappiness at what's been done to Fram, regardless of any legitimate concerns we might have about temperament. An RfA of that sort is not going to bring any closure to our division, it's only going to inflame it. I urge the committee to: Vacate the desysop as you are vacating the siteban. Set firm expectations about what specific behavior you want Fram to avoid. Specify that if those expectations are not met, a future case regarding Fram's administrative conduct will be opened, with all that implies. If the "prevention, not punishment" mantra is to be taken seriously, the goal for this case should be Fram making positive contributions as an editor and administrator without any accompanying problems. The committee is in an ideal position to help that happen, to provide closure to this unpleasant episode, and move past (rather than embrace) T&S actions that were tainted by secret evidence and conflicts of interest. Please don't let this opportunity pass by. Please don't put the community through a divisive RfA that will revive all these secret evidence discussions that most of us would like to put in the rear-view mirror. 28bytes ( talk) 21:48, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply The continued massaging of the findings of fact to match the desired outcome is making me lose faith in the integrity of this process. 28bytes ( talk) 16:30, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply As of today Fram has been unjustly banned for 100 days. Since the committee has unanimously agreed to unban him, and the proposed injunction to do so has majority support, perhaps going ahead and finally lifting the ban would be a nice anniversary present, no? 28bytes ( talk) 16:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply I would like to offer a sincere "thank you" to the committee for vacating Fram's ban. Now, let's talk about the desysop. Proposed remedy 2d, which is currently passing, is a mess. I do not understand what "case materials" means in this context. Does it refer to both the T&S report and the community-provided evidence? Or something else? Mkdw links to his comments in the "Evaluation of community-provided evidence" section, but I do not see anything in that section that specifies what behavior he believes falls afoul of ADMINCOND. Mkdw, could you please clarify what Fram did that you feel deserves a desysop? GorillaWarfare has taken the time to assemble a list of the potentially problematic actions and interactions of Fram as background for her decision, for which I am grateful. Could the arbs who are supporting the desysop please do the same? Or at least point to the items in GW's list which are informing their decision? Right now this seems like a WP:VAGUEWAVE desysop, which is not fair to Fram and not really helpful for those of us who want to understand what sort of administrator conduct standards the committee is trying to set or enforce. 28bytes ( talk) 18:58, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply @ SilkTork: In your response to Fram below, you take him to task for speculating on why he is being desysopped. What would really be helpful is for you to use your influence with your colleagues to ask them to end the speculation by giving a clear explanation of why they are voting to desysop. You will see in my comment above that I have respectfully asked that of the committee. A lot of us on this page are asking that and I don't think our questions are unreasonable. But we are not being listened to. Rather than tone police Fram for asking the same thing the rest of us are asking, why not just answer us? 28bytes ( talk) 13:36, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply I have no issue with Fram asking that question. My issue is with the words: "it feels as if the only reason for a desysop is to appease the WMF". That is not a question, it is a bad faith suggestion. Small, but nasty. I'm pointing it out. People can agree with my observation or with Fram's. However, "Rather than tone police Fram for asking the same thing the rest of us are asking" is not addressing my comment - indeed it is diverting attention from what I was saying onto something else. I am not tone policing Fram for asking a question, I am drawing attention to the words I quote above, and explaining why such words are concerning, and that it is that aspect of Fram which tends to cause concern. SilkTork ( talk) 14:01, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply @ SilkTork: I feel you are missing the forest for the trees in this situation. Fram is being forced to guess for which actions or for what other reasons arbitrators are voting to desysop him. You imply he has guessed wrong, and that it is not because WMF has certain expectations in place for the case result? OK. But you say it is in bad faith to make that particular guess. I'm not so sure about that, but for the sake of argument let's assume it is. The question remains: why make him guess at all? 28bytes ( talk) 14:18, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply Um. Surely pointing out an example of the sort of behaviour that has driven concerns about Fram is doing the opposite of making Fram quess? I said: "it is these little niggly, needling, pointless posts that attack people's integrity and honesty that tend to irritate people, and which are at the base of concerns about you." Isn't that making it clear? What is the difference between making a guess and Wikipedia:Casting aspersions? I think it's when the guess is both baseless (going against reasonable evidence and assumption) and damaging (especially if not challenged). That appears to me to be the case here. SilkTork ( talk) 14:47, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply An arb just said "If this doesn't happen and right soon, mark my words that the WMF will find a way to do it for us." Given that and very similar recent comments from other arbs I must respectfully disagree that it is "baseless" and bad faith to suggest that there is a desire to appease the WMF. 28bytes ( talk) 22:23, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Not going to get an answer to this, I guess.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Thank you Mkdw and KrakatoaKatie for explaining the basis on which you are voting to desysop Fram. I don't agree with it — at all — but I appreciate you articulating it. What I would now like to know is why you decided to jump to a straight desysop instead of a reminder or admonishment, as has been the case with other (but not all) administrator conduct cases brought before the committee. What is your thinking here? 28bytes ( talk) 22:23, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

This is just sad. What a lost opportunity. 28bytes ( talk) 18:15, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

"The behaviour shown in the case materials, combined with the overturned decisions mentioned in the community evidence, fall below the standards expected for an administrator. Accordingly, the committee declines to reinstate Fram's sysop userright." And two committee members already support this one.

So let me get this straight, evidence that neither Fram nor we can see or respond to shows problems, while evidence that we can see and respond to shows negligible problems, and committee members support punishment based on the evidence that we can't see or respond to? This amounts to basing the punishment entirely on secret evidence. Ken Arromdee ( talk) 20:56, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• LOL @SilkTork. "Anyone who claims we enjoy the arbitrary exercise of power will be promptly punished".— Chowbok ☠ 21:00, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• We're far too concerned about civility here and not enough about corruption.— Chowbok ☠ 14:36, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Will somebody please explain something to me?

Sorry, I'm sure this has been covered in several places, but this stupid format of ordering by user rather than chronologically makes a convoluted discussion even more difficult to follow. Why, exactly, is Fram still banned given that everybody agreed the ban was wrong? Please ping me when you reply so I know to search for my name on this ridiculous page.— Chowbok ☠ 01:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Chowbok: Because the case has not closed yet, and so remedy 1a has not taken effect, nor have the motion or injunction to temporarily implement the unban passed yet. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 02:39, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Given the origins of this case, I can't believe people are still discussing Fram's conduct. It's as if after the Rodney King incident, people were mainly talking about what would be a more appropriate punishment for King's speeding. Folks: there's a bigger problem here which needs to be acknowledged, and the first step towards dealing with that is completely invalidating the WMF's actions in this case. The arbs that vote for Fram's desysop are complicit in corruption.— Chowbok ☠ 11:14, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I don't have much to say about the case, but I read these all the time and I think the sectioning enhances community voices rather than silencing them. This way I don't have to search through a (typically interminable) discussion with a thousand indents, mostly paired with tangents, to figure out what one person actually thinks, or to refer to it after the discussion has taken place. Threaded discussion is vulnerable to distraction and derailing, and favors the loudest voices. If you want to hear from a wide sample, it helps when everyone has their own slot. Seren_ Dept 21:02, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I understand that the Committee remains limited in what can be disclosed from the Office-provided evidence. However, some of that evidence is the basis on which some arbitrators are voting to uphold Fram's desysopping. In general, except in extreme circumstances not present here, the Committee would not desysop an administrator without his or her having received some form of prior warning that his or her conduct was problematic.

Here, as correctly noted in the decision, Fram never received a formal warning from this Committee, although in a couple of instances there were comments by individual arbitrators suggesting a change of approach. Fram did receive the "conduct warnings" from the Office. In 2018, Fram suggested a willingness to reflect on the input he had received. Without having seen the Office-provided evidence, I would be hard-pressed to see a case for desysopping unless Fram engaged in serious misconduct after his having received these inputs rather than before. This is particularly so because while I have had my own disagreements with Fram and have not always appreciated the tone of his "voice" expressed to me and others, his goal throughout all of these matters has plainly been to ensure the quality of the encyclopedia we are working to create and maintain.

I anticipate the response that the community can decide whether Fram retains our confidence as an administrator by resubmitting himself to a new RfA. However, since non-arbitrators still do not and will not have access to all the evidence, this will be a problematic exercise. In addition, I anticipate that a new RfA for Fram would be bitterly divisive for the community. Among other concerns, I anticipate that the RfA discussion would likely become another platform for further wiki-political and wiki-constitutional issues that, while it was important that we discuss and come to consensus on in June and July, are largely played out at this time.

Unless there has been serious administrator misconduct by Fram in relatively recent times, which based on the public information I am frankly not seeing, I suggest that a reminder remedy such as the one in my workshop proposals would be a more proportionate result than confirmation of the desysop. It also bears emphasis that Fram has already been prevented from both editing and adminning for three months, which in and of itself is a substantial sanction, which will have occurred and cannot be undone whether or not the Committee ultimately agrees or disagrees with it. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 21:22, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Update September 13

I am not nominating Fram for administrator canonization by any means, but it is time to resolve this case, and diminishing returns have set in on the discussion. Even at this late date, no one has pointed on-wiki to behavior warranting desysopping since the WMF conduct reminder, and ArbCom itself already looked at some of the prior conduct and found that it did not warrant action beyond informal comments about tone by individual arbitrators. The most recent diffs cited from before Fram's ban include rudeness toward the ArbCom itself, which I didn't especially care for, but rudeness to ArbCom is no better or worse than rudeness to anyone else. I am sure that is not the basis for votes to desysop, but the allegedly overzealous behavior that presumably is the basis arose from well-meaning efforts at quality control for the encyclopedia, plus almost all, as already noted, happened some time ago.

If the Committee as a whole or individual arbs believe that Fram, or admins generally, should behave differently in the future from how Fram behaved in the past, then by all means say so, with as much specificity as is appropriate and permissible. But given the tortured procedural history here, this is the wrong time and the wrong case in which to begin enforcing some new standard, or even an old revitalized standard, with a desysopping.

If the concern from some arbs is that restoring Fram's +sysop would constitute an unwarranted endorsement of all of his prior behavior, which is how I read a few of the vote comments, then that's easy enough to avoid: just explain that it isn't.

Finally, it's been pointed out that the WMF's desysopping of Fram may have been a procedural artifact of the ban, rather than a separate WMF decision to begin with (a point I didn't realize when I workshopped the case).

I do not agree with many of the personal criticisms of the arbitrators or with the suggestion that they are acting under constraint in their decision-making in the case. The open letter that the Committee sent to the WMF two months ago, and the arbitrators' unanimous vote to overturn the ban, refute that notion. In fact, at this stage it is probably more difficult and even painful for some of the arbs to be in disagreement with their editor colleagues' evaluation of the case on this page, over their principled and sincere views of what is and isn't proper behavior by an admin, than to be in disagreement with Trust and Safety. But in this case I think the consensus on this page has the better of the argument—not by mere reason of numbers, but instead for a number of reasons, many discussed up and down this page. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 02:57, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I have commented below explaining what I am up to. Unfortunately this does introduce some additional delay to the case, although per Mkdw's recent comment and comments by SilkTork I believe I am not the only arbitrator revisiting the evidence. I'm sad to add more time to what has already been a drawn-out process, but I do think it is worth it. I'm here commenting on this page while I work through the evidence once more, as quickly as I can while also being meticulous—hopefully I can finish up relatively quickly, though my pesky day job does get in the way a bit... GorillaWarfare  (talk) 03:02, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Lift Fram's ban now?

While the discussion over Fram's adminship continues and some arbs are further reviewing the evidence, the remedy vacating Fran's ban from editing is passing unanimously and has been for several days. I don't see any reason why that aspect of the decision can't be implemented now, even if it will take a little more time to finish with other aspects. Allowing Fram to resume editing on English Wikipedia would also have the advantage of allowing his discussion with some of the arbitrators to take place here, rather than on a talkpage on another project. Unless there is some reason not to do it that I am missing, how about a motion like the following:

Remedy 1a of this decision is passed and shall take effect immediately, without awaiting the close of the case. The remainder of the decision remains pending.

Thank you for your consideration. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 14:30, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

This seems very reasonable. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 21:08, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Response to Xaosflux et al.

@ Xaosflux and Xeno: Responding to Xaosflux's ping, which in turn mentioned Xeno. I think it is clear that my preference would be to see this case resolved now with the lifting of Fram's ban and the restoration of his adminship, coupled with whatever counseling on future behavior might be appropriate, such as what I suggested on the workshop. That would render the interim motion unnecessary. But if the arbs feel they need more time to decide on the adminship angle, as they say they do (and whether or not you or I agree that they should), then the motion is the minimum that would at least enable Fram to resume editing right away, since there is unanimous agreement among the arbs that he should not have been banned, without having to wait any longer; I am frankly surprised that the motion has not already been passed. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 01:30, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

This part shouldn't be controversial

@arbitrators: Please update the date in finding 14. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 20:23, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I have removed "early" for now. If the consultation process looks unlikely to occur at all in September, I'll recommend we remove the date entirely. Mkdw ^talk 21:12, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Just gotta say that any 'time served' votes won't line up with the evidence that has been shown to the community, which is kind of the whole point of this. Arkon ( talk) 21:14, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I want to sleep on it before offering some more substantive comments, but I'll just point out something minor for now. Partway through the FofFs, the header font size changes. It should be made consistent throughout the whole decision. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:39, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Tryptofish, fixed. – bradv 🍁 21:46, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks! -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:48, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I want to begin with a thank-you to the Committee for what must have been hard work, and by saying that I am pleased by a lot of what I see in the PD. I particularly appreciate the clear statement that there was no evidence of off-wiki misbehavior, and the plan for an RfC. I also see that the emerging voting patterns negate any need for me to comment on some of the things that aren't going to pass.

So I'm going to focus on the issue of the desysop. And I agree with a lot of the other editors on this talk page that you need to restore the sysop bit and not have a new RfA. There are a multitude of reasons why a new RfA would be a terrible outcome of this decision.

• It is wishful thinking to predict that the community will conduct a thoughtful and balanced evaluation. Floquenbeam had to go to Crat Chat, and that was an easy case compared to what this would be (and he did it of his own choosing). You will be dividing the community and creating an ugly situation, just when the resolution of this case ought to be bringing us to some much-needed calm.
• As SchroCat so rightly points out below, it makes no sense to say that there is not enough evidence for a desysop, but you are going to let the desysop stand. If you go down that road, you will be ignoring the longstanding expectation that ArbCom remedies flow out of the principles and findings of fact, rather than contradict them.
• There's a serious problem with how you are explaining how the evidence relates to a desysop remedy. You say that there is no evidence of things off-wiki that the community does not know about. You say that the evidence submitted by the community does not justify a desysop. You have said that you will not privilege the T&S document above the community process here, that it would be treated as information from the prosecution, rather than as established findings of fact. And yet – you say that when you read the T&S document, you come away feeling that there has been a pattern of conduct that is sub-par for an admin. The only way I can make sense of that is that you are basing this on an emotional response to what T&S wrote and gave to you, and not on the findings of fact in the PD. You need to give yourselves some more emotional distance before you make a final decision.
• If you care about what the community wants, and you do, and you are right to do so, then let's really look at the facts about that. Before the T&S overreach, the community had Fram as an admin. There had been complaints, and there had been some case requests, but the bottom line is that he wasn't desysopped at the time of the T&S intervention. (It comes across as though you are, after reading the T&S document, deciding that the sum-total of everything that we already knew before has suddenly grown larger that it was before.) In the controversy over the T&S action, some Crats supported overturning the desysop and some opposed. That's not a consensus. And it's wrong to say that whatever was the last action (before wheel-warring would have happened) should be the default situation. One thing that clearly does have consensus, in the community and on the Committee, is that T&S acted out-of-process. As such, you need to vacate what T&S did. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 20:39, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  Tryptofish, I'm not with you on the last point. The question – the only one – has got to be "Should Fram stay an admin?" You know that ArbCom is a dispute resolution body, and not a court. If we think the right outcome for Wikipedia is to desysop Fram, then we should give effect to that outcome. We should not avert the best outcome because it is opposed by others (unpopular) or would follow from an objectionable process (a miscarriage of justice). AGK  ■ 17:05, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  Thanks, AGK, for discussing this point with me. At a minimum, if you find that three out of the four points I made were useful to you, then at least I am glad about that. Part of the reason for my inclusion of that fourth point is that I think another member of the Committee did say somewhere on this talk page something to the effect of it being appropriate for the Committee to let stand the most current decision by the Bureaucrats, rather than to overturn it. It sounds like you and I both disagree with that. I do see value in your position that ArbCom should now take full ownership of the sysop decision, and if the Committee decides to go that route, well, it certainly is consistent with the role of the Committee in making the hard decisions that the community has failed to make. Obviously, that comes with taking full ownership of considering all of the arguments on either side. In my opinion, considering everything together leads to reinstating the sysop permissions, perhaps with some probationary conditions. Thanks again. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 22:38, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• If in fact ArbCom is taking ownership of the desysop and making the decision to desysop, I agree with other editors on this talk page that specific examples that would support desysopping, with diffs, need to be added to the Findings of Fact. I also urge the Arbs to ponder what will happen if (1) the community consensus is that a new RfA is successful, and (2) shortly thereafter someone comes to ArbCom requesting a new case based on new conduct by Fram that pretty much duplicates the conduct that led you to desysop. Do you still think that if the community decides to give back the permission, then that's that? Will you still own future decisions if the community appears to disagree with you? -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:39, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I fully agree about the current issue with FOF 5. Like many others have expressed, there is a contradiction in supporting FOF 5 and Remedy 2d. I expect the case will remain open until the issue is resolved. Even if the committee is split on the matter, the votes of each committee member should be consistent with their position. If the majority of active voting members support FOF 5, then remedy 2d should fail.

It is entirely possible for someone to run for RFA immediately following a case in which they are desysopped and where enough of the community supports the candidate for the RFA to be successful. The possibility has existed well before this case and Fram's situation. The jurisdictions are clear and the granting of administrative permissions solely rests with the community. If someone requested a new case without substantially new evidence or a materially different complaint, then I would summarily decline it in the same way if someone else did not like the outcome of another closed case and tried to (for lack of a better word) re-litigate the same case with the same evidence. Personally, I would have no problem respecting the community's decision to resysop Fram if an RFA was successful. The fact that these processes are separate is probably a good thing even if there is a potential for diverging views. The only way to prevent that would be for the decision to entirely rest with one group. Obviously that is not how it is currently structured. I would not want ArbCom to be solely responsible for granting administrative permissions and removing them. Likewise, desysop was put in the hands of ArbCom and not through another community process for a good reason. Mkdw ^talk 22:31, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

My thinking on the desysop issue (and it really helps to be asked questions because it encourages me to rethink the issue when formulating an answer, and this will either amend my viewpoint or reinforce it, both of which are useful - which is why I particularly like to answer the questions) is that there was a series of incidents in which Fram's attitude wasn't helpful, and so the accumulation of these brings up WP:ADMINCOND which is a community policy. Based against that policy - which has an expectation that admins will be respectful and lead by example, the community has been tolerant of Fram's behaviour - largely, I suspect, because the behaviour is borderline, with the main issues being tone and persistence and lack of assistance to the person causing the concern, coupled with Fram being correct in their identification of behaviour that is of concern. So we have a conflict: the community wants admins to lead by example and to be courteous and respectful, but is unwilling to ask an admin to abide by this conduct expectation if that admin is identifying inappropriate behaviour, particularly when that admin's behaviour does not excessively cross the line. But now that we have a case in front of us, can ArbCom just shrug its shoulders and say that Fram's conduct did not breach WP:ADMINCOND. It's like a policeman walking past a car which is not displaying a tax licence, and not dealing with the incident because there are more important crimes being committed, but having to file a report if a member of the public points the transgression out. Now that we're here, I think we have to do the responsible thing. SilkTork ( talk) 11:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks, both of you, for these thoughtful and gracious replies. I think that if you justify the decision in specific detail in FoF 5 (assuming that this really can be done), and take a firm stance that you will not go along with using the Committee to re-litigate whatever the community might decide in an RfA, then I am satisfied. (Putting the part about an RfA another way: ArbCom policy gives you the responsibility to resolve otherwise intractable problems, but it would be contrary to existing ArbCom policy for you to set higher standards than do existing community policies for, in effect, WP:RGW reasons.) -- Tryptofish ( talk) 19:39, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Another editor asked me a similar question which I have expanded upon at User talk:Mkdw#Double bind. I have also elaborated in the comments at 2d about why I am supporting it. The community may very well disagree. Re/sysop has always been in the hands of the community and it is their right to decide and I would not accept a case that was expressly trying to overturn the RFA. Mkdw ^talk 20:22, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks again. In the context of those linked comments (and I agree that this is very difficult), I really do think that the Committee ought to consider, instead, restoring the sysop under conditional and probationary restrictions. I don't think that doing so would be a policy overreach. There are just so many ways that a new RfA could create bad outcomes, really bad. Clearly, there isn't a lot of appetite for the RfA. I suspect that the community members who would most want a new RfA are those who have had complaints about Fram's conduct. But they would run the risk of the RfA going against them, whereas some strict restrictions set by ArbCom would address their concerns quite well, and would be appreciated by those of us who are unhappy about a new RfA. It would even send the right signals to T&S. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 20:51, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• After reading what other editors have said here in the past 24 hours or so, I really think ArbCom has only two justifiable options:

1. Provide diffs in the FoF that unambiguously document conduct unbecoming an admin, that occurred after the most recent warning (even though it increasingly appears that such diffs do not exist), and base the desysop decision on that, or
2. Restore the sysop rights (maybe with some explicit requirements for conduct going forward).

End of menu. Unless I'm missing something, any other decision will be indefensible. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 20:00, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Understandably, some impatience is now being expressed on this talk page, but I would like to counter that by saying that I personally think it's a very good thing that the Committee is taking their time, and in some cases reconsidering their earlier thoughts, and also that I appreciate how some of you are engaging with the community on this talk page. I'd rather you get it right, than get it done fast. (And I still think that your choices are limited to the two just above.) -- Tryptofish ( talk) 23:26, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• I've examined the diffs in FoF 9 (Evaluation of community-provided evidence (2)), and something that concerns me is that a lot of the "some members of the community" evidence consists of examples of editors expressing concerns about Fram, within larger discussions where other editors expressed various other opinions. If someone did that in article space, there would rightly be concerns about WP:Cherrypicking. For something like an admonishment, it's actually reasonable to point those concerns out to Fram. But to make a decision to desysop, you cannot base it on that. You need to show that the diffs are representative. After all, I could easily come up with diffs of editors saying that everyone now on ArbCom should resign. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:57, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  For what it's worth, I drafted that specific portion of FoF 9 (the community concerns) to accompany remedy 4. I'm not personally supporting the desysop remedies, but have arbitrators said they are supporting a desysop based on those two diffs? GorillaWarfare  (talk) 01:57, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  Thanks GW for the reply, and for the work you've been doing on this – including an admirable willingness to reconsider things. To tell you the truth, I'm really not sure why any of the Arbs are supporting the desysop. There have been so many explanations followed by other explanations that I simply cannot parse all of it, and I'm pretty sure neither can others, which helps explain a lot of the criticism on this talk page. What I will say is that, the case should not be closed until the PD has been made absolutely clear about what the reasons are for the desysop, assuming that there is a desysop. I get it, that this is difficult, so I don't mind if it looks like sausage being made, so long as the end product is coherent. I've read carefully the two "support" comments for the newest FoF, about ADMINCOND, and I want to made it clear that I'm happy to AGF that there is stuff that I haven't seen and don't need to see. And I don't think for a minute that anyone is taking the easy way out. But I find it confusing. We have a clear declaration that all of the conduct that relates to ADMINCOND has been onsite and publicly visible. And yet those two support comments seem to place a lot of the explanation on private evidence. That's a contradiction. I'm guessing that the private evidence in question isn't so much conduct by Fram, as the cumulative effects of other editors' complaints about that conduct. Now that gets us back to what I said about cherrypicked diffs.

  At a minimum, the Committee needs to reach a decision on exactly which diffs of Fram's on-wiki conduct are the basis of the desysop decision. If you think that a particular diff is bad even though other editors have said otherwise, that's what you were elected to do, but you have to come right out and say it. And if what persuades you is the cumulative effects of the complaints you have seen, some of which have to be private, then say that. In other words, maybe you think that some conduct in the diffs might not have been so bad on its face, but if you have been persuaded by everything you have examined that so many editors are feeling hurt by that conduct, to the degree that the concerns really are representative (and not just cherrypicked), then you need to make that explicit. Otherwise, no one will know how to think about a new RfA, because we won't really know your reasons. Bottom line: a desysop remedy must follow logically from the findings of fact, regardless of whether or not it is a "popular" decision, and the findings of facts have to be specific, not just "you haven't seen everything we've seen".

  Also, about the comment that Fram made here about appeasing, I think everyone needs to lighten up. Given what Fram has gone through, he shouldn't have to feel like every sentence he writes here will be parsed for "gotcha" moments. And given how hard SilkTork has been working on the case, and being very responsive to all the comments on this talk page, it's understandable that he would be feeling a little sensitive. In any case, it's not the kind of thing to base a final decision upon. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 23:04, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• I understand how the "second choice" notation applies to the remedies, but there needs to be a corresponding clarification in the findings of fact. FoF 8 (Evaluation of community-provided evidence) and FoF 9 (Evaluation of community-provided evidence (2)) cannot both be part of the final decision. I assume the final one is the 2nd version, and the 1st version becomes nonsensical in the context of the rest of the passing findings. You also have some redundancy between those and the findings about Evaluation of Office-provided case materials and Fram's conduct as an administrator, and the difference among these are still making the rationale for the desysop obscure to the community. The community evidence is primarily those two diffs; the office evidence is described as mostly being about hounding; the Fram's conduct part does not make clear which of these was the basis for determining that ADMINCOND was not met. When the new RfA takes place, there will be an unpleasant situation in which some users will oppose for one thing, and claim that ArbCom desysoped for that reason, and others will oppose for something else, and make the same claim about that. Sigh. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 22:03, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply
  • It appears that no one took my most recent comment above on board, so now you have findings of fact that contradict each other and contradict the enacted remedies. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 22:26, 21 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I will echo other commenters above to say remedy 3 is not warranted, unfeasible and would not solve what it intends to. It also seems to not be supported by any Finding of Facts, so unclear how it crept in. There are more people out there who post more annoying wall of text than Fram had ever. I think what would be better than this is a remedy similar in design to Remedy #1.2 of GiantSnowman. The remedy should limit how far Fram can pursue an editor for infraction. For instance, it could say Fram could only do that once or twice, whereafter he must brought the attention of other admins to the issue for them to independently determine appropriate way forward. – Ammarpad ( talk) 21:55, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I have had that in mind since quite early on, and am still wondering if I should propose such a remedy. However, what is giving me pause is that in this situation Fram is already desysopped, so we are not essentially in a position of deciding to vote to desysop him, we are in a position of deciding to vote to resysop him. If this were a regular case, given the evidence before us, I would not choose to desysop, and would look for a nuanced solution, such as the GiantSnowman one. However, in these circumstances, I feel an open dialogue between the community and Fram as regards his ongoing behaviour is probably the most appropriate solution. In a RfA I would support Fram if he could demonstrate that he has taken on board concerns about how strident and relentless he can be at times, and would be willing to back off. One incident which I'd like, in an RfA, to discuss with Fram, is when he used his admin tool to edit through full protection on an ArbCom page and revert a sitting Arbitrator [3]. I'd like to get his thinking on why he thought that was acceptable, rather than raising his concern with the Arb in question or with the Clerks. I think an RfA would give the community and Fram a more open opportunity than an Arb case to work through issues like that. People would be free to question, quite neutrally and directly, rather than the more awkward system here of presenting evidence. Presenting evidence implies we are looking to either damn or praise Fram. Asking questions is more in line with finding out what Fram himself was thinking. I think ArbCom cases could involve more actual dialogue between ArbCom and the involved parties than it does at present. SilkTork ( talk) 23:18, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thank you, arbitrators, for your time, and sorry for any inconvenience I caused you along the way. Jehochman ^Talk 20:16, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

This page is really long. I’ve been adding and removing comments when they are resolved or no longer relevant.

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
New remedy @ GorillaWarfare: the remedy you added includes a statement of fact that can be verified by asking T&S. Has that been done? Fram's sysop administrator tools were removed as a housekeeping action accompanying the WMF Office ban, and not as a separate sanction. If remedy 1a declaring that Fram's ban was not required passes, the sysop userright will also be restored.. Jehochman Talk 03:03, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply Have you looked at the FoF I proposed along with this remedy (#6)? The WMF were pretty explicit about it. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 03:22, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply No, I did not see that one. I was watching you post all of these, but was multitasking. Your work here has been well beyond excellent. Jehochman Talk 03:25, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply Response to SilkTork SilkTork if we lock somebody in a cage and beat them until morale improves. Morale will not improve. Unblock Fram and give them a little time to breathe. Then ask for commitments. Jehochman Talk 03:16, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply That is kind of the point some people have been trying to make to Fram. Pressuring a contributor to improve is different to encouraging them to improve. As regards to how I have been engaging with Fram, I hope that I have been encouraging rather than pressuring, and requesting rather than demanding. You are free to look over the discussions and indicate where you feel I have been applying pressure. The way it stands at the moment Fram would rather leave the decision regarding their admin status to the community, and I'm OK with that. That's what I wanted at the start, though was persuaded by comments here that ArbCom should make the decision on behalf of the community. What we have is ArbCom making a decision which also leaves open the option for the community to decide. So I think we have got an appropriate and acceptable outcome. ArbCom have overturned the Foundation ban. ArbCom have decided that the concerns regarding Fram's adminconduct are such that Fram should not keep the the admin status. ArbCom have not imposed any time limit, so Fram may apply for a return of admin status at any time, allowing the community to decide the issue. If in that RfA folks vote one way or another purely based on their feelings regarding the Foundation ban, then they perhaps would not have understood that the Committee have made clear to the Foundation that the ban was both out of process and out of proportion to Fram's conduct, so that issue has been dealt with. Of course it is likely some people may vote that way, and likely that those who do will vote support for Fram based on their dissatisfaction with the Foundation ban. So be it. SilkTork ( talk) 08:21, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply Thank you for your thoughts. I fear the Committee aren’t seeing the whole situation. If the ban is improper as you’ve all unanimously decided, it should have been ended so that Fram could participate in the case. As things presently stand the desysop is based on thin to no evidence in the decision. That needs to be fixed by listing evidence that people have in mind to support the sanction, or adjusting the sanction to fit the evidence disclosed. This dispute doesn’t end by pronouncement of the Committee. It ends when community members see justice being done. Jehochman Talk 08:30, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply Assumptions of bad faith First of all, thank you SilkTork for your engagement, replies, and critical thinking. I will disagree with you a little bit, but don't let that overshadow my thanks. Regarding your reply to 28bytes [4], it is not bad faith SilkTork to observe a sequence of circumstances and infer a plausible reason. There are obvious reasons why some members of ArbCom might wish to curry favor with T&S. As one example, several former arbitrators are employed for money by WMF. Most of us work for free, but it appears that those who curry enough favor can get paid positions. Please see our article about revolving door (politics) and how it works. Moreover, Fram was unjustly banned for 100 days. I think that if you want to investigate assumptions of bad faith, you should look at the massive bonfire over at WMF, rather than the smoldering ember in Fram's comment that originated from that bonfire. Jehochman Talk 14:24, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply There is much in your comment which I can go along with. However, to jump from "several former arbitrators are employed for money by WMF" to "those who voted to desysop disregarded the evidence in order to curry favour with WMF" is an assumption of bad faith. Inferring a plausible reason, yes, no problem. Suggesting people such as myself voted desysop for either money or some kind of privilege? Seriously?! I have no relationship of any kind with anyone in WMF - personal, professional, casual, etc. I have if anything acted a little intemperate and unprofessional to some in the WMF (for which I here publicly apologise). I have given my reasons for voting desysop in various places. And, to underline that, I have pointed out Fram's comment here as an example of the reason why. If it was just that one incident, of course I wouldn't support a desysop, but it's a number of those. Some of which I have discussed with Fram (and I would have liked to discuss further, but our talks stalled). And, as I have said, if Fram had been able to make a commitment to more clearly and obviously steer away from such comments/behaviour, I would not have supported a desysop. SilkTork ( talk) 15:23, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply To be perfectly clear, I didn't say "those who voted to desysop disregarded the evidence in order to curry favour with WMF." But there are cynical observers who may infer something like that. Why add fuel to the fire? Bring forth solid evidence for a desysop. Let Fram rebut it, and if you are not satisfied with the answer, then vote on the desysop. At least Fram has returned and can now answer the desysop evidence, whenever the committee posts it. So far we only have two diffs, and everybody up and down the page seems to be unanimously unsatisfied with this evidence. Jehochman Talk 19:45, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply ADMINCOND Arbitrators, if you vote to desysop without explaining the reasons, you are committing a breach of trust. The reasons cannot be hand waving things like "feelings" or "people have concerns" or "secret on-wiki diffs". If T&S won't let you cite the evidence required to vote your conscience, then you must do the honorable thing: tell T&S that they have prevented you from doing your job and resign in protest. Jehochman Talk 12:42, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I recommend everyone remain calm. This situation will be resolved at RfA. The arbitrators vote is will likely be overturned. This is the reason why a desysop needs to be supported by evidence. If the community is not convinced with proof, the decision won’t stick. Jehochman ^Talk 11:02, 21 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Speaking as one of the people who went on strike over this, I am dismayed that the committee isn't leaning further in the direction of "undo everything the office did and call it a day". This wasn't a day in court for Fram, it is a second secret trial with invisible evidence. This isn't supposed to be how our processes work, with secret rules that nobody knows, evidence nobody can see, and no chance to face one's accusers. These are considered fundamental rights in any sort of proceeding with real interest in justice, and I strongly feel arbcom should basically declare a mistrial in this case and re-instate Fram.

I'd like to be clear that this isn't about Fram and how much we all love him, it's about the right way and the wrong way to do things. Don't be afraid of T&S, I think they got the message that they made a serious error here, don't compound it by following their lead. Beeblebrox ( talk) 23:09, 5 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Could one of the arbs or clerks clarify if Guy Macon's self-appointed clerking actions to enforce absolute conformity in section headers has any basis in policy or even reality? And if not, can he please be asked to cut it the fuck out and to undo his edits?

I have spoken to Guy. SilkTork ( talk) 23:49, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm not aware of anyone on the Committee who is afraid of T&S. While there are aspects of the relationship between ArbCom and T&S that has been a little frosty since we asked to handle this case ourselves, the staff have remained professional and polite. The treatment we get from the community may be aggressive at times, but that from T&S is not. Which is sort of ironic considering we are arranging to undo an Office Action and in so doing assert the community's independence, something that the community want, but T&S would find embarrassing. SilkTork ( talk) 00:03, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

SilkTork, to be accurate, I think that most of the frostiness has come from our side. When the Office ban first landed, the committee basically asked them what the fuck are you playing at? and I am not sure our faith has ever regenerated. AGK  ■ 17:08, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

As a former arb I am sympathetic to the awkward position this entire case put you all in, but I am extremely disappointed that you have followed T&S lead and are basically allowing their desysop to stand (no matter how many times you all rephrase it, this is what you are doing) without any public process whatsoever. If there is evidence of administrative misbehavior, let it be brought forth and seen by the community. If you can't do that, you shouldn't act based on it. The privacy concern here appears to be a smokescreen to allow people to appeal to a star chamber when they can't make a compelling case through our established processes. We shouldn't encourage that. Beeblebrox ( talk) 21:49, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Guy Macon violating WP:POINT up and down this page

[5] Can we curb this please? Beeblebrox ( talk) 22:13, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Beeblebrox, This has resulted in having to impose a TOC limit on the page. SQL ^{Query me!} 00:41, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Not the hill I would have chosen but as good as any I guess

Initial statement and general discussion w Arbs

Like everyone else here I do not want to cause Laura Hale unnecessary distress and like others I did not want to present counter-evidence to the portion of the T&S material which resulted in Frams warnings re her. I had hoped that ArbCom would not fall back to using the 'unknowable' to sanction and desysop a long serving and good faith editor. Since the voting is showing that the 'secret' evidence is being used to support a finding of 'desysop and time served' I want to ask ArbCom if they have independently validated the claims? Examined the motivations of the editor who, by all publicly known evidence, got the T&S investigation going? I hate to be able to focus only on a single person but it is reasonable to say she is, even if not primary, central to this case. (Out of politeness, sensitivity and brevity I'll skip that but I can put together as much evidence as you want to support this.)

A cursory examination, the minimum which ArbCom should have done, shows:

• Per meta:WikiWomenCamp/FAQ/Biographies/Laura Hale "She is the Wikipedian in Residence for the History of the Paralympic Movement in Australia project" Since her user page has been deleted I can not quote the time she says she ceased working as a WiR but I think it was 2012 +/- a year or so.
• Per the tender on Wikiversity as a Copy Writer she was budgeted $100.00/hr for "Wiki authoring, editing, uploading and formatting".

This matters because much of the conflict between her and Fram revolved around her editing of Paralympic athletes. We saw in the linked evidence that Fram suspected her of being a COI/PAID editor; asked her about it; and she said she was not. Whether this was true at the time is dificult to prove but there is direct evidence (Since she disclosed this relationship on-wiki this is not WP:OUTING unless you really want it to be) that Laura Hale continued to edit Wikipedia on behalf of the Australian Paralympic Committee. In fact their 2017-2018 Annual Report ^[6] says quite clearly, on p.54 under 'Knowledge Services':

• "Wikipedia articles about every member of the 2018 Australian Paralympic Team and 2018 Australian Commonwealth Games Team. Wikipedia articles created through the Australian Paralympic History Project continue to be collectively viewed around 120,000 times every month. This rate was exceeded considerably during the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Games and Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games"
• "Patricia Ollerenshaw, Greg Blood, Ross Mallett, Laura Hale and Graham Pearce remain major individual contributors to the Project."^{emp. mine}

Now, there has been much gnashing of teeth and rending of cloths that these secret bans can be abused by paid editors to bully anyone who challenges them. That was probably seen as hyperbole by most yet here we have, at least the very strong appearance, of this not being something that might happen but rather something that has happened.

Maybe those complaints to were not about protecting a $100/hr job but it sure looks like it and because of the structure of this process both the community and ArbCom have not been allowed the opportunity to find out. Regrettably some of ArbCom are basing their decisions on this un-examined and un-questioned evidence. That is not right so I am now putting this issue up for the community and ArbCom to examine.

How much trust do you have in a redacted document which was produced by an arm of the Foundation whose Board Chairman has been alleged to have a personal COI with the complaining individual. Especially when that individual may have been making $100/hr for years from the work Fram was calling into question. I am glad I am not in your shoes but, if LH has indeed been being paid by the APC to edit up until 2018 or further, then the case should, at a minimum, be decided entirely on the public evidence and the appearance of potential improper use of T&S for personal financial gain should be taken up by the Foundation Board.

To be clear; I am not presenting this in an attempt to tarnish reputations or harass. Nor am I drawing any inferences or conclusions. I have no intention of presenting any material about linked accounts, even those disclosed on-wiki. Jbh ^Talk 00:30, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

As someone who was part of the HoPAu project, I just want to clear up some allegations you have made based off inaccurate assumptions. The vanished user was never employed or paid by the APC, the WiR was only 6 months during 2012, there was no $100/hr position/job. The 2017-2018 Annual Report you have taken out of context, those people named were not paid but are/were volunteers in the project. Bidgee ( talk) 00:12, 21 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Bidgee: Thank you for dropping by to discuss this. What was your position with HOPAU? I know that there were many people who were volunteers but there is this budget in the Tender with line items such as copy writer which lists 200 hours and a budget of $20,000.00. Division yields $100/hr. The same for each line item. Each line item is also, associated elsewhere in the Tender with people who will fill the position. The document gives a total budget of 1100 hrs and $110,000.00 with a note "some volunteers use a LETS system" ^{(emp. mine)} which carries a very strong implication that in some cases the "volunteers" were only being paid in kind. Volunteer does not always mean free labor cf every United States Armed Forces member is a "volunteer". If none of the people who were on that tender intended to get paid then what was the money for? I mean they represented to the client that the money was going to pay for 1100 hrs of work and I see no change orders so... where do you say the money went? Also, in 2013 WMFAU joined with University of Queensland in an additional $240,000.00 Linkage Grant for the History of Australian Paralympics project which was expressly about using Wikipedia to document the history. The grant as, as of yesterday showing as active, with an budget authorization, to date, for a bit over $260,000.00.

I have no idea who the account holder of Bidgee is, it is not on the tender so I have no reason to believe you were paid but, for the same reason I have no reason to believe you know who was and was not receiving money from the Tender or the Australian Research Council Linkage Grant.

I truly would like to understand how these grants were managed so any help you could give would be greatly appreciated. For instance you say I "took the 2017/2018 report out of context yet I did a literal copy/paste. I did acknowledge it was merely indicative because I could not find a potential funding source for 2013 on but the Linkage Grant has that covered. Do you have any insight which could help make sense of this? Jbh ^Talk 05:14, 21 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ Almond Plate: Well, from commons:User talk:Fram we have the text of what Fram says is a communication from T&S in March 2019:

  ""However, in the hopes of avoiding any future issues and in the spirit of Laura’s own request on her talk page, we would like to ask that you refrain from making changes to content that she produces, in any way (directly or indirectly), from this point on. This includes but is not limited to direct editing of it, tagging, nominating for deletion, etc. If you happen to find issues with Laura’s content, we suggest that you instead leave it for others to review and handle as they see fit. This approach will allow you to continue to do good work while reducing the potential for conflict between you and Laura.
  We hope for your cooperation with the above request, so as to avoid any sanctions from our end in the future. To be clear, we are not placing an interaction ban between you and Laura at this time. We ask that her request to stay away from her and the content she creates be respected, so that there is no need for any form of intervention or punitive actions from our end.

  Then from T&S, evidently after the ban was placed.

  "This decision has come following extensive review of your conduct on that project and is an escalation to the Foundation’s past efforts to encourage course correction, including a conduct warning issued to you on April 2018 and a conduct warning reminder issued to you on March 2019. ""

  Now, maybe Fram is lying but I'll take him at his word. Especially since no one has challenged it in all this time. Jbh ^Talk 00:59, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• @ SilkTork: When you say that you do not think that ArbCom can find to either desysop or resysop Fram I believe, strongly, that you are making a fundamental error of analysis. If ArbCom can not find to desysop then, per en.wp's policies regarding administrators, Fram still has the trust of the community and is still an admin, full stop. To find otherwise is to unequivocally say that T&S can desysop an en.wp admin based on secret evidence and by doing so, at a minimum, force an RfA.

  There is a considerable record of my opinions on ADMINCOND and ADMINACCOUNT -- and it comes firmly on a preference to desysop -- but this very committee has declined to desysop without repeated and egregious misbehavior or tool misuse. I would love to see that view change but this is not the context in which to make such a change. Not as some special pleading easy out to a tough decision and especially not in a way that gives a precedent for T&S removing the bit based on their own 'unknowable' reasons.

  I urge all of you to consider what desysoping based on being "abrasive" will mean. ArbCom has jealously held to being the sole body with the right to desysop. Are you now going to give that same right to T&S? (That would be bad) Will you apply these same strict requirements for ADMINCOND to further requests to desysop? (Maybe that would be good) Regardless of how you decide please know what you decide will set a precedent that will likely be hard to undo. Jbh ^Talk 16:12, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned: this relates to your 2b equally. Jbh ^Talk 16:14, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ SilkTork: Re [7] Do you not think you are being more than a little bit unfair (though less than grossly unfair) to be judging Fram's fitness for the bit on his mentoring skills?! Admins as great teachers is a fine ideal but that is not what they are selected for and I can not say I have ever seen (Support PoorFool77 will be a great educator!) at RFA. It is judging him by a scale no admin ever would think their bit rested on. What has he done between Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GiantSnowman and now to merit desysop? How does whatever you are mulling over compare to the behavior of the admin in that case who got admonished but is still an admin. I get the sunken cost hole you all find yourselves in. I am glad some are doing a fresh review but, really, at this point it is all justification not judgement. Jbh ^Talk 03:35, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Justification for not desysopping or for desysopping? I'm not looking for justification for either, but for making a decision one way or the other. The finding re Fram in GiantSnowman was on a very few incidents - this case is looking at something on a far bigger scale, including from before GiantSnowman. I think you're right regarding expecting people here, even admins, to be helpful to each other. And we can't force people to be helpful. But if an admin's approach in simply informing people of their shortcomings is not producing results, and may even be counter-productive because they are pushing back, and this is taking up more of their and other people's time, then perhaps it's worth considering nudging admins to be more helpful, and see what happens. This is, after all, an encyclopedia- the aim here is to help, inform, and - yes - possibly educate people. SilkTork ( talk) 04:22, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SilkTork: That is the thing... most of the time in cases like this people know what the right decision for them is but they just can not square it with some internal or external expectation. Say, for example, you know Fram should not be an admin but you can not square it with community expectations and simple fairness. In that case the question is to do your duty ie meet the community expectation or to do what your gut is telling you. The dilemma is not about Fram it is how do you justify violating either your conscience or your duty. Looking at things like that may not make it easier but it makes the decisions easier to live with later. It can also simplify things a bit if you have a strong predisposition for being duty bound or conscience bound. Jbh ^Talk 06:25, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I think where I am right now is thinking that there are two areas of concern regarding Fram, both relate to admin conduct rather than admin abuse. If Fram can reassure us (as representatives of the community appointed to look into matters of admin conduct) that these areas will unlikely be a cause for concern in the future, then I think we would have room to move forward without a desysop. The two areas are 1) the type of attention Fram pays to editors struggling to follow our procedures, and 2) that Fram may allow his frustration or outrage to spill out in hostile and unproductive ways, such as the Fuck ArbCom outburst, and reverting an arb through protection rather than raising the issue with the arb or the Clerks or others. I have an idea on the first point, I'm still thinking through something for the second point. SilkTork ( talk) 11:14, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SilkTork: If those are your concerns then it is worth considering that Fram is pretty self aware. In his conversation with you on meta that noted that their frustration mostly was an issue with "people who should know better" and "people in power" and I suspect that their reaction to people in power who should know better would be multiplied. The self aware can learn to modify behavior to confirm to norms. Just do nor expect Fram to conform to some artificial norm ie most people get annoyed at those classed of people. Also, I can not say that those classes of people really need shielding. They know or should knowwhat is expected and by definition are causing problems.

Before all else Wikipedia is about writing an encyclopedia. So, ask yourself if, in each circumstance where you are concerned about Fram's behavior; what would be your response if any other vocal editor had done the exact same thing - same events just spread out among more editors. Would it have helped the encyclopedia? What if no one has addressed the issue - would we be better or worse off? Fram is active and obviously cared a lot about the project so they are likely to come across many issues they see as problematic and from what all reports Fram is not misidentifying problems. "People in power" are expected to be able to handle themselves, not that they deserve abuse but they are going to get it and taking Fram out of the mix will not change that one bit. (As an aside; a bit of yelling at people in power is might be rude but it is not unproductive. It is a catharsis that keeps frustration from coming out in even more harmful ways. Better a "Fuck ARBCOM" than going off and abusing some newbies or some such. People in power are focuses of trust and confidence and the flip side of that is often rage and disappointment -- that is just how people and groups work.)"People who should know better" and, worse those in power who should, need to be challenged, repeatedly, until they do better because they harm the project.

Sure mentoring is a good thing but how many of the complainants who Fram was scrutinizing were being helped out/mentored already? Did it help? Would the problematic behavior continued? We need people who will step up to the hard cases, the ones who are problematic yet 'popular'. Also, assuming Fram does not just quit and that they have stayed throughout this is an indicator they will not, do you expect them to act any differently without the bit than with it? Would not having the bit have changed any of the interactions you find problematic? (With the exception of editing through protection where they should have been desysoped at the time if it was going to be done.) If the answer to both is no then, in the parlance of WP, desysop would be punitive and not preventative. Personally I have never liked that mantra, but it is the norm by which sanctions are justified and enacted within our community. Jbh ^Talk 14:17, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ GorillaWarfare: Ref your new 3.1.12 I see a couple of constructive issues. First public evidence that is old evidence of severe abusive behavior would have been dealt with before it becomes old if it is severe and abusive behavior. In this situation we know, because you have all said so, that there in no evidence which does not exist, visible on-wiki. Since it has not been dealt with by the community already is is ipso facto not "severe abusive behavior".

  That said I believe what you are trying for is

  When deciding what evidence to consider, the severity of the behavior is an important factor one should balance age versus severity. Further, one must consider whether the subject of the evidence has a chance to respond to is. The older the behavior the more important it is to be able to address it.

  This avoids the, rather strong, implication what there is some publicly visible yet still embargoed evidence that documents "severe and abusive behavior". Jbh ^Talk 03:36, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  Eesh, thanks for the feedback. You're right that I did not mean to imply there is behavior of this sort. I will try to edit the principle to be much clearer about that point. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:39, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  I've edited it and added a comment explaining my intent. Hopefully that is more clear? GorillaWarfare  (talk) 03:52, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  That is much better and avoids the issues I raised. With better phrasing too!

  On the other hand, another arb has given me a place to stand and now we shall see if the world does indeed move. Or maybe I find myself in quicksand as punishment for taking the words of the great and mighty Archimedes in vain. Jbh ^Talk 04:03, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ GorillaWarfare: You showed your work so it is only fair I show you (and the rest of Arbcom and functionaries) mine . The document is on the functionaries list since I do not consider it 'private' evidence and any recipient may make use of it, discuss it on-wiki, fold, spindle, or mutilate it. Jbh ^Talk 01:17, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Jbhunley: Thanks for the ping, I've made sure it got through moderation. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 01:49, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ SilkTork: re [8] Your discussion with Fram on their talk page unquestionably helped move things along however just because they disliked the restrictions you placed on the interaction does not give you any legitimate cause to complain. Fram was open, calm and articulate in their responses and self-examination. That you are giving Fram shit about expressing their own feelings and perceptions is, well, very inappropriate. Considering the power differential it is abusive, whether you intend it to be or not. I get what you were trying to do on Fram's talk page and I understand you are incensed by the WMF and may be hurt by Fram not acknowledging that but the diff I linked is an example of 'kicking down' and is unseemly.

  Perhaps it is reasonable to take from this that even with the best heart and intentions it is possible to unintentionally violate ADMINCOND? Jbh ^Talk 14:23, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I agree it is possible to unintentionally violate AdminCond and various other of our arcane and ever shifting guidelines. The issue is when someone continues to do something that is causing concern, and when people raise the concern they shrug it off or argue the issue. Ideally we'd like everyone to be responsive and reflective when concerns are raised, this becomes essential for admins because of the power, influence and impact they have. To be fair, Fram was responsive and reflective, and I genuinely thought we were making progress. Things went wrong when I over-reacted, and we never quite recovered it. I seriously regret that. However, there's nothing to say that if we could have agreed some wording that the case result would have significantly changed. SilkTork ( talk) 19:21, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Details come out on Meta

Case has moved on from Meta. Fram unblocked by motion to participate here
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
For those of you not following meta:User talk:Fram SilkTork has provided some information relevant to my questions above which gives us a bit of a timeline to work from "I'm looking again closely at the T&S document for incidents after the 2018 warning. The Foundation received two complaints in late 2018. The names are redacted, but looking at the dates and the incidents and the wording, it is clear that the complaints were from two different people, though both were about your attention to one particular user. T&S examined the complaints and while there was some concern that you were continuing to breathe down the neck of that particular user, there was both sufficient justification for your concern about that user's edits and sufficient doubt that you hadn't deliberately targeted that user that the complaints were logged but no action taken." [9] While these were "logged as no action taken" T&S issues Fram with a "request" that "in the spirit of Laura’s own request on her talk page, we would like to ask that you refrain from making changes to content that she produces, in any way (directly or indirectly), from this point on" but took pains to say; "To be clear, we are not placing an interaction ban between you and Laura at this time." Considering the prior statement about staying away from LH's edits that sounded odd when I first read it. Now, knowing of the "no action" finding it is clearer -- There are probably specific criteria at T&S for issuing an "interaction ban" that were not met but a "reminder" would be OK. We also know from the same diff as above: "The complaints in 2019 all relate to ArbCom. Four complaints." So Fram had complied with the earlier "warning" and "reminder". We also know that from late 2018 the only issues raised with T&S re Fram were regarding Laura Hale and the words "fuck ARBCOM". I now feel confident in saying that Laura Hale and her editing is the central issue in this case. Everything else (other than the "fuck ARBCOM" and, seriously, who has not said or thought similar??) has already been examined by the community and Arbcom and you all declined to act. Now you have it. Laura Hale and a friend complained about Fram to T&S. T&S gave Fram an interaction ban that was not an interaction ban (probably because they could not justify even that by their guidelines) Fram says "fuck ARBCOM" and then T&S bans Fram because they can shoehorn that into a TOU violation. That is evidence of some foul and underhanded shit right there. Jbh Talk 14:36, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply Just to make everything explicit. We see from my statement above that one of the metrics the AOC had for the AOC History Project was "Wikipedia articles about every member of the 2018 Australian Paralympic Team and 2018 Australian Commonwealth Games Team". Coincidentally Fram gets warned about challenging Laura Hale's poor article writing/editing in first in April 2018 ( 2018 Winter Paralympics closed March 18) So there is that. If there is further evidence that Wikipedia editors for the APC History project were using article creation and/or Did-you-know, Good/Featured Article status as a performance metric for the APC, well that would be damning. It would, in my strong and considered opinion, be grounds to open a case into all editors involved in the APC History project. The need to meet writing goals would certainly explain the creation of several Paralympic BLP's in an assembly line fashion resulting in many with identical birthdates etc, as presented elsewhere in the evidence. Yep... getting a sense of things now and, whether or not Fram is a jerk, it is becoming apparent that FRAMGATE is likely, in great part, the result of a group of COI editors protecting their niche project. Jbh Talk 18:11, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply Re@ Jehochman: [10] In most cases on WP I would be inclined to think as you do but this case, allegedly, involved money and intercontinental paid travel. I simply do not have it in my heart to AGF when there is significant money involved and the activity is repeated/ongoing. Nope, "nefarious" is the perfect term of art for this situation. Jbh Talk 18:32, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply Also of note "Laura's own request on her talk page" seems to refer this egregious edit notice, addressed specifically to Fram This is a request to stay off my talk page, in the same style as you request it of other editors. Other admins have requested that you stop posting on my talk page before. They have requested you stop taking action in regards to me, especially given your problematic actions as they relate to your inability to be impartial where I am concerned. You have claimed that DYKs I did were related to Gibraltarpedia, when they were clearly not, and you never retracted this. You completely out of process deleted article drafts from my user space citing gross BLP violations, which other admins said were not this after viewing the deleted content. You defended these actions, did not admit your errors, and did not retract this. These are two examples, of several, where you have acted in bad faith with me. Enough. Stay off my talk page Fram. You were asked in September 2017 to disengage in admin actions related to me. You were asked in September 2017 to stop commenting on my talk page and you are being asked again in February 2018. If you have a problem with my work, then you need to talk to another admin and have them handle the problem. It should not be you. If you have questions about my edits, please direct them at admins and other users like SlimVirgin, Pigsonthewing, SkyHarbor, Orderinchaos and Victuallers. If you are nominating any of the content I created for deletion or userifying any pages or redirecting any pages, these notifications need to be posted on the talk pages of the aforementioned admins so they may deal with your notifications. They can assess your admin actions, and if they believe any actions need to be taken on my part to change my editing behavior following any return, these admins can be the ones to communicate that message to me: NOT YOU. If these admins are not able to work with you regarding my work to your personal satisfaction, please contact James Alexander, Patrick Earley, Jan Eissfeldt or Sydney Poore, members of the WMF's Support and Safety team.(emp. mine) LauraHale So she seems to have engaged Trust & Safety to moderate content on English Wikipedia and T&S seems fine with it. While words do not fail me I am at a loss to find any I can safely use here to express my opinion of the content of the notice or the fitness of the writer to participate on this project. At the least it clearly expresses and opinion that the normal rules of editing here do not apply to the writer. Jbh Talk 19:27, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply There is a multi page report, authored by Laura Hale, from 2012. [11] It includes a summary of activity including number of DYK (60); Number of GA (6); "Over 70 articles published on Wikinews in lead up and during the London Games" (Can you say "paid placement"... I knew you could.) and the headline metric is the same we see in the 2018 report "Articles created about every one of the 162 Australian Summer Paralymipians. It is produced by Wikipedia:GLAM/History of the Paralympic movement in Australia which seems to have gone inactive after 2012 yet we have evidence that the relationship continued through, at least, 2018. I think there is now enough that a reasonable person would conclude that there were at least shenanigans worthy of scrutiny going on. In particular I believe we should examine the editing of LauraHale and her coterie of enablers with respect to BLP editing, manipulating article processed like DYK and GA, and to the extent proper, funding and grant requests. The first step in that is to un-vanish the LauraHale account and restore its talk page to the proper place as opposed to hiding it in an unlinked archive. -- This is the case that "people" wanted to avoid by having T&S nobble and discredit Fram. No, I am not saying Fram is some hero, only that their persistence was annoying and brought unwanted attention to someone whose connections outstripped both their talent and wisdom. Jbh Talk 20:36, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply See Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee#Request for reversal of vanishing &/ ban by motion. That's all I have to say on the subject of LH. Really, why did Arbcom not figure this out? This whole charlie foxtrot was not only manifestly unjust from the beginning but manifestly sketchy; From the single project ban to the "public yet secret" evidence to T&S being willing to allow a community review. FFS people if Fram had done anything that had clearly violated T&S red-lines they would have been negligent (you know the civil liability kind not the nincompoop kind) to allow any process not having the full and un-redacted case file to over-rule them. If this is not glaringly apparent to all by now there is nothing more I can do to illuminate. I'm off to have a nice dinner rather than the fecal baguette you poor folks are stuck with. Go drink/dance/hike/read whatever you can do to flush away the taste and memory of this fiasco. Then make the well reasoned and well documented decision, whichever way, that I know you are capable of. Cheers! Jbh Talk 21:50, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply Per discussion at WT:Arbitration Committee with WTT [12] the above request to reverse the vanishing has been moved to meta:Talk:Steward requests/Username changes#Request for reversal of vanishing permalink Jbh Talk 22:53, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply Also noting that the moving, unlinking and effective hiding of LH's vanished user account talk page was an admin action of WTT in his personal capacity not an Arbcom decision [13] Jbh Talk 22:53, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply I can't tell you you how frustrated I am that there is so much secrecy regarding the T&S document. T&S have compiled a report which they kept to themselves, and then under pressure passed to us on the understanding that we can't talk about it. Yet it is a detailed and fair report which I don't have much of a problem with. I have a problem that the report was compiled in the first place. And I have even more of a problem that the Foundation took it upon themselves to disregard the self-governance of this community and ban Fram without even consulting ArbCom. But the report itself is a factual and insightful document. I'd like to dispel your notion that the document is all about the user you mention. That person has been at the forefront of discussion and rumour since the ban started. However, the report is very fair in reporting and summarising Fram's interactions with that person. It does not say - "Oh, poor user, look at the way that evil Fram has acted toward them. So unfair!" It actually shows understanding of Fram's concerns, and T&S does not go into a knee-jerk reaction when it starts receiving reports/complaints. The first report is in 2016. A formal investigation is not opened until 2018, and it is two months and a few reports later before the warning is issued to Fram. It is frustrating that the way the office has redacted the report (quite crudely done by removing names rather than replacing them with numbers) it is difficult to work out who did the bulk of the reporting. However, the report does summarise the nature of the reports, and while we can't see if it is Person X reporting concerns about Fram's behavior toward themselves or toward Person Y, we can see the names of several people where the interactions were of concern. I'm just glancing down and there are over a dozen different names there. These are not just mentions, but sections in the document that summarise where T&S has looked into concerns regarding Fram's interactions with them. I can also say that from the way the document is written, and the evidence presented, that it is clear that more than one person was responsible for sending in the reports/complaints. So, this document is not about that one person. The letter to Fram giving the conduct warning does not mention that user, or any other user. It is a general warning about Fram's conduct, based on Fram's conduct toward a variety of users, including Foundation staff. Fram's letter back to T&S mentions a number of people (eight it looks like), which indicates that Fram was aware of the range of people he may have upset - not all the people he mentions in that letter are mentioned in the report. The conduct reminder sent this year does mention that user. That user is mentioned because Fram had been given a conduct warning, and there was concern that Fram may have breached that conduct warning by ignoring that user's request for Fram not to interact with them. It was a specific reminder based on specific incidents. So, there had been multiple reports regarding Fram's conduct toward multiple people. Fram was issued a general warning regarding conduct, with no names being mentioned. There was concern that Fram may have breached the warning, and though Fram was given the benefit of the doubt T&S thought it appropriate to remind Fram of the conduct warning due to Fram's attention toward one specified user. The specified user could have been any one of those who had been mentioned earlier. It just happened to be that particular user. Perhaps that user did complain more than the others. Or perhaps Fram paid that user more attention than the users. It could be either. It could be both. And I can see where people are adding 2 and 2 together and finding 5. But where would the conspiracy theories be if it has been one of the others that Fram had paid attention to, and T&S had written naming them? It is unfortunate that the person Fram was paying attention to was connected to someone in the T&S team on the board. And that makes any decision and action problematic. Either that person's concerns are ignored because of the relationship. Or they are addressed, and T&S are accused of "foul and underhanded shit". Of course none of this would have happened if T&S had left the community to deal with our own conduct issues. It was wrong of them to get involved. Full stop. But my reading of the situation is that they got involved because they felt (and I think still do) that the Foundation has a legal responsibility to respond to complaints of harassment in line with other online social communities. They got involved in good faith, not because they wanted to protect a friend of someone in T&S. SilkTork ( talk) 03:29, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply @ SilkTork: Thank you for that post. It is the best source analysis I believe anyone on the 'outside' has seen and it helps a great deal. I want to sleep on this. Constraints, T&S on your side and a difficult to apply OUTING/HARASSMENT policy on mine, make reestablishing confidence in T&S very hard. (I will admit that the members of Arbcom have, over the last few days, given me much more confidence in that body than I had expected to have on first reading the case material at then end of last month -- I do mean that as a true complement not a back-handed one) I think that the bulk of our disconnect on FRAMGATE and the roles of various parties is that you are reading the T&S process from the inside (The T&S report, having a pre-existing working relationship and being able to talk to them) while I am reading the process from the outside. By that I mean starting from; T&S did something way out of character and process WTF?? and looking for indications of what would/could drive such an out of character action. ("Shenanigans" were a baked in assumption because no professional T&S outfit would allow an external party the opportunity to overturn a legitimate ban, one that met their internal guidelines, without having all the information that went into their initial decision. It would be unprofessional and they would instead tell the community to screw itself and, at best, give an Arbcom rep the particulars and who would then say "I have seen the material and concur".) Now, I came into this a couple of days before the evidence dropped so the LH narrative was well established so I started there -- not the best technique but I was starting from 'WTF??' not 'examine all potential scenarios'. I was familiar with many of Fram's conflicts, I remembered RAN and DrB and C's editor review so I tried to build a case for an exceptional action (EA) by T&S (They were not only taking exceptional action but were, at least, stretching their own published policies to do it). Nope. I could see them as background though. I have not been active for almost a year but I heard of no real conflicts Fram had in that time but nothing beyond the background wikidrama, nothing to bring about an EA. Then comes LH and there we have a person who had the potential to be behind an EA, means, motive and, as we see in the 2011 Arb case 'priors' for similar tactics. Being the subject of the 'reminder' pulled her out of the crowd. Being unable to identify a precipitating event after the warning lent weight while confirming no precipitating event afterwards moved the needle from probable to highly likely. Then there is the metric ton of "motive" (APC/SPC projects and Fram's interference), "means" (The group of "APC" editors including a Board member, an Arb, a T&S professional) and "pattern" (The 2011 Arbcom case, "Trying to ban someone for contacting her not-employer when they asked the WMF about her thinking she worked for the WMF") There is more, considerably more and it paints an extremely strong circumstantial picture. I am going to stop here for now though. Do you see how it looks when things are considered from the inputs to the system rather than the outputs? I do not doubt Fram has several complaints but how many does he have in relation to other admins? What differentiated him and his complaints from all the other complaints about admins? I accept everything you say about the document but it does not answer the question why Fram and what made him different?. That is the key question -- T&S is silent on it and there is considerable weight for ...but for this particular user and nothing much to point to another answer. I believe, now that we have a general source analysis of the T&S document to base discussion on, that an examination of the 'inside' and 'outside' perspectives of this process will help build mutual understanding and possible address concerns which may otherwise fester or result in unneeded drama at a later time. I am quite willing to climb down and walk back based on new information or interpretations -- it'd be embarrassing as hell but I pride myself more on being correct than on being right so I'd get over it. :) Again. Thank you for this write-up. Jbh Talk 05:48, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply "Why Fram?" Well, I suspect it was the number of reports/complaints from a number of people over a number of years. Not being a naive community, I don't suppose anyone here feels that this is the only Wikipedian that the Foundation has received complaints about, nor is it beyond the bounds of reasonableness to suppose this is not the only Wikipedian on which a document has been compiled. But perhaps what happened with Fram is that the reports accumulated to a point where T&S felt they legally could no longer simply log them - especially as some of Fram's criticism had been levelled at Foundation staff, and the Foundation would have felt they had a legal duty of care. Having said that, I don't see it as the role of the Foundation to be compiling reports on Wikipedians for conduct issues, which may be unpleasant and unhelpful and breach our guidelines, but are not illegal or life-threatening. But we cannot stop individuals or organisations doing that. You can do it. I can do it. Cambridge Analytica can do it. Wikipediocracy can do it. Wikipedia is open and public. So be it. I am not comfortable with staff from the Foundation writing to Wikipedians to draw attention to their behavior because that puts a strain and a question on the Foundation's role, and our relationship with the Foundation. But we are an open project, and anyone can post comments here or email those who have email enabled. So: Compile reports? OK; whatever turns you on baby. Criticise Wikipedians directly? OK; but be aware of your own role when doing it. We developed the policy WP:Involved for a reason. Sanction Wikipedians? For breaking the law - yes. Global ban. For falling foul of our own guidelines? No. We created those guidelines because we are a self-governing community. Our self-governance is an essential part of what we are. It drives our creativity, and motivates our workforce. Insert and assert yourself in our self-governing community and you destabilise us and break us up, and Wikipedia starts to lose its essential self. Without the sense of belonging to and "owning" Wikipedia, a lot of the essential motivation will be gone. At that point the Foundation will have to pay people to monitor the project for vandalism and copyright violations and bias and plain damn lies. And even with the millions that the Foundation have at the moment, it will not be enough. It will never be enough to pay for the free trouble shooting and page patrolling that goes on 24 hours a day, every single day of the year. With no committed Wikipedian here with enough belief and care to look into dispute resolution, there will be disruption and articles will not be stable, and the paid workforce could not cope. Many would go sick and claim compensation from the Foundation for the hurt they have suffered at the hands of single purpose contributors who pushed back aggressively against the paid contributors' attempts to resolve disputes. I hear you in regards to ArbCom having a working relationship with the Foundation. That has always troubled me. It is one of the aspects of the ArbCom role I have been uncomfortable with. What I would like, and I have suggested it a few times, is the Foundation to have an interface page here on Wikipedia, similar to the 'Crats or the ArbCom noticeboards. The project page for announcements, questions, suggestions; the talkpage for discussing those announcements; and a subpage for the community to raise questions and suggestions. Here on Wikipedia. Not in the basement of a building on Alpha Centauri (or MetaWiki - almost the same thing for most Wikipedians). People can snap and bark at each little thing that the Foundation does that annoys them. But that is not conducive to a good working relationship, nor will it prevent the Foundation from launching other things that are not appropriate. What is needed is for people to get together with all the energy, creativity, and commitment that this community has to get such an interface set up so that a healthy and positive working relationship can develop between the community and the Foundation. One in which the roles are more clearly defined and understood. SilkTork ( talk) 08:55, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply @ WereSpielChequers: Re [14] I believe what SilkTork was referring to is a comment I made on my talk page Nope was not that The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. I agree that the problems are both longstanding and deep rooted. Courcells, our just resigned arb, was a party to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Racepacket which was brought by Laura Hale about another editor who was 'picking on her edits/DYK'. In this case we see many of the players in the APC job. Interestingly, if you look on the evidence page you will see that Fluffernutter (Now with T&S and with a well known COI re Courcells) "created a timeline" that is now deleted. (It is a sandbox link so I do not think its deletion nefarious) So there is direct evidence that both a member of Arbcom and a member of T&S were aware of the issues surrounding LH's editing as far back as 2011. [15] I do not think it is necessarily directly relevant to FRAMGATE but I have used it to show the need for examination of the editing around LH, the problematic Paralympic editing, using Wikinews as a promotional vehicle and the editors who shielded that from those, such as Fram and Racepacket, who were questioning what was going on. (In other words I believe there is a 'pattern of practice' of which Fram's case is a part) My request to reverse LH's vanishing is based on the need to scrutinize those events and the belief that the vanishing was based in large part on a desire to avoid such scrutiny. Jbh Talk 14:37, 13 September 2019 (UTC) Edited: 14:43, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Consider this...

We do not need a theoretical any more
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The current proposed decision is creating a new precedent for desysop on English Wikipedia. One based on, essentially, repeatedly pointing out errors in an "abrasive" manner regardless of the nature of the errors. I can think of several current admins, all of which do good work to whom this description can be applied. Many of them are bulwarks against paid editing and whose removal would increase the profitability of paid editing schemes. I do not know the going rate for a paid editor so I'll take as a baseline the $110,000.00 of the tender I linked to above. I am sure many paid editing companies make more than that in a year so spending $5000-$10000 to get rid of a troublesome admin or two may be seen as a good investment. That would pay for 50-100 hours of a pretty skilled worker to troll through someone's history and make a great case to present to ArbCom or, better, Trust & Safety. It will not matter that the issues are 'stale' or 'have already been discussed by the community'. Hell that is what this desysop is based on. So, expect someone to register something like desysop.me and start offering their services as an anti-admin hit squad or maybe open a 'bounty board' on Patreon -- you know "Subscribe and save" or "We desysop on lay away". Prior to this we had solid controls that could prevent this kind of thing -- public evidence and a common (if flawed) understanding of what was worthy of desysop etc. With this you take that away and if you do not know that there is a profit motive to, in general not saying this motive here, to remove those who are hardest on paid editing then you have not been paying attention. Same if you do not know those same people could be made to look to have a long history of being "abrasive" or "excessively pointing out flaws". Laugh if you will but where there is a potential for profit someone will open a business. Jbh Talk 13:15, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

A less drastic header re proposal to remove a FoF

Case has moved on: I do think there should be a record in the PD of both versions of the FoF because it had considerable support - passing? - before it was changed. There is a significant difference between the two.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Currently passing Finding of Fact The evidence provided by the community, as summarized on the evidence page, reveals instances of incivility or lack of decorum on Fram's part, but does not reflect any conduct for which a site-ban would be a proportionate response. In addition, the evidence reveals instances in which Fram has made mistakes as an administrator, including the overturned blocks of Martinevans and GorillaWarfare, but does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response. Comment by Joe Roe The part does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response goes beyond a finding of fact and into a remedy, contradicting remedies 2b-d (which several of the supports here have also voted for). Can we take it out? @Worm That Turned, SilkTork, Opabinia regalis, KrakatoaKatie, Premeditated Chaos, and AGK: – Joe (talk) 10:20 am, Today (UTC−4) Now, I got roundly and rightly hammered for expressing contempt for an arb in an earlier case, so I will not do that here. I will say that, the statement quoted above is perverse, shows utter and shocking contempt for our processes and community. Now, perhaps, Joe Roe did not think this through... that he wants to alter facts to be able to justify a sanction. So Joe Roe, would you please explain WTF you are thinking here? No, it does not go into a remedy. It is a fact than none of the public evidence presented would have resulted in a desysop. Hell, most if not all was presented in a RfArb that was turned down. Reality based adjutication means you modify the sanctions to fit the facts not the other way around. Really, I have respect for you people being an Arb has got to suck a lot of the time. However, if we can no longer expect ArbCom to operate under its own rules and instead start massaging facts, even one of you, then... well you know my vocabulary and writing style well enough to come up with what I would say and I can avoid opprobrium by not having to write it. Jbh Talk 15:33, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply I want to change the wording of a finding of fact. I don't see how the hyperbole is helpful. We do it all the time, even when the existing version has support. Obviously, I want to do so because I don't agree that it is a "fact" that it would be disproportionate to desysop Fram. At first I supported it because I thought it meant that Fram's tool use alone was not enough grounds for a desysop. After reading some comments here, it occurred to me that might not be the case, or at least that it wasn't clearly so. –  Joe ( talk) 15:53, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply @ Joe Roe:Thank you for your explanation. However it reads like you asked to remove the whole FoF and you pinged all of the support arbs to do that. I see the change you just made I guess I can see how you read it as you did and how I could have misread your "it" as referring to the whole FoF as opposed to the blocks only but but does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response" is still a factual conclusion. The problem is that none of the public evidence supports a desysop, not based on current norms, We desysop for abuse of tools and, indeed those two reversed blocks were not abuses. Do you see the issue? If the tool use is not grounds for desysop and most of ArbCom agrees and the other evidence is manifestly not stuff we desysop for then the proper conclusion, based on public evidence is not to desysop and therefore Arbcom must explicitly desysop on 'secret' evidence. By removing the explicit finding that the public evidence does not support dysysop you allow for the implication that it does. If ArbCom is to desysop of secret evidence then they must (and I hate musting but must I must) not give themselves the out of removing a FoF, in part or whole, where they say the evidence does not support it... not when it had enough votes to pass. Jbh Talk 16:27, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply We never delete whole FoFs; they either pass and are included in the final decision, or they don't. I don't agree with your premise that only tool misuse is grounds for desysop. There are a number of other grounds and the arbitration policy gives us a broad remit to consider any "requests [...] for removal of administrative tools". Most notably, consistently failing to meet WP:ADMINCOND or WP:ADMINACCT are explicitly mentioned as grounds for a desysop by ArbCom in the admin policy. Several arbs have explicitly cited this policy in their reasoning for supporting a desysop (and I alluded to it). The evidence of Fram not meeting WP:ADMINCOND is public. One of the reasons I suggested removing or clarifying that phrase is precisely to avoid the misunderstanding that we are basing the decision to desysop on private evidence. Hopefully the other arbs have seen this conversation, because it's made me more sure that the current wording is confusing. –  Joe ( talk) 17:33, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply Hmmm... whatever it takes to get a desysop out of ArbCom it has historically been a high bar. I do not typically like bringing up old business I was involved in. Tends to make people think I have not let go, or some such. In this case though there is as close to an apples to apples comparison as one is likely to get on Wikipedia. We have an administrator who has been brought to ArbCom four times in the last three and some years. January 2016 -- Questions of incivility, personal attacks and involved actions. -- Resulted in an admonishment (cited by Arb in April 2019) with an acknowledgement that since there were trolls involved it was OK. April 2018 -- Questions about involved actions and failure of ADMIN Acct. -- Resulted in a generalized motion about not misusing tools and a specific admonishment not to edit war because there was not a pattern. Feb 2019 - Issue was incivility and personal attacks. Declined because community processes not tried first. April 2019 -- Several arbs say there may be a problematic history. Several Arbs mention past behavior and point out prior Arbcom civility admonishments; the one from 2016 and this from 2012. Case is turned down because "community can handle it". So I feel like I am on pretty solid ground when I say the documented history of Fram is less than typically desysop for. Please note: I am not advocating for sanctions against the linked admin. I am simply familiar with the background, I brought the 2018 case, and found the 2019 cases when I went looking for a counter-example for this reply. I know I made a much better case for desysop in 2018 than has been made in this case and I know Fram has fewer ArbCom admonishments now, zero (0), than my exemplar had in 2019 when Arbcom declined to even hear a case, three (3). I know ArbCom does not do comparisons or precedent but here I have presented a clear expression of what norms of both the community and ArbCom were a mere three months before this whole mess tore into WP. If you folks are going to change that (and ultimately I believe you should) you need to set out a clear statement of what the new normal will be. Not with mini-paragraphs with support/oppose but a clearly articulated position on the expectations for administrator and editor behavior which ArbCom will act on. Then you must (there is that word again) be prepared to act on other cases brought about similar aggregate behavior and act on them. Either that or vacate the whole thing and restore things to the status quo ante. If not you will have all failed the community. Arbcom has a history of making minimalist decisions that do not rock the culture and environment of editing. You do not have that as a choice, at least not if you do not want to do more harm than good. The environment here has already been well and truly upset. Either boldly proclaim the new regime and be prepared to fairly and equitably enforce it going ahead or: Return things to the status quo ante and take advice from the community and Foundation about how to handle things going forward. Jbh Talk 22:32, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply I agree. Past ArbComs have had (too) high a bar to desysop and been (too) careful not to rock the boat. But ArbCom is not a static body. Our membership and opinions change based on elections and the evolving norms of the community (which we're part of remember). We're also not a single body. So announcing a 'new regime' would be both impracticable (we don't all agree) and inappropriate (the "clear standard" we work off is community policy, always). Speaking for myself, I was elected saying that I thought admins were getting away with bad conduct, that I'd desysop in cases where previous ArbComs didn't, and that taking decisive, unpopular action is ArbCom's job. I think I've consistently voted that way in all our cases this year, and this is no exception. –  Joe ( talk) 05:11, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Suggestion re narrative opinion and illustrative diffs

Hat to keep page length down - Arbs know we need diffs.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@ Joe Roe and Opabinia regalis: OR I pinged you because, while I often do not agree with you I respect your ability to write and reason a position well. Although in this case I do not think we even disagree in substance. I would like to suggest two things: In relation to ArbCom taking over the desysop I believe it would be good to reach down into the evidence presented, the old case requests & ANIs or diffs you just happened to come across but were "definitely not in the T&S document, really" as illustrative examples of what is meant by "violating ADMINCOND". This will allow people to see the factual basis for the type of behavior which is considered objectionable. It will also establish the expected baseline for desysop based on behavioral patterns and not egregious tool misuse. I know that is a can of worms but Arbcom simply can not make Fram a one-off. That leads to my second suggestion. Negotiate among yourselves a narrative statement of the decision laying out the situation; the community concerns you observed; history of the civility debate and how "we must do better"; acknowledge, explicitly, that long term behavior patterns are legitimate grounds for bringing a case; and explain the Arbs consensus reasoning. This will give the community something to get their teeth into so we can understand this whole mess. It can also act as a framing device for the RfC to follow. Arbcom will have said "Here is the mess we collectively found ourselves in and this is how we, as Arbcom, dealt with it and why now we are asking the community how these types of issues should be handled going forward". From there it will be possible to ask the community for how the community wants Arbcom to deal with long term behavioral issues. We now have proof that long term behavioral issues must be addressed by the community or the Foundation will step in and we will have another shit storm like this. I would suggest the following as a policy for dealing with T&S evidence: There is no expectation of privacy for behavior occurring only on Wikipedia. Consistent with long standing practice the Foundation has no role in disputes which can be handled through community process. To clarify this point failure/refusal of the community to address an issue/complaint does not mean "the complaint can not be handled by the community" for purposes of allowing unilateral Foundation action. If someone presents on-wiki evidence they do not want publicly discussed it will still be shared with the editor(s) who are being complained about in an attempt to resolve the conflict; to allow a right of reply; and to avoid abuse of process. If the Foundation presents on-wiki only evidence and does not provide Arbcom with the ability to present that evidence to, at least, the parties concerned then Arbcom will not use any of that evidence to determine sanctions against an editor. Arbcom may use such evidence to initiate an investigation/case of their own or as a basis to open a dialogue with the editor complained about. Process, consistency and following the forms is important, especially in a free-wheeling multi-cultural environment like Wikipedia. People have needs not just in their lives but also analogous ones within an organization. If those needs are not fulfilled by the organization they will form cliques, become territorial and, just as in real life, if the lower parts of the pyramid become unstable they will, to use a technical term, loose their shit. That is what is happening here. The Foundation kicked at the base of the pyramid and now Arbcom needs to give some stability back before they can expect rational engagement. Please, please take the extra steps to get the community on track. You have a chance to set the tone of where we go from here. If you give a new direction things will change, if you do the same old thing then the community will drop back into the same patterns. All of you were elected because the community trusted you. Use that trust to make things better so we do not have to go through this again. Thank you. Jbh Talk 15:38, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Replies GreenMeansGo

Material replied to has been hatted or removed.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@ GreenMeansGo: There is a reason I said "process matters". The Foundation established the relationship with enwp's conflict resolution -- taken straight from meta:Trust and Safety As a part of the Foundation’s commitment to respect community autonomy, the Trust & Safety team does not handle general community or community-member disputes that may be addressed through community processes, nor does it serve as an appeal venue for community-made policies and decisions. While we are happy to assist community members in need of help, many times that help will consist of assisting the person to find the right community venue to solve their problem. They are free to change that, they can disband ArbCom and hire a bunch of community management specialists if they want but they are not going to do that because they neither have the professional competence nor the will to redefine the processes of enwp in particular or to redefine the WMF as an operating company vs a social/knowledge advocacy foundation. Since they likely can not take over management of the community for reasons ranging from the practical to the legal then there will continue to be community dispute resolution. That being the case the community has a right and duty to work to define that relationship. The Foundation had and continues to have the Global ban and enwp explicitly places that outside of our processes. What we can not do, not and maintain a healthy community, is allow a two track system of justice. It is ripe for exploitation -- hell I am positive I could put together cases on maybe five of our active admins that Arbcom and the community would, at a minimum laugh out and maybe indeff me as a asshole, but T&S would pull their bit or ban them for -- any person familiar with both WP and the proper buzzwords and framing techniques could do the same. Maybe, in a just world, those admins should go but I and the community commentariat think they, on balance, help Wikipedia. At least until we get better process in place -- which this is a chance to begin. All I am arguing for is for Arbcom to define and articulate their position re ADMINCOND (since it is demonstrably different than previous experience); make a clear statement of their position re 'secret' yet publicly visible evidence; and what they will and will not be a party to re T&S. Arbcom is responsible to the community and it is not unreasonable to they cogently explain when they act in a way inconsistent with past behavior. As to Arbcom's relationship with the Foundation/T&S, they always has the right to refuse to act. All I suggest is they define the circumstances where they will not. No more and no less. Jbh Talk 18:02, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply @ GreenMeansGo: I am obviously failing to communicate. I said I can think of five admins that using secret evidence I can make look so toxic T&S would desysop/ban them. That is the nature of secret evidence. I would get to frame the interactions; I would get to characterize the evidence and interpret their behaviors. The target, not seeing the complaint or evidence supporting it, could not do a damn thing to prevent my narrative from being the dominant one. The only defense would for the target to be an 'insider' known to and friendly with the people on T&S. They would be doubly screwed if they were already known in the slightest negative context. Character assassination is a well developed art and one does not need to be more skilled than the stereotypical high school "mean girl" to deploy is successfully in the circumstances I have described. (No, this is not something I would do here. I am simply using myself as a stand in for "anyone".) As to the other, yes, if the process used is an open Arbcom case then sanctions must be for well articulated and open reasons. This is not some natural justice argument. If people do not know what the behavioral expectations are the environment will be toxic due to perceived arbitrary punishment -- "terror" is a great means of social control but is sucks for collaboration. All "I don't care how they are punished so long as they are" ever got the world is mob justice and autocracy. Process protects against abuse while arbitrary systems are only good when they are used against those one disagrees with. It also leaves those subject to it angry and resentful as opposed to being able to understand the problem and even try to improve. I do not believe in throwing people out like trash and that is exactly what an "I don't care how..." based system does. I disagree with your statement that "we have nothing to talk about" we have different views on community management and that is precisely the question at hand. I do agree that this is not the best forum and the upcoming RfC would be a better place to examine our differences. Jbh Talk 01:00, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply @ GreenMeansGo: (in re [16]) You are not getting it. Using secret evidence I could probably make you look toxic to T&S. I know I could make me look toxic. Anyone can be made out to be what they are not. Admins just interact with so many people that any of the really active ones could be made to look bad if context is taken away. We have an admin who does tens of thousands of CSD deletions and has been to AN/ANI several times. The consensus has been, and I agree, that an error in every thousandish deletions is not too bad. Take the context away. Find four or five interactions a year where he lost patience (I do not know of any but he's human and this is just an off-the cuff illustration) and select the examples to be getting worse over time then wait for one big precipitating event and there you have it -- An out of control, angry admin, abusing people and deleting their articles before they even have a chance to really get started writing. Running off new editors and creating a toxic environment. That would all be bullshit. No mention that those articles were BLP violations or COPYVIO. Nothing about the interactions being the nth attempts to deal with well known undisclosed paid editing rings, trolls, people interested only in promotion or whatever. Wikipedia works on AGF T&S does not. AGF is why I do not think you not getting what I am saying is trolling (I do not) but cut, paste put in a few "..."; take out the context that we have gotten on just fine in the past and poof a "toxic" exchange. The same could be done, even more easily, with my side. Remove the context; take out some parentheticals; cut, paste and poof I'm threatening the admin corps with false reports and intending to set up a website to solicit funding to stitch up admins for paid editors (See the section 'Consider this...' above.) and calling you a toxic troll to boot! I do hope this has made clear what I am getting at re the problems with using 'secret' evidence. This is not about Fram. It is not about any one "toxic asshole" or even five or fifty. It is about making a stable system that will allow the community to address all of the toxic assholes and have better community norms, coupled with community enforcement, to help prevent people from becoming toxic assholes in to first place. I think we want much the same thing - a reduction in the level of assholery on Wikipedia. I simply believe that what you propose requires us to re-litigate each case of assholery and does nothing to prevent Wikipedia from continuing to be an asshole incubator, growing them faster than we can get rid of them. I want to change the processes, create a known metric for assholery and the sanctioning thereof. We can then ban the hopeless, council the borderline and catch the little assholettes in their shells before the hatch. There is not even a need to create an explicit assholery scale ab initio so long as Arbcom articulates the reasoning behind their decisions, gives illustrative examples and gives consistent outcomes. Anyway. I have spent more than enough time at this and I'm off to bed. Also, to be clear I think you are a fine editor all of the examples and illustrations are argumentum ab absurdi. Have a good evening. Jbh Talk 02:14, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

On desysop

As has been pointed out repeatedly T&S did not make a decision to desysop. It was only a technical action to enforce the ban. As I understand it this case was opened expressly to review the T&S sanction. Because of a complete failure to confirm the parameters of the T&S action before opening the case we have all proceed from a wrong assumption -- that T&S had evidence and was of the opinion that Fram should not have the bit.

No significant evidence has been presented that meets the existing standards for desysop and the very phrasing of the PD is now known to be manifestly unfair and unjust. Wording like "uphold T&S desysop", "Arbcom takes over Fram's desysop" and "Fram's desysop was disproportionate" all indicate that Arbcom has taken the view that Fram was desysoped for cause and you must address it. The well has been well and truly poisoned by that misunderstanding of fact. The most just thing is to strike all of the PD relating to Fram's status as an admin because is was never an issue in the T&S ban. If not, and each of you are able, the only proper thing to do is examine the public evidence and consider if you would desysop, or even take the case if it were presented as a RfArb. I mean, Arbcom did decline a recent case request based on the same evidence.

Maybe a strict adherence to ADMINCOND is good but previously Arbcom has said that ADMINCOND is for the community to define and Arbcom makes decisions based on community norms not the Arbs personal opinions. I think making your own sui generis interpretation of ADMINCOND is a extremely courageous stance and I am quite impressed at the willingness to open the gates on long term ADMINCOND cases. Very brave indeed.

I have been impressed with the thought many of you have evinced putting into your deliberation and the willingness to reconsider decisions based on new facts and circumstances. Jbh ^Talk 13:15, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The policy T&S was operating under

For those who have not read it here is a link to the Office action policy T&S was working under. I will extract small portions I think relevant. In order to keep this short I an not providing full context to my extracts. Just click through the provided link to read the full relevant sections.

The initial communications with Fram were Conduct warnings:

A conduct warning is issued when a situation is observed to be problematic and is meant to be a preventative measure of further escalation. It is considered as a step geared towards de-escalation of the situation, when this is believed to have sufficient margin for it. ... Such a warning will typically aim to address the type of conduct that may include, but is not limited to, repeated personal attacks, edit/status warring, impersonation or otherwise inappropriate in-person commentary and behavior. There is little evidence that conduct warnings succeed, and the Wikimedia Foundation lacks the resources to counsel warned individuals in how to modify behaviors.

and expressly not an Interaction ban:

Interaction bans are typically handled by the Wikimedia community but in extremely rare situations the Foundation may echo such a community-led action by issuing a Foundation interaction ban.

The section goes on to specify lesser restrictions than T&S required of Fram in their March 2019 "reminder".

Fram was banned under the terms of a Partial Foundation ban the description of which pretty clearly limits its intended use to

... help safeguard constructive contributions to and growth of smaller, technical, and/or emerging communities, where individual editors with problematic history on mature wikis sometimes become pillars without causing any issues.

Finally, of relevance to the desysop issue, the notation of the log entry which removed Fram's bit says "This user has been banned by the Wikimedia Foundation from editing the English Wikipedia for a period of 1 year, consistent with the Terms of Use." and does not invoke Secondary Office Actions/Removal of advanced rights:

In extremely rare situations, the Foundation may become aware of circumstances and information regarding major breaches of trust performed by Wikimedia functionaries or other users with access to advanced tools that are not possible to be shared with the Wikimedia communities due to privacy reasons

A basic due diligence, had it been done at the outset, would have shown, at a minimum, that the desysop was not part of the 'Office action' or, if not already clear, provide sufficient basis to ask T&S about it at the beginning of this case instead of the end. I believe that this supports the hypothesis I presented above that T&S was, at the very least, stretching the envelope of their authority vis-a-vis the factual basis of their actions. Jbh ^Talk 16:05, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Time to get a professional opinion on this 'public but secret' stuff

Caveat, I am not a lawyer but I can read and reason pretty well and I am firmly of the judgement that, at least in isolation no diff or act is covered by meta:Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information.

• Ex a giant screw-up by OVERSIGHT and T&S none of the behavioral/diffs can be nonpublic personal data that is what OVERSIGHT is for and T&S makes use of it.

• By virtue of being publicly visible on-wiki the agreement expressly excluded is from its terms Exceptions to nonpublic personal data. Nonpublic personal data does not include any information which (a) was publicly available at the time of disclosure;.... IANL but I can read and reason. Two part test:
  1. Was it ever something which could legitimately be described as nonpublic personal data? In No then agreement is not germane; If no:
  2. Was it publicly available at the time of disclosure? If yes it is explicitly excluded by the terms of the agreement.

The only thing preventing disclosure is each individual Arb's personal ethics. Does your negotiated agreement with T&S with respect to any particular content, element or even the document override your ethical duty to act as Arbitrators on behalf of the enwp community and the person over whom you pass judgement? That is between each of you and your personal conscience.

SilkTork has been naming names and linking ANI discussions over on Meta, I mean FUCK! he put it right in the bleeding heading -- 2019 report to T&S:LouisAlain] -- and goes on to say " In the Appendix of the T&S document are letters and reports, one of which links to the ANI report on your interaction with LouisAlain" the world did not end. Opprobrium did not rain down. So there is no excuse for any of this.

Let's get the meta:Ombudsman commission involved. They exist to investigate "complaints about infringements of the Privacy Policy, the Access to nonpublic information policy..." (Why did not Arbcom engage them from the start?! Or get your own legal opinion before accepting terms from T&S) We can ask them whether SilkTork violated the policy (I think not) or does at least Fram, and maybe the community at large, have a right to see all or part of the T&S document? Yes, let's take it to the Ombudsman commission and end this silliness definitively. Jbh ^Talk 04:04, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The Ombusdman commission are volunteers just like the committee. I've known a few members, and they aren't legally qualified - so I wouldn't be going to them for advice. In addition, where I have seen them engaged, it has taken over 3 months for a response, so I can't say I have a lot of faith in the institution. Worm^TT( talk) 09:31, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned: Thanks for letting me know! That is scary on so many ways... They are supposed to be independently dealing with potential violations of a legal agreement so I expected them to have, at a minimum, training on what is and is not covered by it. Their page on Meta says "When the case is litigious, the ombudsman will be in charge of educating CheckUsers or others about the Foundation's privacy policy" which, to my inexpert ear, sounds like legal advice. I guess I am making an argument from incredulity but I can not imagine they would not at least have access to council or, at a minimum, written legal opinions describing tests for what is and is not non-public personal information. They simply could not perform their function in an ethically and legally responsible manner while maintaining independence.

Three months?! That is ridiculous unless it was an unusually complex case. In a regular case I would expect an Ombudsman to acknowledge an inquiry an initial plan for moving forward within maybe three days. But that is me and I sometimes find myself expecting prompt professionalism in inappropriate venues so I am well girded for my impending disappointment :) Jbh ^Talk 14:47, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Jbhunley, They may get some training, I'd have to ask. They may also have access to WMF counsel. I haven't been in the group myself - however my understanding and the individuals I've known on the committee are not generally legally trained. The case I refer to is not excessively complex - but just kept getting pushed forward. I sincerely believe it was only resolved because Arbcom pushed the matter. They've released no 2019 reports as yet, but closed only 2 out of 14 cases in the latter half of 2018 - meta:Ombudsman_commission/2018/Report_Jul-Dec Worm^TT( talk) 15:00, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned: Christ-on-a-frigging-crutch! According to their authorizing board resolutions from the report you linked ( foundation:Resolution:Ombudsperson checkuser and foundation:Resolution:Amending the Scope of the Ombudsman Commission) it is not even a real Organizational ombudsman. They are chartered to "investigat[e] cases of privacy policy breach or checkuser abuse for the board in an official manner"^{(emp. mine)} but only charged to "offer a sympathetic ear to those reporting an abuse of the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy on any of Wikimedia project" later amended to "mediate between the complainant and the respondent". Not one mention about independently handling complaints. They are even tasked as agents of the Foundation "When legally appropriate, the Ombudsman Commission will assist Wikimedia Foundation..."

They are not an Ombudsman they seem to be a checkuser/oversight complaints window dressed up with a grand sounding name. No wonder no one contacted them. Now I feel a right prat. Luckily that is not an unfamiliar feeling to me. Jbh ^Talk 15:47, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

My letter to the WMF Ombudsman as emailed

Per a suggestion from SilkTork [17], I have moved this to WP:FRAM [18] Jbh ^Talk 18:20, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• As of this date the meta:Ombudsman commission has not acknowledged receipt of this letter. Jbh ^Talk 14:57, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Asking Arbs for diffs to support assertions

Hatting. Arbs have been discussing diffs for a while now
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@ Mkdw: On the PD page you say "A lot of people wrote to T&S about Fram because they did not have faith in the current process to resolve the issue and they did not feel safe publicly coming forward with their complaints." Since it has been stated many times that the version of the T&S has been completely sanitized re the complainants on what do you base your assertion of "a lot"? Can you quantify 5? 10? Also, did people actually say they "did not feel safe publicly coming forward" or is that your read? I am seeing a lot of assertion with out proof in comments from Arbs: On the public evidence: @ AGK: "The community evidence documented a great deal of disruptive and harmful conduct // "Fram consistently fails to adhere to our community's expectations of how administrators should behave with other users" - The community evidence is both public and not secret. What would be some illustrative diffs of what you consider to be "disruptive and harmful conduct" and how it is "Fram consistently fails..."? On the 'secret' yet publicly visible evidence. @ KrakatoaKatie: "The WMF document isn't pretty. It's full of belligerent, arrogant, in-your-face conduct by a long-time administrator. -- Obviously, you will not quote the document but if its "full of belligerent, arrogant, in-your-face" surely all such behavior is not confined to only the material in the document. What would be some examples similar to this behavior in the public record? @ Opabinia regalis: "The document describes behavior that is unpleasant, uncollegial, and arrogant." - Again there must be some analogous examples available so we can understand what you mean by "unpleasant, uncollegial, and arrogant". I'll take this opportunity to say I very much appreciate and agree with AGK when they say: "We probably need to start hearing complaints about our own actions in a more structured manner, by creating a formal appeals process. "Attacks against the committee" are, at their heart, Wikipedia users asking us to do something differently. Methodically handling the requests of such users gives all stakeholders a predictable, transparent process for effecting change – which takes the heat out of situations and turns "attacks" into "discussion". People are so harsh because it seems like the only way of getting an arbitrator to listen." and would like to reiterate that one of the ways to get community buy in is to back up your assertions with diffs. Commonly we, as a community, have considered unsupported negative assertions about an editor's behavior as personal attacks. I do not think any of you intend that but we have a diffs or it didn't happen culture here. Beyond that, as you can see from my comments on the Workshop page, one of the things that bothers me is you are all talking about "lots" and "less than a dozen" (implying more than one or two) yet all but one or two pieces of evidence were copied verbatim from an an ANI opened by Jaguar in March 2018. This does not give me confidence, not when the other publicly known but unacknowledged complainant is so completely compromised. Desysop, don't desysop I do not think anyone really cares at this point so long as you all base your decisions on something concrete. Sure some people will still complain but if all the decision is based on is unsupported of assertions of opinion as fact well, the complainers will be justified. Nothing is being asked of the Arbs that is not asked of everyone at AN/ANI. I mean really would you accept your own statements above if they were presented as evidence in a case? No? Then why should we? Jbh Talk 20:27, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply Unfortunately I am quite limited on what I am able to disclose beyond the already approved summary of the T&S report. The exact or a range/approximate number of editors could not be included. I will say many editors explained the reason why they contacted T&S instead of using community processes. I cannot really say more, but a part of Jan's statement provides some additional information: "It is important that victims of hostilities like harassment have a safe place to make reports and that we uphold and respect their privacy when they do so. The Foundation is currently working with the community on a User Reporting System that would allow communities and the Foundation to cooperate in handling complaints like harassment, and we have every hope that that system will facilitate local, community handling of these issues. However, at the current time, no such system exists for victims to make reports privately without fear that their “case” will be forced to become public. Indeed, it is often true that a mere rumor that someone was the victim of harassment can lead to harassment of that person. Unfortunately, that has been proven the case here as some individuals have already made assumptions about the identities of the victims involved. Accordingly, the Foundation is currently the venue best equipped to handle these reports, as we are able, often required by laws or global policies, to investigate these situations in confidence and without revealing the identity of the victim. That is why we will not name or disclose the identities of the individuals involved in reporting incidents related to this Office Action." - Statement from Jan Eissfeldt, Lead Manager of Trust & Safety Mkdw talk 21:47, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply @ Mkdw: Thank you for the response. The issue now, from my analysis, it is very likely that you all have become a vehicle for harassment of Fram. Surely not by intent, but as of now, by effect. Many of you are making bald statements then waving to evidence that you, yourselves, acknowledge you have not been allowed to view in evidentiary form. I challenge the claim made by Jan Eissfeldt that discussion of the person who the prior T&S warnings named and who put a big edit notice on her talk page is harassment. Not when there is so much behavior in her wiki-career which would have been questioned if she had brought a normal case. The claims that LH is not central to this and the outcome are simply not credible. Fram got warned specifically not to examine her edits by T&S. Sure, I can credit others complaining as well, especially now that you have said the dossier contains complaints from before and after the ban. There is also past evidence that in disputes re LH and Fram that the same group of editors from the Paralympic History job showed up to defend her. Did they make complaints to T&S? If they did did they say they worked with LH? This makes me and others question the integrity of that evidence especially if they will not let Arbcom, who all commonly handle sensitive information re harassment without incident, examine it. What I and others have asked as a compromise is really very simply. If Fram has indeed been so bad re ADMINCOND then there are surely diffs of this behavior not traceable to the T&S document -- I mean there are lots of votes to desysop on the public evidence so where are the diffs? I get confidentiality but I also know, as should all of Arbcom, that there are people who habitually abuse the process and I am confident that anyone who has been paying attention to this drama could make at least a private and likely a public case for such a circumstance. The reason LH has become a focal point in this is because, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, we know from T&S that the March warning was specifically about her -- but for her complaint I doubt T&S would have been motivated to try out this newly claimed power. Beyond that it has now been said that there was no precipitating event between that March warning and the desysop/ban beyond the "Fuck ARBCOM" event. We know from the public evidence that Fram complained about her DYK's, BLP violations and poor translation. We know that Raystorm, a board member and now chair and her (Redacted), came to her defense, offered to help with translations - "ping me if you need help" - and said FRAM was harassing LH by checking her edits. All the while seemingly holding out to be just some independent editor expressing her opinion. Same with some of LH's partners on the history job. (I'd link to the diffs but, oddly LH's username has been scrambled and talk page has been deleted then moved making it a pain in the ass.) Now, with all of that and more, you all can say with a straight face that it is not about her??!! When you all also say that all bad behavior was on-wiki but after allowing for anonymous evidence all that is presented is a copy-paste from a single ANI. Come on. You say there is enough to sanction Fram yet no one will show it. If the bulk of the case is not about LH please just show the diffs you all say are public and justify the sanction. I'll say thank you and drop it. I get the pressure for a Solomon solution. I get this is a hard case and you all are just volunteers under a great pressure. Many of you have said some really good things that show that you really are trying but none of that will count. Credibility is built slowly and spent quickly. From what I have heard this year Arbcom's balance is nearing overdraft. Why spend more when it is so easy to earn some with diffs? A bunch of you voted for a FoF that said there was no desysop worthy conduct and then changed the FoF because it was inconsistent rather than leaving a record of it and adding a new FoF with the adjusted wording -- I mean the two versions, one now hidden in the page history, are materially different. Sure mistakes happen in a high pressure venue like this, I sure I would make some and I can AGF that the facts were not being altered intentionally to match a preferred outcome. Not providing tangible evidence to support that outcome though just assertions and waving a compromised 'secret' document of which the full context is "unknowable"... now that is sketchy. Jbh Talk 00:03, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply @ Mkdw: Per your statement " I do not see a way forward that does not allow some private evidence to play a factor in a process where we would also be allowed to continue to self-govern on issues of harassment and abuse" [19]: This indicates to me, indicates very strongly indeed that the WMF or T&S has placed some sort of constraints on the outcome of this case else you would not have made such a comment. What constraints, limitations or concerns has T&S or WMF placed on or expressed to Arbcom, you or any other member be it directly; indirectly; merely musings at the proverbial water cooler; or via intermediaries over what elements would consist of or contribute to a right outcome? What factors, communication, hints or whatever caused you to make that statement? Since this is very important I will assume that there may also be constraints placed upon your ability to discuss constraints I will assume this so strongly that should you not respond to this, I will present that fact as evidence of the existence of such constraints in any community discussions going forward. (This is not me being a dick, it is me offering you a way out if needed. People just do not say stuff like that without reason.) Jbh Talk 00:19, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply I'm sure Mkdw will explain his thinking soon enough and I don't mean to step on his toes. Since I'm reading this page at this moment and I'm not sure he is, and since I see both you and Black Kite have interpreted this the same way, I figured I'd try to nip this in the bud. There have been no constraints, limitations, concerns, musings, etc. from the WMF (edit: or from anyone else*) telling us/implying/nudging/etc. that this case should reach any specific conclusion. In fact, we have been specifically told by Jimbo and Doc James that they will support any decision we make, including if it does not match the restrictions T&S placed. I suspect Mkdw means that he feels that a community having no form of dispute resolution that can consider evidence that isn't fully public is eventually untenable when it comes to issues of harassment and abuse, but again, I'll let Mkdw tell us more on that. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 01:22, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply * Note on my edit: This is specifically me trying to avoid the impression that I'm choosing my words carefully to telegraph that we are indeed somehow restricted in the decision we can make in this case. The only restriction placed upon us by the WMF is already well known: that we may not release the non-public evidence they've passed along to us. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 01:26, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply Thank you for your reply and I do get your 'no subtext' point. I found Mkdw's comment so out of the ordinary that, while I respect the earnestness and belief of your statement and it is not that I do not believe you but this is still a failsafe question for Mkdw so he is the only one who can clear it -- that is the nature of the system. On another topic. I am very impressed with both you describing your decision making process and offering to share what you can when this is over. That kind of willingness to explain and openness is a great way to build confidence and trust. Jbh Talk 01:59, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply (And, quite frankly from what I have seen I assess T&S or some portion of it indistinguishable from the whole to be a malign actor. There is just too much unaddressed sketchiness for me to see it any other way. The only thing they can do now is open their records to an Ombudsman who can examine them against T&S public statements and the counter evidence to those statements I and others have assembled. Nothing short of that will give them any credibility. There is just too much evidence of active misdirection or even deception,) Jbh Talk 02:23, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply I have clarified my statement and replied in Black Kite's section. Mkdw talk Thank you per [20] Jbh Talk 02:46, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• COI?

I would encourage Arbcom to pay careful attention to the comments by Jbhunley. I was struggling with how to phrase pretty much the same thing, and he put it better than I could. These are issues that really need to be addressed. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 03:38, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Factual error

The proposed decision says:

"Whilst this case was ongoing, the Office drafted a "Community consultation on partial and temporary office actions". The full consultation is expected in early September 2019."

But meta:Talk:Office actions/Community consultation on partial and temporary office actions/draft#End of the pre-conversation phase says:

"the consultation will not start until the Fram case being currently reviewed by the En.WP ArbCom is closed."

While it is likely that Arbcom will close the Fram case in early September, we are not 100% sure that it won't close in late September, and we certainly have no way of predicting how long the WMF will delay after the close. Better to use the exact wording the WMF used rather than making assumptions. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 12:35, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Guy Macon, I took the date from the main page, which stated "This draft will be open for comments until 30th August 2019. At that point the Foundation will finalize the content of the draft in preparation for launching the actual consultation, likely in in early September 2019." The importance was more to highlight the consultation as part of the decision. Worm^TT( talk) 12:41, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

WTT, It just got edited from one factually incorrect claim to another factually incorrect claim. [21] It's a small thing, but Arbcom should not make claims when they have zero evidence that the claims are actually true. The correct claim is "The full consultation is expected [[ some time after the current Arbcom case closes.-- Guy Macon ( talk) 21:08, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Well, did he do it?

SilkTork; Re: "I am going to review community and T&S evidence again", one thing that I would like the decision to cover is Fram's claim ( here)

"[regarding] the decorum; as some editors already indicated, I already did this in general the past year, but I'll strive to improve even further",

and his claim ( here) that

"my conduct has clearly improved in general over the last 12 months".

The obvious first question would be "Well, did he do it? Did he take the criticism to heart and actually improve his behavior or did he just promise to do so?" Depending on the answer to that question the second question would be "is the desysop based upon behavior before or after the claimed behavior improvement?"

Something in the FoFs addressing these questions would be very helpful, because IMO they could be the basis for a strong "desysops, like all other sanctions, should be preventative, not punitive" argument at an RfA. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 18:58, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Is this count correct?

@ GoldenRing, L235, and Cthomas3:

Proposed remedy 3 (Fram admonished) is listed as passing 7 to 0, but the Arbs wrote things like:

• If any of the desysop remedies pass, I will oppose this.
• If a desysop passes, I oppose any admonishment.
• Support only if Removal of sysop user-rights (2d) doesn't pass, otherwise decline.
• Second choice to 2d.
• Second choice if 2d does not pass.
• Second choice to 2d if that doesn't pass.
• Second choice to 2d.

2d passed 6 to 3. Am I missing something or is the count on 3 wrong? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 13:37, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

It's failing. The count is not perfect, which is why we have our excellent clerks. Worm^TT( talk) 13:40, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Guy Macon I've just made notes beside remedies 1b and 3 which should hopefully make this clearer – "second choices" do not pass if the first choice does. This will get sorted out when we close the case, but as it stands right now neither 1b nor 3 will pass. – bradv 🍁 13:55, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks! Much better. BTW, you are doing a great job on this case. Should you be listed as one of the clerks so you get credit? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 14:03, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Reply to Fram

In [22] Fram asks

"Does anyone from the arbs or clerks really think taking these actions will improve anything at all? Was that comment really worse than e.g. someone being called 'unpleasant, uncollegial, and arrogant' or 'not particulary incisive".'

Yes. I am not an Arb or a clerk, and I think that comment removal improved the ability of Arbcom to understand what the community feels about this case.

The entire sentence is "The document describes behavior that is unpleasant, uncollegial, and arrogant." [23] It isn't Arbcom's doing that we cannot see that document, and describing waht is in the document is a reasonable thing for an arb to do. The context is what to do about Fram, so discussing Fram's behavior is needed. The removed comment [24] is abuse -- much worse than Fram's examples -- aimed at the WMF and Arbcom. There may be a future place and time to examine the behavior of the WMF and arbcom, but this is not the time or the place. Good call on deleting that comment.

(I could not find any "not particulary incisive" comment. Might I suggest documenting what you claim was said with diffs, as I did above?) -- Guy Macon ( talk) 18:38, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

ArbCom needs to fully vacate this office action, which would included resysyopping Fram. I understand that Arbs have already said there was more to the private evidence than Fram’s conflict with Laura Hale, but the simple fact is the WMF’s first secret action was stepping in to defend Laura Hale, whose editing was decidedly substandard, and who was repeatedly evasive about if she was being compensated for editing. On top of that is the massive personal COI between Laura Hale and Maria Sefidari (aka Raystorm; aka WMF chairman of the board) that’s existed for years though never disclosed anywhere onwiki, even when Raystorm was telling Fram to leave Laura Hale alone onwiki. The admission of this COI is offwiki, so I won’t link to here, but I find it hard to believe ArbCom is unaware of it.

So we have the first flexing of the WMF’s new enforcement mechanism being used to create a secret one-way IBan favoring an editor that has a personal undisclosed COI with the chairman of the WMF board. An editor that was already shown to have another personal undisclosed COI in an Arb case by the way, yet somehow avoided any sanctions back then. The optics are dismal. No matter whatever else was in the T&S dossier, their first action regarding Fram was to protect Laura Hale, not anyone else who had contacted them. Just vacate all of this and remove this residue of problematic COIs and nepotism that the WMF clearly disregarded. If you feel that Fram’s incivility is problematic, and I wouldn’t disagree, then a “final chance” admonishment could be in order. As NYB points out, there have been no formal ArbCom warnings against Fram to date and I certainly don’t see a case for desysop based on anything brought to ArbCom prior to now. Fram’s going to be on the shortest of short leashes at this point. Capeo ( talk) 05:23, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I wanted to add, while echoing some of what others have said, that I understand the thinking about having Fram engage any community concerns directly through an RFA (if they so chose to) but it's hard to conceive such an RFA as being anything other than a contentious mess. The RFA would only tangentially be about Fram. What it will actually be is a referendum on the WMF's actions, with Supports and Opposes divided by those who think the WMF overstepped their bounds and those who think the WMF needs to do more. It will be a CIVILITY RFC in all but name, with Fram stuck in the middle, and that's not fair to Fram. Fram and the community aren't even equipped to properly engage in this discussion because its impetus is largely evidence that neither has access too. Just return everything back to the way it was prior to the T&S action with a stern warning to Fram, being as specific as possible, about the behavior ArbCom has an issue with. Capeo ( talk) 13:23, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

A large part of what I have an issue about is the community mores that have led Fram and us to this situation, and I don't think ArbCom wagging a finger at Fram is going to change that. I don't think ArbCom have the mandate from the community to make the decision on the community's behalf. It's too borderline. I don't think we have the authority here to either desysop or resysop Fram.

I hear what you are saying about a Fram RfA likely to be about the WMF action, and I fully understand and expect that. But I don't think that will exclusively be the case. I have some faith in this community to ask Fram some searching questions, and to give Fram an opportunity to reflect and respond. I also expect, given the level of feeling in the community regarding the WMF action, that the majority of protest votes would be against the WMF rather than in support.

One approach I proposed to the Committee some time ago, but it was felt inappropriate, is that the community could get involved in deciding the outcome of this case via SecurePoll. That is no longer viable, as the case has now finished, and if that was to work, the community would needed to have taken a closer part in workshopping the PD. But that principle is still present in there being a RfA. The upside is that the community and Fram would be able to engage in open dialogue. The downside is that all votes would be public, which tends to sway opinion one way or the other.

Having said all that, I could change my vote for a RfA if a satisfactory alternative remedy is found. SilkTork ( talk) 15:38, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

So ArbCom does have the authority to overturn an office ban but it doesn’t have the authority to overturn the office desysop that was part and parcel with the ban? Can you see why people may be confused by such seemingly contradictory statements like that one and others on the PD page? To your point, I fail to see what the community has to do with this because Fram’s office sanctions weren’t pursued or applied by the community. That’s why we’re here. This wasn’t a community sanction.

More problematic is having issues with community mores being a mitigating factor. Multiple Arbs have said even the totality of evidence wouldn’t have likely lead to Fram being desysopped, due to what the community currently finds as acceptable behavior, but then followed with some form of lamentation that maybe it should. That’s fine to have as an opinion. Hell, it’s a sentiment I agree with in many cases but, to be blunt, that isn’t ArbCom’s remit. ArbCom is supposed to adjudicate on how things are, not on how they wished it was. Either an Arb believes Fram would’ve been desysopped or not. What they shouldn’t do is use Fram as a weathervane to test if the wind is blowing in the direction they’d hope it is. That’s just ridiculously unfair.

There are so many contradictory statements in the PD votes that I can’t blame Fram for being bewildered and angry on his meta TP. He’s correct in saying that he has adjusted his behavior in the last few years yet none of this is acknowledged in the PD. The blatant exception being his harsh criticism of ArbCom. He’s also correct in saying that he’s always brought his issues with an editor’s behavior to a community forum. I also can’t blame him for feeling blindsided by Arbs expressing rather oblique opinions about how they wish things were when there has been almost no direct engagement with Fram about their concerns throughout this whole ordeal. I see you are personally doing that now, which is commendable, but if ArbCom would’ve (publicly) raised there concerns with Fram’s behavior before posting the PD then there may have been a binding remedy agreed upon... or the conversation could’ve lead to ArbCom definitively, and publicly, concluding Fram’s desysop is warranted if he was obstinate and unreceptive. The potentially best outcome, Fram publicly committing to adjust his behavior by being receptive to ArbComs concerns, and including that in a remedy, wouldn’t be “finger wagging.” It would’ve been a binding resolution to a situation extraordinary on WP until now.

All that said, that would’ve been one path, but it’s not even the one I personally agree with. I’m of the opinion that if any aspect of this unprecedented and intrusive office action is to be found faulty then it needs to be overturned in its totality, including the desysop. Capeo ( talk) 23:22, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Sorry for delay in getting back to you Capeo. I'm not aware of how much communication went on between ArbCom and Fram. I recall Fram letting the Committee be aware he was going on holiday, and at some point after that I went inactive. So I am not the Arb best placed to raise that issue with. I am still inactive bar for this case, and when this case is over I will be resigning because I find I'm not able to devote the appropriate amount of time, energy and commitment to ArbCom.

ArbCom is not perfect. Never has been perfect. Sometimes a case decision is made which works, but sometimes not. That's the reality. People who expect ArbCom to be perfect get irritated when case PDs stumble and stagger to a decision rather than are delivered in faultless condition with the whole community beaming and clapping with admiration at the pristine logic and awe inspiring wordsmithing. I'm OK with ArbCom proposing some decisions and then the community looking them over and giving their views, and the Committee adjusting and working through to some kind of decision. Even without the community giving their opinions, the very fact of making the PDs public can make Committee members reflect on them differently. This is not the final decision, this is the proposed decision. Essentially this is a continuation of the workshop. And it's not uncommon for some Committee members to be looking closely at the case for the first time when the PD is posted, and all of us will be reflecting on the rationales that members may give for their decisions. Some rationales can make me change my vote. Though the PD can be messy and frustrating, it is a dynamic and vital part of the case. SilkTork ( talk) 16:36, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I was pretty much done commenting here as I gave my reasoning and the writing was on the wall anyway but... the last two weeks have been a travesty. ArbCom literally went fishing for (incredibly weak) diffs, not presented in evidence, to justify desysoping Fram. In that time, almost all Arbs ignored Fram’s very simple questions and his, and just about everyone else’s here, pointing out of the contradictory stances presented in the FoFs. The few responses, outside of SilkTork, were generally condescending and/or dismissive as though, because Fram asked questions rather than grovel, they weren’t even going to entertain his points. SilkTork, you at least tried to engage Fram, but your tone was still condescending as hell, as though Fram was a child, and then you cut off the conversation for no reason at all. It didn’t “stall.” You stopped for the completely false reason that Fram was naming someone as one of his secret accusers when all he was doing was giving you the background of the on-wiki conflict the two of you were discussing. Which leads to this “secret evidence” crap to begin with. ArbCom has already said that all evidence is on-wiki, thus any claims that there’s evidence the community isn’t privy to is specious at best. As is any Arb’s claim that they think Fram has, or may have, lost the community’s trust. The community has spoken non-stop since the Framban started and it has been overwhelmingly in favor of reversing the office action in total so stop claiming anything in the name of the community. The community does have the evidence, as you’ve all admitted, and is overwhelmingly against your conclusions so those conclusions are your own, not the consensus of the community. Capeo ( talk) 22:32, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I can't see all the evidence and so I am comfortable trusting the people we've elected, who can see all the evidence, to make a judicious decision. But I am confused by the reasoning that seems to be on offer from Joe, SilkTork, and GW around whether to restore Fram's bit. If I understand it correctly the thinking seems to be "We wouldn't have removed sysop from Fram, but we also don't feel comfortable restoring it." If that's correct, I'm coming up short of understanding it. By way of hypothetical: Crat A IAR desysops Sysop Z, Crat B reverses as out of order, and Crat C IAR restores and that is the status quo when it gets to ArbCom. Would we really get an outcome in regards to Admin Z of, "Well Crat A and C shouldn't have desysopped. But we're troubled by some stuff Admin Z did so we're not going to give the bit back." I just have hard time believing that is what ArbCom would say. If the intent of those arbs, however, is to let the community decide the issue, well fair enough. I would suggest the committee own it in a statement along the lines of "Given the widespread interest and attention in this case, ArbCom wishes to entrust the decision about whether to restore Fram as an administrator to the community in the same way that the WMF entrusted the Committee to evaluate the ban and deysopping." This seems in keeping with proposed Principle 2 and proposed Finding of Fact 3 and is admittedly basically proposed remedy 2b. If the feeling, on the other hand, is that Fram deserves to lose the sysop toolkit based on the totality of evidence well I will trust the committee. And if the feeling is that some sort of admonishment and review is right, then do that. I see nothing in the Board's or Katherine's statements that would indicate they're standing behind the desysopping in a different manner than the 1 year ban. Alternatively we (and maybe they) could think of the desysopping as part of the 1 year ban and thus fair game for ArbCom to decide. This is ArbCom's action and ArbCom, in the spirit of self governance that I and so many others wanted, will own that decision one way or another. As such, I hope they own a decision that they're proud of. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 06:13, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I could go along with something like "ArbCom wishes to entrust the decision about whether to restore Fram as an administrator to the community." My comment on the PD page was "the community should decide if they have confidence that he will adjust his behavior going forward" which, I think, is saying the same thing.

My thinking here is that the "behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others" aspect of WP:ADMINCOND aligns with WP:CIVIL's "Participate in a respectful and considerate way." This is a community ethos. We the community create the working environment and atmosphere here. We are all responsible for that. A body such as WMF or ArbCom cannot enforce a community spirit. The community needs to do that. And not just in this one case, but all the time, every day. It can be difficult even for naturally polite people to not get involved in making rude comments in an environment which tolerates such behaviour. We are social animals, and most of us tend to follow the same trends in clothing, food, music, and manners of speaking. Fram is a committed, hard working and skillful editor who I want back as an admin. But I want him back with the community's support, and with the community, not ArbCom or WMF, indicating that they want Fram to tone down his criticisms. SilkTork ( talk) 09:07, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I would just suggest that the comments that accompany votes are helpful in the moment but don't create the actual record and reasoning of ArbCom's decision. If ArbCom is asking the community to decide whether it trusts Fram, I would suggest that go in the actual language (a 2d perhaps) rather than just in the commentary. If it's right there people will find reasons to argue about its intent (it's Wikipedia so people will good faith disagree about everything) but it will still be clearer than any of the current statements. Assuming that really is what ArbCom's intent is. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:05, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I hadn't seen that 2b's language had been changed. That obviously also works. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:07, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

"I can trust them to use the secret evidence" is, I think, misplaced trust. Not because they are untrustworthy, but because the very nature of secret evidence means that neither the subject nor the wider community is able to find flaws with it or point out context, and whether they can do so can make a vast difference in whether shaky evidence goes through, regardless of how honest the people evaluating the secret evidence are. Ken Arromdee ( talk) 10:26, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Firstly, I want to thank ArbCom for what they are doing here. In very difficult circumstances, you have made, I think, an extremely good job of this. I also hope that those who had been slagging off ArbCom as stooges of WMF/T&S, as following secret instructions from WMF, and as only intending to support the T&S actions are taking note.

Saying all that, I share the concerns of NYB and others regarding the desysop. Even if you think Fram has violated the requirements on admin behaviour sufficiently to lose admin rights, the desysop was done entirely outside of accepted processes, and I think it should be reversed for that simple reason. Should Fram's behaviour not be up to admin standards, I think that's something for the community/ArbCom to decide in the future.

Finally, I'm very disturbed by what JBH said above, and it does raise the question of impropriety by WMF/T&S - who absolutely needed to be 100% squeaky clean in all of this. Given the close contacts described, given the very specific warning given to Fram (which *was* centralised on Laura Hale, no matter what other complaints were made by others), I can't help feeling there's a good case for the involvement of WMF/T&S in the disciplinary action on Fram to be entirely vacated - the only exception I can think of is if there had been egregious and/or off-wiki harassment/hounding/whatever by Fram, which you say there was not. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 08:17, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I'll just add one other thing, that I think the T&S actions have severely damaged the trust the en.wiki community might previously have had in the team. I think that's a shame, because what they do in general is very necessary and the individual members of the team are all good folk (at least, those I know of from their wider activity). Though this case can not offer judgments on T&S, I hope the T&S team will reflect on what's happened here and consider whether they have suffered from a failure of leadership that has resulted in a case of authoritarian overreach. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 08:28, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned: While I understand the sentiment, I don't think remedy 2b makes any sense. It leaves the desysop in place and means Fram must run an RfA to get it back - exactly the same as 2c. If you genuinely want to hand the sysop question over to the community, I think you should restore the status quo ante and leave it to the community to decide whether to bring a desysop case, in line with standard accepted processes. Oh, and if the desysop was not voluntary on Fram's request, it's not a reconfirmation RfA. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 09:24, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Boing! said Zebedee, Reconfirmation RfAs do happen though - and the community is often willing to give a little leeway to them, knowing that the Administrator has made enemies. This is a place where consensus can work, that we have a process that will allow the community to have a proper say on Fram as administrator, not on the T&S action.

The fact is that the community had a chance to bring any evidence during this case, but declined to - largely because they just wanted to watch and see what happened. I doubt the committee would accept a replacement case in the near future regarding desysop - under a double jeopardy thinking.

I can see I'm shouting against the storm on this issue though - so I'll leave it as is. Worm^TT( talk) 09:26, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned: Yes, I know reconfirmation RfAs happen, but this would not be one - not if Fram has already been desysoped and forced to run again. And if the community did not bring up any evidence to support desysop this time, then give Fram the admin bit back. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 09:39, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned: (sorry for another ping). I think the key point here is that Fram did not lose the admin bit through any community-accepted process and that wrong should be righted, regardless of Fram's suitability as an admin. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 09:42, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Responding to the idea of resysop after 1-year - that would be endorsing T&S's right to impose such a sanction in the first place, and we have no community-accepted process that gives them that right. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 10:02, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• Just updating my thoughts on sysop. I think ArbCom should approach it as they did the ban. If ArbCom would have desysopped as a result of the presented evidence, then leave Fram desysopped. If you would not have desysopped, then I think you should resysop. That way, if Fram comes out of it desysopped it will have been by the legitimate process of an active ArbCom decision, not by the illegitimate process of T&S action passively accepted by ArbCom. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 13:59, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I can only speak for myself on this issue, but I am trying to divorce this case from the T&S decision as much as possible, and see it as Wikipedians looking into the conduct of a Wikipedian. However, there are complications at every turn, and each decision seems to involve an aspect of the T&S action. Something I'm considering now is what the situation would be if T&S had not desysopped Fram. Would I consider desysopping? I'm inclined to keep that option open for the moment while I look more closely into the case, and finish speaking with Fram. SilkTork ( talk) 16:44, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ GorillaWarfare and SilkTork: Regarding your deliberations on the desysop proposed remedies, I want to thank you (along with the rest of the committee) for your approach. Being as open as you can, rethinking things in response to the opinions of others, and revisiting your initial decisions is exactly what I think you should be doing. If you'd made a quick final decision and stuck to it without considering all the feedback offered on this page and without being prepared to change your minds, you'd now be getting slagged off for being dictatorial - there are some people here with whom you can't win whatever you do. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 13:36, 15 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• @ GorillaWarfare and Worm That Turned: In reply to Proposed remedy 4 "Fram's sysop status examined", and "I'd love to hear community feedback on this particular point": I can understand your reason for suggesting this, and even more your reason for not wanting a community member raising such a case to receive heaps of opprobrium (which, of course, is reserved for ArbCom ;-). But I would oppose it for several reasons. One is that a second Fram case straight after the first, re-examining the same kind of things (though with public evidence), is more than Fram should be expected to bear (and more than the community and ArbCom should have to bear too). My other main thought is that the outcome of the current case should be more than enough to encourage Fram to moderate their interactions with others - which, in fact, Fram has already pledged to do and, as far as I can see, there's no fresh evidence (apart from the lamentable "Fuck ArbCom" outburst) that that's not happening. Also, as WTT both of you point out at FoF 2 "Fram had pledged to improve their behavior" it seems likely that the T&S warning was chronologically inappropriate. My opinion remains that if you have found sufficient evidence in this case to warrant desysop, you should do that as an ArbCom action. And if not, you should reinstate Fram's sysop rights and leave us back at the "Fram had pledged to improve their behavior" state. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 09:13, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  Oh, I'll just add that I don't think any RfA (reconfirmation, no fault, or whatever) would stand any chance of not being a melodramatic shitfest. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 09:55, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I appreciate that ArbCom has had a difficult task here. They were handed a plane that was already on fire and asked to land it. I don't envy the arbs and I thank them for taking on this task and many other thankless tasks and doing them as well as they can.

I share the concerns expressed by many here that ArbCom could stand to address the issue of Fram's sysop status more explicitly and clearly. Fram currently doesn't have the bit because User:Maxim and User:Primefac decided to re-remove it on June 26 after User:WJBscribe had restored it on June 25. What would ArbCom be doing now if pro-bit crats had instead prevailed in that little back-and-forth? Shouldn't the result be the same either way? You have full authority to decide the outcome of the case. Haukur ( talk) 08:46, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

If Fram still had the admin tool set we would be looking at a different scenario and would devise a different solution. Speaking for myself, I am responding to the situation we have in front of us, and given the circumstances, I feel it's in the best interest of the community moving forward if the community had an open dialogue with Fram regarding the admin tool set. I am realist enough to expect that a Fram RfA would result in a lot of Support votes in protest at what the Foundation have done, but I also have faith that a significant portion of the community would ask Fram pertinent questions as to how he would conduct himself moving forward, and that such questions from the community, which he values, would carry more weight with him than opinions or diktats imposed by bodies such as WMF or ArbCom. SilkTork ( talk) 09:21, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

User:Gadfium's idea of granting Fram the bit back after one year has passed from the T&S action is interesting. I guess that would be the "ruling on the field stands" result, to borrow User:Mendaliv's formulation. If a permanent desysop was never anyone's plan that would be a weird outcome now. Haukur ( talk) 09:57, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• If ArbCom is at an impasse with regards to the sysop status then one possibility could be to unban Fram with this explicitly left unresolved – giving him a choice between 1) a further appeal to the committee to resolve the matter materially, or 2) an appeal to the community via RFA. Haukur ( talk) 14:59, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm late to re-enter this party, but am puzzled by this. It seems unrelated to any Finding of Fact, and as such appears bizarrely random. -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 08:54, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

And may I second, very strongly, the comments of WJBScribe, below. -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 11:39, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Is the SilkTork who just said My thinking here is that the "behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others" aspect of WP:ADMINCOND aligns with WP:CIVIL's "Participate in a respectful and considerate way." This is a community ethos. We the community create the working environment and atmosphere here. We are all responsible for that. A body such as WMF or ArbCom cannot enforce a community spirit. The community needs to do that. And not just in this one case, but all the time, every day. any relation to the SilkTork who turned up on my talkpage four months ago ranting and swearing like a drunken sailor on the grounds that I'd mentioned his name without his permission? ‑  Iridescent 09:22, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

It appears at this time that arbs are reluctant to restore admin rights to Fram, but Worm suggested in proposed remedies 2c that Fram might have been resysopped immediately after the WMF ban expired had this case not proceeded. I suggest an alternative remedy of Fram being resysopped one year after the WMF action. There is precedent for an automatic resysop after a fixed time, some years ago with Slim Virgin.- gadfium 09:27, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I cannot state for certain what would have happened if Fram had sat out the block. I believe the T&S intention was to return the user-rights, but the community generally takes a dim view of blocked administrators. That said... I hadn't thought of the 1 year desysop idea, I certainly could support it. Worm^TT( talk) 09:30, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I would rather Fram were resysopped shortly after returning to Wikipedia, and after a discussion with the community via a RfA. I'm not in favour of a fixed length of time for a desysop - that feels like punishment without meaning. If someone is to be desysopped for something, whatever it is, they would need to show understanding of the reasons for the desysop, and commit to not doing so moving forward before being resysopped. And I'm not in favour of making Fram or the community wait any longer before sorting this out. SilkTork ( talk) 11:19, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Wow. If someone's contributions to this project are problematic - say because they are poorly written, inaccurate, or fail to address our policies - our administrators should feel confident in challenging that person. Dealing with good faith but misguided contributors is a tricky area many admins shy away from. If there is no improvement in the underlying editing, they should feel comfortable continuing to challenge such contributors. I would expect to see a progressive escalation of the feedback/warnings being provided. If the problem contributor "doesn't get it", the problem may well have to be explained in blunt terms. If the problem contributor is made uncomfortable contributing as a result, so be it. I do not think that administrators should have to hold back from correctly challenging others because doing so might cause "distress". The integrity of the encyclopedia ought to be more important than giving everyone contributing a warm fuzzy feeling. If it had been shown that Fram had "hounded" (I use the term loosely) a good productive contributor with unfair or unjustified criticism of their editing, I could support sanctions. But that is not the case contained in any finding of fact. The high water mark is apparently "excessively highlighting their failures" (my emphasis). For Fram to be desysopped (let us not pretend ArbCom isn't doing that whether 2(b) or 2(c) passes) for defending the best interests of this project too much / too strongly (?) is a sad day and I imagine will have a chilling effect on how other administrators deal with problematic contributors going forwards. WJBscribe (talk) 10:52, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I think you've got to the heart of the problem. There is a contributor who is not following guidelines. Scenario One: They are informed, then warned then threatened then blocked. Scenario Two. They are informed, then instructed, then guided - they either get it and stay, or they don't and are blocked. My feeling is that the project might benefit more from going down the instructed and guided route rather than the warned and threatened. There will be differences of opinion regarding which approach to take - with some feeling (quite rightly) that warning and threatening is quicker and easier. But the quicker and easier route is not always the most beneficial to the project in the long run. Thankfully, Wikipedia is composed of individuals with different skills and approaches. If an individual has found a contributor who is doing something inappropriate, has pointed it out to no good effect, and the individual is now unwilling or unable to provide the time and patience required to teach the contributor how to improve, then my preference is that they hand the matter over to someone else rather than continue to harangue the contributor to no good effect other than to drive that contributor away. We are a community of many individuals. We also are a surprisingly compassionate, patient and understanding community - I reject the view of the WMF that our community is toxic. There are some individuals who are outspoken, impatient, quick to criticise and blame, etc. But the bulk of the working community are cooperative, collegial, and helpful. Let's make use of all aspects of the community. If anyone finds themselves stressed because another contributor is not getting it, then ask someone else to take a look. SilkTork ( talk) 11:44, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm not convinced that there exists a sizeable pool of admins willing to take over difficult conversations with problem users once the administrator first dealing with the problem starts to worry that they have been dealing with it for too long and are at risk of being accused of "hounding". And I worry that this desysop will serve to reduce that pool in any event.

It also seems to me that to the extent we have "individuals who are outspoken, impatient, quick to criticise and blame" but who produce and maintain first rate content, they should still be treasured and supported. I don't really have much time for the hypothetical opposite category, i.e. individuals who produce problematic content but are on the face of it "cooperative, collegial, and helpful". WMF appear dead set on protecting the latter. WJBscribe (talk) 12:21, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

WJBscribe, you misunderstand the examples in evidence. Fram says to problem users just what any other admin would. The problems lie in how Fram says it. What is hugely frustrating in this situation is that recognising Fram's faults runs the risk of siding with the WMF. Ultimately, the committee needs to find a way of addressing the missteps that both parties have committed. AGK  ■ 17:14, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I don't understand the refusal to post the evidence (by which I mean diffs) that Arbcom relies upon to justify a desysop. It doesn't matter whether ArbCom identified them because they were in the T&S report or investigated and discovered them themselves. We now know that all alleged misconduct identified took place on wiki so the evidence itself is not private. It doesn't matter that the report/underlying complaints are confidential. You can't turn public edits to Wikipedia into private evidence by making them the subject of a confidential report. Why can we not have a FOF along the lines of, "Additional evidence In addition to the community-provided evidence, Committee also relies upon [DIFFS/DESCRIPTION/ANALYSIS]. The Committee is not at liberty to disclose whether this additional evidence was referred to in the Office-provided case materials or was identified independently by the Committee." That way everyone can see why a desysop is being proposed. WJBscribe (talk) 14:09, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ WJBscribe: As I've said below, I am running through the evidence once more to solidify my position on the desysop/resysop. As a part of this I plan to post as much as I can about how I've reached this decision, and will provide accompanying FoFs for voting. I have not seen anywhere that arbitrators have refused to include FoFs about this evidence (either on-wiki or on the email list). I do apologize that it is taking us some time to finish this portion of the PD and produce these FoFs, but it's important we give it the attention it deserves—which sometimes means a thorough revisiting of all of the evidence. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 16:48, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Re: "2019 report to T&S:LouisAlain". This example is a perfect illustration of why anonymous complaints and secret evidence are unfair to the accused. Put in proper context by Fram, Gerda and Boleyn [25], it appears that Fram's efforts in dealing with this contributor are ones for which he ought to have been commended - not sanctioned. For this to have been used against Fram in some kind of coatrack report shows just how misguided the T&S crusade against Fram was - and why ArbCom should not have agreed to proceed on the basis of a secret dossier that could not be shared with Fram. WJBscribe (talk) 09:35, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Stop hiding behind T&S's dodgy dossier and publish the evidence you rely on

Proposed finding of fact 15 seems based on a fallacy. There is no private evidence in this case. There are private submissions and private reports. But everything happened on-wiki. So every piece of evidence is actually public and could be cited by ArbCom. There have been plenty of opportunities for T&S and Fram's other enemies to privately spin the public evidence. Yet Fram is not allowed to counter this. He is not even able to be provided with a list of all the evidence against him so that he can respond appropriately. This is plainly unfair and would taint any sanction against him. T&S has been shown to be incompetent, manifestly partisan or both. How can ArbCom possibly have any confidence in their dodgy dossier? WJBscribe (talk) 08:54, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

1. Does "unredacted materials show" mean that T&S provided the committee with an unredacted version of the 70 page report?
2. Have the arbitrators read the #Comment by Jbhunley? EllenCT ( talk) 11:56, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

   EllenCT, No, "unredacted materials" refer to the non-redacted portion of the materials. As for the comment, yes, I've read it, but it's based on the notion that this is all about one individual, and that the individual complained. We do not know who complained, and the document discusses multiple cases. Worm^TT( talk) 12:02, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned: You don't believe Fram's statement that T&S emails to him specifically mentioned Laura? EllenCT ( talk) 12:29, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

EllenCT, did I say that? I said we didn't know who complained and it's not all about one individual. Worm^TT( talk) 12:35, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned: "We do not know who complained" -- I guess you mean we don't know everyone who complained. It's absolutely not about one person, but nobody is going to be an editor let alone an admin for more than a few years without having more than one person upset at them. Don't you think it's a little too convenient that T&S insisted on redacting against you after you've been qualified by the WMF to receive confidential personal information?

My question about whether any of the complainants had any expectation that T&S confidentiality would extend to preventing Arbcom from reading their complaints was answered in such a way as to suggest that the only way they could have is if they were also complaining about an arbitrator. And my question as to whether T&S would un-redact the dossier on those grounds -- was that ever passed along to T&S? EllenCT ( talk) 12:59, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

EllenCT, the initial complaints are redacted, so we simply cannot know.

I will say that I understand enough about data privacy to accept the reasons for their redaction, there is no presumption that emails sent to T&S would be passed to Arbcom, even if we are qualified to receive confidential personal information.

The fact that we aren't and won't be provided full information, though, is yet another reason this whole case should be considered out of Arbcom jurisdiction, as I (and Mendaliv) have stated more than once. However, it is what it is. I see no likelihood that T&S will provide us with an un-redacted copy of the document. Worm^TT( talk) 13:05, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned: What matters is whether any of them had a presumption that the complaints would not be shared. meta:Office actions#General information sets forth the standard for balancing privacy against transparency: "We are committed to be transparent wherever possible, but not at the risk of placing Wikimedia users ... in danger." There is absolutely no reason for the redactions.

Did Arbcom ever ask for an un-redacted version of the dossier? If so, what was the reply? EllenCT ( talk) 13:36, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I have asked Katherine Maher to order T&S to provide an unredacted copy of the complaints to Arbcom. EllenCT ( talk) 14:14, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

EllenCT, they have already decided not to do that. AGK  ■ 17:16, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ AGK: That kind of a decision isn't final. What are the pros and cons of persistence in asking for reconsideration? If they fail to provide the ability to discern whether Fram's otherwise less than desirable behavior helped stem the tide of paid conflicted interest editing, then that's a black mark on their reputation, not yours. But that doesn't mean that persistence in asking them to maintain the quality of their reputation is not a good idea. The idea that they would refuse to trust community volunteers with whom they are charged with providing support for the trust the community places in them is an absurd assault against the reputations of every employee of the Foundation, the entire functionary corps, and a sizable part of the community. EllenCT ( talk) 19:55, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Proposed Removal of sysop user-rights (3)

Dear Arbitrators, please add another remedy:

2e) The behaviour shown in the case materials falls below the standards expected for an administrator, but does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response. Accordingly, the committee takes over the decision to remove Fram's administrator tools. They may regain the administrative tools at any time via a successful request at WP:BN or WP:RFA.

Please do not show the same poor judgement that the Foundation chose when they refused to trust you with the redactions. The crats can make a good decision without the spectacle of a contentious RFA. Thanks to xaosflux for the idea. EllenCT ( talk) 23:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at, Ellen. I've not seen any comments from arbs that the case materials do not reflect conduct for which desysopping is proportionate but if that were the case - the right solution would be 2a, that Fram's bit would be re-instated. Worm^TT( talk) 11:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned: has Newyorkbrad seen any such comments? Pardon my delay and brevity, because while reasonable people might reasonably disagree as to how many such comments have been made, the suggestion that you might have missed all of them is unfathomable to me, so I am not sure how to respond. EllenCT ( talk) 18:43, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

EllenCT, NYB isn't an arb presently. (On phone, sorry about brevity) Worm^TT( talk) 19:07, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Worm That Turned what is your opinion on Newyorkbrad's #Lift Fram's ban now? request? EllenCT ( talk) 18:44, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

None of the suggestions were taken up, and questions have been satisfactorily answered.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Has the committee considered, or does the committee consider in finding its remedies the potential chilling effect that desysoping a long standing admin based on what looks to us like two instances of minor misplaced tone and a pattern of being arguably a tad overzealous will have? As others have mentioned, from all previous cases I've read and come across where desysopping was even seriously considered, the level of misconduct raised far above what was shown here. In voting for these remedies, are you just looking at the case at hand (and setting new policy for what is now desysoppable) or considering the broader impact also, and does ArbCom have a mandate to enact policy change on this magnitude by de-facto changing the rules around admin conduct massively? Magisch talk to me 11:21, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply Magischzwei, I agree that we need to tread carefully. Wikipedia relies on volunteer efforts and if our administrators need to treat every user delicately, they will soon give up. The question is one of proportion. I do not agree with you that Fram has done nothing faultable. In fact there is a significant body of evidence (and multiple prior rounds of on-wiki dispute resolution) demonstrating that we have a problems in Fram. Those problems did not deserve a secretly-discussed surprise siteban, of course. AGK  ■ 17:24, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply AGK, I think I didn't properly express what I meant above. Obviously Fram has some problems, and some that need fixing. What I mean though is that due to how this case was conducted, and due to how the entire situation around it revolves, an uninvolved outsider will read the evidence of this case and probably be like "Oh wow, THIS little is required for a desysop?" because the community provided summary reads like a nothingburger. Now, it probably isn't entirely, especially with the T/S report, but we can't see that. I honestly just expected you all to fully vacate the ban and punt the WMF for doing it, and then dealing with Fram's conduct issues in earnest and in a fair usual case when they come up again, for the good of the project. Magisch talk to me 07:23, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply SilkTork regarding your comment to DaxBane, I have a query. If remedies are supposed to be purely remedial and not at all punishing, then how will desysopping Fram but not banning or restricting him further serve the interests of the project in a remedial manner, if the conduct of Fram that the committee considers problematic is not enabled by the admin tools. So hypothethically, say you desysop Fram and he doesn't pass his RfA, but does not change his behavior outside of no longer doing admin actions, is that an improvement for the project? Because removing the bit only makes sense under a remedial system if a problem is remedied by that action. At least thats how it reads to me. This is leaving aside the obvious issue that Fram will not be told exactly what he has done wrong due to the secret evidence, and will thus not have any opportunity to improve, but one non-starter for any remedies at a time. Magisch talk to me 10:47, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply If we desysop it would be under WP:ADMINCOND which only applies to the conduct of admins. Admins are held to a higher standard than other users because of the tools they have. An admin has the tools to block another user, so can block or threaten to block a user. Non-admins don't have that power. Admins who tend to use the admin status and tools in the role of enforcing policy, will tend to gain the attention and often the respect of other users including new admins, so an admin leads by example - it's one of the expectations in ADMINCOND. We want the example they set to be a positive one. The question here, is if the example that Fram sets is one the community wants. There are nine people on ArbCom who have been elected to answer that question, but only five need to vote one way to make a decision binding. There is a part of me that still feels that the question should be answered by the wider community - as it is a question that the community can answer because we have a community process for that. The community who are voicing their opinion here feel that ArbCom should make the decision. We are still pondering the issue, and still looking at the evidence. It is likely one or more of us may add new findings with diffs. SilkTork ( talk) 15:18, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply SilkTork I find your efforts to engage with Fram and allowing him a way to participate and explain himself to be admirable, but if you view it from his perspective, this all looks like a small comfort. Imagine you're Fram, you've been banned unfairly (I think it's not unfair to assert this as fact, almost nobody is disputing this at this point), and haven't been unbanned while a new, seperate case about yourself with partially private evidence, an intermixed evidence and workshop and PD phase and other irregularities is conducted. At the same time, Fram must know that even if he satisfies your requirements and asks, he'll likely still be desysopped in what he must feel is an incredibly unfair way. The remedy desysopping him is passing whether you vote for it or not, and the arbs who are voting for it to pass have made some questionable statements at best about it, and seem to be set in their decision either way. It is no surprise then that Fram is hurt and not very receptive to discussions or asks for pledges at present. Magisch talk to me 08:39, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply Your comments are noted. SilkTork ( talk) 08:44, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply A word of thanks to Arbs for sorting through this unmitigatable uncalled for mess the T&S left them with Worm That Turned and others: I really appreciate that you all seem to find the fortitude and determination to see this through. Even trying to just follow from the outside, this case and all of its facets are an unmitigated mess that is incredibly difficult to navigate, and bound to piss lots of people off in any case. It is not fair that the T&S team subjected you to all this and left you to sort out the unimaginable mess they made in the wake of their transparent power grab. I hope that in spite of all the harsh criticism directed at you, you realise that it is your efforts that keep this situation from unraveling further, and for that many are greatful. Magisch talk to me 09:11, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply A way out of this mess It seems increasingly clear that the actual locus of any dispute in this case is the desysop question. The ban seems to be on the verge of being vacated by motion, and the remedy vacating it in full as well as the relevant facts pass unanimously. It would probably be best (and fairest - to Fram and everyone else involved, including those who wish to see Fram desysopped) to resolve this case with a full vacating of the T&S ban, and then open a new case, with only public evidence and proper workshop phase, and proper dealing, to deal with the desysop question. Most of Fram's objections, from carefully reading his talk page, stem from the bungling and intermingling of evidence, workshop and decision phases of the case. Indeed, it is a bad look and the T&S document has done you no favors here. Still, there might be a "clean" way out of this mess. Cut it now, vacate the ban in full, and open a new case, invite evidence specifically regarding the question of a desysop from the community, and have the proceedings all out in the open. This way, several objectives that Arbitrators have cited as procedural woes would be solved: - Everyone who has concerns and evidence that could lead to a desysop can submit that evidence in public, without fear or repercussions of a secret document that may or may not contain any - Fram himself will have the opportunity and ability to see and respond to any evidence - Being a standard desysop case, the procedure will be less controversial and fewer people will be opposed to the result on principle - FOF's and arguments supporting them will be able to be made without regard to a confidentiality agreement or NDA. - The messy and often vilolated seperation of phases that happened here will be clean once more I think a new case for the desysop question would be the best way forward. Magisch talk to me 12:53, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Couple of thoughts for now.

• It is clear from the extensive comments being made by arbitrators under 'Evaluation of Office-provided case materials' that more time has been spent on this private evidence, and more weight is being assigned to this by arbitrators than to the public evidence. The comments being made here by arbitrators about non-public evidence will be quoted and used by people who will oppose a new request by Fram at RfA for adminship. In other words, these comments by arbitrators will prejudice that process. Please consider this when deciding which desysop/reinstatement options to support. Though I would support complete reinstatement, as a middle ground I echo the suggestion of a 1-year desysop (but you will need a principle first that rejects the initial desysop by the WMF Office as disproportionate) or even reinstatement followed by probation and/or a later review after one year, or reinstatement followed by a reconfirmation RfA (to gauge whether the community trusts Fram to be an admin).
• If you reinstate Fram as an admin and make clear that you (not the WMF Office) are keeping Fram on probation, then Fram will have to change their approach or be brought back to ArbCom. Anything less leaves Fram as the victim of the community's (alleged) inability to deal with this sort of behaviour. Why should Fram pay the price, when it is (supposedly) the community that failed here?
• I also echo the need under 'remaining issues' to address the conduct of the editors that Fram made his critical focus. Unless you empower the community (admins and editors) to deal with users who make consistently poor quality contributions, then you will have created an imbalance and undermined one of the necessary checks that maintain the quality of the encyclopedia.
• Finally, can I ask arbitrators who are willing to speak up, to say where people should raise COI concerns with respect to WMF Board members and whether this aspect of the matter factored into their decision making.

Carcharoth ( talk) 11:41, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Carcharoth, On the final point, I would expect COI concerns to be taken to the board members in question, or board as a whole. Perhaps a direct question to T&S about the conflict. I am aware of what you refer to, however as I do not know the initial complainants, I've had to take the information provided at face value. I hope that's reflected in my comments and the decision I've come to. Worm^TT( talk) 11:58, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thank-you for your response. Others have taken this up now, so it may get addressed. A couple of additional questions: you will recall we talked about the effect of a user vanishing on their right to use the Wikipedia dispute resolution system and submit evidence in arbitration cases. An addendum to that question is whether a user who has a clear COI with respect to another user (for instance, being married to them), whether that COI is affected at all by that user exercising a right to vanish. The COI still remains and arguably affects whether a user can actually vanish. Can you really vanish when your partner is still a high-profile editor in the Wikimedia world? How can people scrutinise that COI with respect to the edits made by the vanished user when the vanishing is obfuscating the connection between the two editors? The more I think about it, the more this vanishing needs to be reversed. It is clear that the vanishing was done to avoid scrutiny with respect to the COI. Carcharoth ( talk) 11:28, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Carcharoth: (1) the committee has expressly found that the private (Office-provided) evidence was weak and did not warrant a siteban. Can you explain your concern in more detail please? (2) The suggestion of a probation is a good one. (3) Other users on this page have raised a similar concern. However, I do not think we have set a troubling standard in this decision such that administrators cannot seem to deal effectively and decisively with misconduct. The issue is squarely with Fram's manner and treatment of other users, not with Fram's judgement in addressing those users in the first place. (4) We have nothing to do with WMF governance. I was always unconvinced by the allegations of a conspiracy against Fram. AGK  ■ 17:32, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Not much time to respond, AGK. I will say to you what I said back in June to WTT here. The decisions that you and the other arbitrators take here have the potential to undo the good work that was done back then. You need to assert the independence of the English Wikipedia, to push back against micromanaging from the WMF and to listen to the concerns expressed by the community. You say yourself "People are so harsh because it seems like the only way of getting an arbitrator to listen." The solution to that is for arbitrators to actually listen to and understand what is being said. A final point to AGK: one of your weaknesses as an arbitrator (it was also one of your strengths) was an overly narrow focus on logical arguments when deciding a case, and rarely being able to step back and see the bigger picture, or to tap into the strength of feelings that people hold on a matter. I can't tell yet whether that has changed since you returned to the committee. Your comment about a 'conspiracy against Fram' shows that you have misunderstood what that is all about. Fram would not have been targeted by the WMF if they had not tangled with a particular editor, surely you must see that? Carcharoth ( talk) 11:28, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Carcharoth: I'll say up front that I very much share your concerns about the way in which Fram came to the attention of T&S. Having read their document on Fram, I would stress that it's absolutely not just about LH – people really need to drop the unpleasant fixation on her and stop prying into her personal life. But there are broader questions about the opaqueness of T&S as a dispute resolution body, who makes reports to them, and which reports are likely to be acted on. Frustratingly the NDA prevents me from saying much more, but I plan to bring this up in the upcoming consultation.

Having said that, I disagree that there is any need to "assert the independence of the English Wikipedia". We already took a strong stance on that and it worked: the WMF backed off on their plans to insert T&S into enwiki conduct disputes, are organising the community consultation that they should have done before trying this, and handed Fram's case back to us.

Even if Fram had not been subject to an office action, I find it hard to believe that they could have carried on as they were much longer. In the last few years they have been the subject of multiple ANI discussions and party to multiple arbitration cases. Earlier this year, they were close to being admonished in another case (I regret voting against that now; I was also excusing their bad conduct because they were 'right'). We all know that this is the trajectory of an admin that is likely to end up subject to an ArbCom case sooner or later. T&S' involvement muddied the waters considerably, but we're here now. We opened a case called Fram, about Fram's conduct – not about the circumstances of their ban, or T&S' processes, or what anyone else did. We have to do our best to cut through the surrounding controversy and come to a fair decision as if this was a fresh case. I for one don't want to end up having to have another case about this just to hammer home the point that T&S overstepped their bounds. –  Joe ( talk) 12:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thank you for that. Couple of points: (1) The practical aspects of the unblocking and unbanning - you (or other arbs) may want to make sure the wording of the block log entry when Fram is unblocked is not too contentious and work out who does the unblocking (for example, do you have to notify the WMF before enacting the case and its remedies?). (2) Restoring Fram's user page and any other 'admin' that may not be obvious. (3) On the COI point, feelings on that will not go away even after this case concludes. It may eventually reach the point that you end up with a case request about that - the vanishing is currently getting in the way of attempts to scrutinise the COI (which concerns paid editing), so it may have to come to ArbCom as a 'private' case in the end anyway. Is it possible to bring a case request involving a vanished user? Carcharoth ( talk) 12:19, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Carcharoth, On the first point, I am absolutely certain that T&S are watching this case and while I haven't heard from them since the case has started, I'm sure they are aware of what is happening. Once everything is passing and failing and we are voting to close, I'll suggest a hold on final closure to contact T&S to be make sure Fram won't be running foul of anything should he be unblocked. As to your final point - there is nothing stopping an editor raising a case against a vanished users (besides the procedural issue of the subject not being there) but in this case, the larger issue is that the CoI is outside our jursidiction. Worm^TT( talk) 12:50, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The edits relating to the undisclosed COI (and the paid editing) were made on en-Wikipedia. They fall squarely into your jurisdiction. The case as I would frame it would not be against the vanished user, but against those failed to disclose their COI when defending or supporting that person and when accruing the same benefits (including monetary compensation). Carcharoth ( talk) 13:26, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Carcharoth, Apologies, I thought you were referring to a different CoI. If you believe there is a case to be held that falls inside our jurisdiction (per policies and procedures as linked), I'd encourage you to file it.. Although I was looking forward to a bit of peace after the last few months! Worm^TT( talk) 13:31, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Final question (others are asking questions that should also be answered): do you as a group have any intention of listening to or engaging with Fram or allowing them to engage beyond the current at-a-distance-on-Meta interaction? You should really include in your decision why you excluded Fram from the case pages (maybe to avoid discouraging submission of evidence? Though that clearly didn't work out.) It says at the top of this page: "Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision." Where are the comments from Fram? You say Fram is not allowed to participate on-wiki in the case. Is Fram allowed to comment on the case after being unblocked? Would Fram be allowed to copy over what they wrote on their meta talk page and organise it into a coherent statement (e.g. to post at a future RfA or even to post at WP:FRAM)? Carcharoth ( talk) 16:02, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I was directed here by Jehochman at my talk page. Apologies for the radio silence; I didn't want to answer as an individual a question clearly addressed to the group. Speaking for myself, I have been keeping up to date with Fram's meta page. Some other arbs have clearly been doing so as well, given their engagement there, and I suspect more are quietly reading as I am. We haven't revisited whether we should try to have Fram participate here (rather than in the ad-hoc fashion at Meta). As for Fram commenting on this case after the fact, we have not drafted any proposals restricting them from doing so, so there's no reason they couldn't do that if they so wished. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 19:06, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Mkdw: about the open letter being "something oddly not pinned at WP:FRAM", at WP:FRAM there is a link to a collection of official statements, see Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram/Official statements (created 3 July 2019). Arguably, Fram's comments don't rise to the level of official statements, but key statements by the WMF and ArbCom are there (there is no reason that ArbCom's open letter should be pinned at WP:FRAM any more than any of the other official statements). Regarding areas where official Board statements get published, the closest I could find was meta:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard, and I placed the Board statement there on 4 July 2019. That board is one of those dusty, little-frequented places on Meta. Carcharoth ( talk) 13:31, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SilkTork: I agree with what Jehochman said elsewhere on this page: "This dispute doesn’t end by pronouncement of the Committee. It ends when community members see justice being done". What you tried to do by engaging with Fram over at Meta was laudable, but in my view you gave up too early on that and took things in the wrong direction (because you focused on your personal views as an arbitrator rather than seeing the larger picture or indeed what Fram was trying to say to you). By giving up too early, voting to keep the desysop, and then (from what I can see) leaving things as they are in the recent follow-up (e.g. you respond here but seem to not have changed your position as regards your votes), you have actually made the situation worse. What should have happened is that you should have pushed for Fram to be allowed to participate fully and properly in this case. No amount of engaging by you and others with Fram at Meta, and no amount of justifications by you on this page to try and explain yourself, will undo or reverse the basic injustice being perpetuated here by you and the whole of ArbCom (who bear collective responsibility for this). I hope that the community (at a new RfA if Fram chooses to go that route) will see things clearer than you have as a committee. At this point in time, there are very few members of this committee who I would have confidence in as arbitrators. Carcharoth ( talk) 09:48, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Noted. I do read and take on board these comments. SilkTork ( talk) 11:44, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

So the temporary injunction has technically passed, but will ArbCom wait 24 hours before enacting it or not? The injunction itself says "immediately", but does that count as arbs expressing a "desire to do so in their votes"? From Passing of temporary injunctions: "A grace period of twenty-four hours is usually observed between the fourth affirmative vote and the enactment of the injunction; however, Arbitrators may, in exceptional circumstances, vote to implement an injunction immediately if four or more Arbitrators express a desire to do so in their votes, or if a majority of Arbitrators active on the case have already voted to support the injunction." (the majority here is five). Whatever happens, may I suggest, as a matter of courtesy, that you communicate clearly as a group to Fram what length of time they will be given to participate at this case before it closes (otherwise there was no point really in unblocking). Also, suggest to getting the block log entry right when unblocking and sort out the user page notices as I said earlier. Carcharoth ( talk) 15:47, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

A suggestion: Fram is clearly able to articulate their thoughts (and is doing so to good effect). It will make it easier to follow if others mostly refrain from weighing in until: (a) Fram has had their say; and (b) A reasonable number of arbs weigh in (I don't expect to see all of them respond here). If the community following this page are not happy with how the arbs handle themselves as arbitrators, that can be brought up later (though not too much later). It is important not to create a 'mob' effect here, and to give the arbs and Fram enough room to communicate here without too much distraction. Carcharoth ( talk) 15:15, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Mkdw: from this diff (where you put down a new FoF), a small typo (if one of your colleagues does not pick it up earlier): "conducting" should be "conduct". Also, the header should really be "Fram and administrator conduct" (or somesuch), the important point being to make it specific to Fram and to avoid use of a Wikipedia acronym in the header (c.f. the principle that is named "Administrator conduct"). I am uneasy (given the circumstances under which you were provided it) about the fact that the T&S report is: (a) mentioned here at all (I believe this is the first time it has been mentioned explicitly in the proposed decision outside of arbitrator comments), and (b) the emphasis given to the "70 pages" bit (as that is clearly an appeal to the 'size' which is arbitrary here as it is not known what the true size of the document is). Also, it is not made clear anywhere in the proposed decision what "Trust & Safety" is (nor that it is a WMF department). It should be made clear with a link at least (this applies to some other parts of the proposed decision as well, some of which only use the abbreviation T&S with no explanation). It might be better to just say "The accumulated evidence (public and private)" and omit altogether "including the 70 page report from Trust and Safety (T&S) and a number of individual submissions." Finally, in your comment, you say "As I have mentioned elsewhere, I would fully respect the community's decision to grant Fram the tools again and decline a case request that would seek to re-litigate the same case." What is your view then, that one of your fellow arbitrators ( User:SilkTork) has said twice in this proposed decision that they would vote in an RfA ("I would believe him and vote for him" and "I will likely vote oppose at a future RfA"). Do you think it wise (given the divisive nature of this case) for arbitrators (who have had sight of this secret evidence) to both vote at an arbitration case and at a future RfA? Carcharoth ( talk) 02:08, 20 September 2019 (UTC) PS. The new finding is somewhat at odds with what arbitrators said in their comments at the unanimously supported principle: 'Private evidence'. Most of you express unease about using that evidence without being able to disclose it fully, and yet here we are, with it being central to the result of the case... Carcharoth ( talk) 02:15, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I have fixed the typo and the reference to 70 page report from T&S for consistency, as well as the title. Worm^TT( talk) 09:05, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

A possibly vain appeal for calm. As the case is about to close (literally), please can people not go all 'I Am Sparta' on behalf of SchroCat. And clerks might want to close the case as that is the best way to stop this spiralling any further. Carcharoth ( talk) 17:46, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• ( edit conflict) @ SchroCat: No, I'm not willing to do that kind of digging because it would be unfair only now in the PD stage to produce new evidence to use in the decision that Fram was not allowed to view and respond to in the evidence stage. This is not out of laziness; I have certainly devoted plenty of time to this case already and would devote the time to digging through Fram's contribution history if I thought it was the bes thing to do. It is out of an interest in Fram being treated as fairly as possible in what has been an extremely unfair situation to date. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 16:39, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Did T&S notify the original complainants that ArbCom was reviewing the case and invite them to anonymously submit public evidence to facilitate the process? -- ToE 16:00, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Arthur Rubin, T&S should have extended such invitations on their own, but perhaps the better question here is to ask if anyone on the Committee informed T&S that greater weight would be given to public evidence and requested that they extend such invitations. Much of the outrage over this office action was from the secret nature of evidence, and it disappointing to see the Committee fail to vacate the entire action based on some private compilation of public on-wiki interactions which was not replicated in the public evidence. -- ToE 19:41, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thinking of England, the identities of most of T&S' complainants were not revealed so I don't think that is possible. In any event I am not sure that having a complainant "resubmit" evidence that we already have would affect our decision. AGK  ■ 17:41, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks AGK, and my appreciation to all the Arbs for working this contentious case. Identities were not revealed to the Committee, but presumably T&S has the means of communicating with them, and since the public evidence was sent via email, any resubmitted evidence would have been indistinguishable to the public from that submitted by an uninvolved editor scrutinizing Fram's edit history. At least some of the Arbs have indicated that the public evidence would carry more weight, and even if others weigh public and private evidence equally the community would have been better served had the public evidence overlapped the private. (Kudos to T&S if they did provide notice, but it not then they did a disservice to the community, the Committee, and the original complainants.) -- ToE 19:31, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I imagine that everyone here, particularly the Arbs, would have been thrilled had, during the Community Evidence phase, either the original complainants or other concerned editors anonymously provided public evidence which completely overlapped that in the T&S document, allowing the committee to be done with that damned secret report. That secrecy has led to the narrative that, despite Fram taking the 2018 warning to heart and improving their interactions with individual editors, the Foundation held a grudge over Fram's passionate (and frequently uncivil) participation in the defense of our community against the Foundation's attempt to force unwanted and flawed software down our throat, and used recent reports of incivility against Arbcom as an excuse to settle that score. That may be entirely unfair to T&S, but the fact that no denial can credibly refute the narrative is but one example of the many pernicious effects of the secrecy of the report. If the Committee chooses to desysop Fram, it should, if at all possible, be done without reliance on secret evidence and preferably in a new proceeding divorced from this one tainted by the report and by Fram's inability to respond directly to charges. -- ToE 08:57, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• I commend GW on their new proposals, particularly P#12 "Consideration of evidence" dealing with the appropriate role of secret evidence, FoF#5 "The Arbitration Committee accepted a case outside of policy" dealing with the highly unusual nature of this case, and especially the well argued FoF#6 "The site ban was the central issue in this case" which gives the Committee the opportunity to limit the scope of this case and move on. The issue here has never been with Fram's use of tools so there is no danger in returning them when the ban is vacated, and the Committee can proceed with a separate desysop case if appropriate (now if truly necessary, otherwise later if warranted by Fram's future behavior). This will emphasize Arbcom's independence and will strengthen any desysop decision they might eventually make. Were it instead to come out of this case, the subsequent RfA will largely be a referendum on T&S's actions and the role of the secret report. -- ToE 08:57, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• ST, is it necessary to go back to the WMF, hat in hand, to "request that the Foundation undo that ban and attached consequences"? [27] They have already indicated that they will support Arbcom's decision. I'm not suggesting that we show disrespect toward the Foundation, but since they have already granted permission why ask again instead of acting to exercise the independence we regained here? Why can't we just politely implement the decision directly?-- ToE 08:57, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Relevant statement by WTT: [28]. -- ToE 09:03, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

And now:

WTT: ... we've had confirmation from WMF (not their Board or Jimmy) that we can handle this as a community action. [29]

GW: The WMF have confirmed that we can overturn the ban. [30]

Is the text of this confirmation public or was it given via private Foundation to Committee email? Has the Committee announced this confirmation anywhere other than in the comments to Motion 1? -- ToE 10:10, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

This was just via email. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 14:30, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• A minority of Arbs feel the community should directly decide the resysop/desysop question (either via sending it to an RfA or simply by restoring the bit as part of vacating the ban and letting the community raise a desysop case if they see fit) while a majority feel the Committee should take on the desysop question directly as part of this case. Unfortunately, we seem to be headed toward the worst of both worlds: a desysop based on a case tainted by secret evidence and the accused not permitted to participate, most likely to be immediately followed up by an RfA which will be as much a referendum on both the Foundation's actions and the Committee's flawed handling of this case as it will be on Fram's actions. (I can't decide if it ironic or telling that not a single Arb from that majority has yet to even comment on the injunction which would permit Fram's participation. Is it because the next logical step would be rolling the case back to the evidence phase in an attempt to get it back on track?) -- ToE 11:58, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

MKDW & OR did come out in support of the injunction, with OR graciously noting their belated support, but that still leaves four participating Arbs silent on the issue. And what are we supposed to make of KK's "Please do not ping me again to this page." [31] in response to a question on Fram's Meta page days before they were permitted back here? Is participation of the accused nothing but an inconvenience when you can't link public diffs because they happened to be mentioned in a poisonous secret report? -- ToE 18:43, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

In summation, I am, on the whole, rather satisfied with the Committee's decision, yet my one major sticking point remains, I suppose, my inability to see how the status quo ante is not the optimal solution. — Javert2113 ( Siarad.| ¤) 21:01, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Like others, I share concerns about the actions that will be taken, pursuant to the decision of the Committee which will close within 24 hours. — Javert2113 ( Siarad.| ¤) 17:24, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Javert2113 it's a false dichotomy to say our choice is between a competent-but-abrasive editor and an incompetent-but-cheerful editor. We can't ever know how many potentially competent people the abrasive person has driven away because of their abrasiveness, or how many already competent people they've driven off because they poison the atmosphere with their abrasiveness. Is it zero, or is it dozens or hundreds or thousands? We can't know. -- valereee ( talk) 19:51, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Javert, and in a vacuum, so would I. But suppose our real choice -- could we only know it -- was between one competent-but abrasive editor vs. one incompetent-but-cheerful editor PLUS eighteen competent-but-intolerant-of-abrasiveness editors who stayed because no one was being an asshole in the general vicinity? That's what I'm trying to get at. I have a 24-yo daughter, she researches, writes, and fact-checks other people's writing for a living. She'd be a real asset here, but I'd never recommend it to her. I think it sucks that you have to be tough to edit wikipedia. -- valereee ( talk) 20:19, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Javert, and I definitely don't think we should be retroactively applying sanctions. I don't think any editor should be blamed for creating or supporting a particular atmosphere that we've decided isn't productive. We just need to move forward. -- valereee ( talk) 23:42, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Valereee, that is not really the question. Fram usually is trying to make the right point to other users, or get the right outcome from them. The problem is with Fram themselves, and how they conduct themselves around other users. Making this about the other party is wrong: this is about Fram. AGK  ■ 17:45, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

AGK, I'm sorry, I'm not following you? Of course it's about Fram. -- valereee ( talk) 21:28, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• I agree with Floq. Having arbcom desysop with the right to re-request at any time is one thing; having arbcom let WMF's desysop stand is another altogether. If this turns out to be the final decision, I support this solution to an incredibly difficult situation, and I appreciate the committee trying hard to do the right thing.-- valereee ( talk) 16:32, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• To a considerable extent my views parallel those of WBG. It was mentioned above that several arbs have previously expressed doubts about whether Fram should retain admin rights, I was one of them. In the Giant Snowman case I remained active as an arb although I had not been re-elected because it had begun in 2018 during my tenure, and ins uch cases the practice has been to give the outgoing arbs the option of whether or not to remain active on the case. On the PD page of that case, I expressed reservations about Fram's conduct, and supported a motion to censure him. If I thought there had been any support from the rest of the committee for desysop, I would have made and supported such a motion also. In the light of everything since then, I continue to think my prior views were correct, and that the failure of the committee to endorse them is part of the reason for subsequent events.

Similarly in 2006 I was the one member of the committee who did not vote to hear the case against Fram. I merely abstained from voting seeing nobody else agreed with me, rather than voted to hear it--I was wrong to do so; I should have recorded my dissent.

• However, I totally disagree with the WMF ban and desysop in this case, because it was made in violation of the most basic principles of fairness. I find it remarkable that people some of whom I know and know to be well meaning individually came to do this collective, but it does show the nature of behavior in bureaucratic environments. Inadequate as our procedures are for low level disruption, they have never been as bad as this. I might have supported such an action in the spring of 2019 had it been brought to arb com then instead of "judged" by T&S, had I still been on arb com. I can only say "might", because I do not know the nature of additional complaints.

Regardless of the failure of the WMF to proceed in a principled manner, the community does have principles, and cannot endorse actions taken in such a manner. Thus the desysop by the WMF is , as far as we on the enWP are concerned, invalid and inapplicable. That they had the power to do this did not give the right to do it, and does not require us to accept it. The current state, as far as the enWP is concerned, is that Fram remains as sysop.

• Therefore, the committee should resysop Fram. I would normally endorse a reconfirmation RFA, but it is evident that one at this time would be divisive and unconstructive. There is no point to our saying the same things yet again. Though in a normal reconfirmation RfA for Fram I would otherwise probably not vote to endorse resysop, I would certainly do so in this case, as the best way to show my abhorrence of the manner of the desysop. I suggest that the committee should therefore re-sysop rather than endorse a new RfA. DGG ( talk ) 20:06, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Looking again at my last paragraph, I re-read GorillaWarfare's. proposed remedy 2d, that arb com desysop as if it were hearing the public matter de novo. I regard this as compatible with almost all of what I said. I basically works with the assumption he whether or not he is currently validly desysopped, and that the public evidence is sufficient to say that he should be. It's the opposite of my final conclusion, but it's a valid alternative. If I were on the committee, I think that upon reflection, I think it less combative than mine, more likely to settle the immediate issue, and therefore a better solution. During the period we were both on the committee, GW and I have sometimes disagreed, and GW has generally been right. DGG ( talk ) 09:34, 7 September 2019 (UTC) DGG ( talk ) 13:43, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• DGG, yes. We can find against Fram without finding in favour of T&S, secret office actions, disdain for the community, or all the other difficult context that this case has come with. We have licence now to review Fram's ban and desysop; we should use it. AGK  ■ 17:48, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• I notice below an increasing number complaints about the way arb com has handled it. Myself, I think they did remarkably well.

They were put in an intially very difficult situation: to take action of charges of harassment would inevitably seem like give some acceptance of the T&S use of secret evidence; to not take action would invite the WMF to keep saying that they needed to act because we were incapable ro refusing to act. They could have refused to even look at the abstract of the secret "evidence", on the grounds that it had not been legitimately obtained and was therefore irrelevant ot our proceedings (which I think is what I suggested at the time) . They could have taken it at face value, for there was in the beginning some speculation that the offenses in the secret accusations might possibly have been so sevee that they might have justified T&S action. Instead they made the difficult decision to look at what was available and on that basis to decide that there was no need to take account of any of it. This doesn't deal with the principle, but it does deal, as arb com generally does, with the mater at hand.

The only question that really remains in doubt is whether they should regard Fram as desysopped, or not. Above, I've gone back and forth bertween these two --there are good argumnts for each of them. They've heard everythign theat is likely to be helpful. They should take a vote for one or the other and just do it, and they seem to have done so. DGG ( talk ) 08:08, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SilkTork: Thank you for providing greater insight into the contents of the document from Trust and Safety—namely, that its complaints are on par with similar ones made to the case request made in 2016. For ease of reference in future, can a statement on this be included in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram/Proposed decision § Evaluation of Office-provided case materials? isaacl ( talk) 20:46, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

First, I want to acknowledge that ArbCom handled a difficult case here. Of course, they did not make everyone happy, & probably made some mistakes, but hopefully ArbCom accomplished part of its mission (as I see it): being the place where arguments come to die. With this, hopefully some part of this affair has come to an end.

But there is one issue I wish ArbCom had addressed: if, when, where & why the WMF can intervene in en.wikipedia's self-governance. Not so much to say the Foundation (either as a whole or in part) can intervene, or cannot, but how it should. A large amount of the outrage over their decision to ban Fram from en.wikipedia was over how they justified it. Trust & Safety refused to explain why they took this step when they took this step. When pressed for an explanation, they hid behind boilerplate explanations which failed to answer our questions. Moreover, when the head of the Foundation (viz., Katherine Maher) was asked to intervene, she ignored our requests until shamed on Twitter. Lastly, there remains suspicions that this action was prompted due to the personal interest of the chairman of the WMF board, which have not been dispelled. Of course we had good reason to be outraged!

IMHO, the next time T&S, another department of the Foundation, or the entire Foundation decides it needs to intervene in the affairs of a project, they first prepare a proper rationale to explain why they had to take this extraordinary action. I believe that if they fail to take that step, their intervention will prove toxic to all of the volunteer communities. And I hope that the ArbCom will include a statement like this in their decision. -- llywrch ( talk) 20:47, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I don't think it would be appropriate for the ArbCom to decide, on behalf of the entire community, how and when the Wikimedia Foundation should step in on these kinds of things. As we mentioned in FoF 9, the WMF will be holding a consultation on this soon, and members of the English Wikipedia as well as of other Wikimedia projects will be able to provide feedback there. That is how these broader policy and procedure questions should be resolved, not by edict from the Arbitration Committee of one language version of Wikipedia. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 20:57, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Seeing all of the other motions that the ArbCom has approved concerning this decision, some not as important as others, I believe it would be appropriate for you to add something along the lines of "If T&S should intervene in Wikipedia governance, they need to provide a clear justification specifically for that extraordinary action." That body not only arrogated the community's ability to manage its own business, it violated ArbCom's own purview which it derives from Wikipedia's founder & one-time leader Jimmy Wales, a descent of power at least as respectable as the Foundation's in these matters. So the ArbCom can speak for itself. -- llywrch ( talk) 23:08, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Llywrch, I get your point but, again, the committee is authorised to address specific problems facing the English Wikipedia from time to time. It is not generally in the business of advocating about what its own role ought to be in the future – or about any matters of governance, really. I concur with GorillaWarfare that the consultation may be a good venue for addressing the underlying policy on intra-Wikimedia authority. AGK  ■ 17:54, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Taking into account that the general opinion (Arbs included) seems to be that the ban should be vacated, I'm not going to comment on that (As I agree as well, so nothing new to add there). As for the remaining points, I'd like to express my support for GorillaWarfare's suggestion (2d). Those in a position of power SHOULD be held to a higher standard, simply because of the way they were chosen; they should stand as role models for the rest of the community and the evidence presented (along with a quick trip to Fram's user talk page on meta) does show that he can be a jerk sometimes. Even if the T&S action was completely inappropriate, I'm not comfortable with someone that behaves that way setting up an example for other editors. If he can behave like that and still have those bits, why couldn't I do the same? I guess what I'm trying to say is that I also agree with Valereee. Point 3 is a no-go and 4 is a necessity, IMO, so I'm not going to comment on those. Zeratul2k ( talk) 21:21, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• In light of the recent discussion on Fram´s meta talk page, I'm not sure I can't support Fram's dessysop anymore. This whole situation really leaves a bad impression of the WMF and T&S when it comes to transparency and COI. Zeratul2k ( talk) 15:33, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• After so much back and forth of editors asking for evidence to support the desysop, FoF15 feels like a "you can't handle the truth" moment and it brings back the often repeated question regarding conduct: If the desysop is going to be based on secret evidence that not even the accused can know about, then how is the Community at large going to learn anything from this case? Some arbs mentioned that they would weight public evidence more heavily than "secret" evidence so I guess we'll see in the voting for this FoF whether that holds true or not. Zeratul2k ( talk) 20:56, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• GorillaWarfare, "No, I'm not willing to do that kind of digging because it would be unfair only now in the PD stage to produce new evidence to use in the decision that Fram was not allowed to view and respond to in the evidence stage." I'm sorry, what? Isn't that what the secret-yet-somehow-available-on-wiki evidence is? Evidence that Fram was not allowed to view and respond to in the evidence stage? Zeratul2k ( talk) 16:49, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  @ Zeratul2k: Yes, and as I've tried to make quite clear in my comments in the PD, I am not willing to use such evidence to support a desysop vote. I'm certainly not going to go digging for more of it to support one. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 16:54, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Moved from Thinking of England section

[Did T&S notify the original complainants that ArbCom was reviewing the case and invite them to anonymously submit public evidence to facilitate the process? — ToE ]

Whether or not they did, they wouldn't tell us (or probably ArbCom). [Note: I don't have a specific comment to make, yet.] — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:22, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm afraid I have to agree with Fram. It appears that the desysop remedy (2d) is not justified by the Findings of Facts, so my first impression is that it's there as a salve [I'm not sure that's the correct word] to the Foundation. At least (2b) and (2c) which give deference to the inappropriate office action show no sign of success. Perhaps those voting for desysop could point to violations of WP:ADMINCOND in their votes, if not in the FoF. I suppose, though, since I was desysoped for WP:ADMINCOND violations, rather than for any specific actions as admin, my opinions should not be given much weight.

As an alternative, remedy (2a'), the same as (2a), but requiring a reconfirmation RfA with lesser requirements for reconfirmation than for an initial confirmation, might be a more appropriate remedy, if the Committee wants to leave the matter to the community. (Note, I'm not pinging anybody, as I'm sure all the active arbs and Fram are watching this page.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:29, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

ARBCOM has an almost impossible task. T&S, perhaps through inexperience in handling cases that, until now, have been handled by the community and ultimately through our highest elected organ, fatally tainted the evidence by refusing to provide the basics necessary for a fair process. A reset to status quo ante should be the first of the proposed remedies. The second should be probation for Fram as a sysop. When we have a sysop who works diligently to maintain and improve the quality of the encyclopedia, but who makes mistake, we should try to salvage that admin. Community help for a less than civil but valuable contributor is much easier than growing a new contributor to the same level of ability. Community help for a contributor who feels bullied is much easier than the process T&S created through overreach and lack of foresight.

After reset, Fram's actions and tone as a sysop will be closely followed by the community. There will be no need for secret evidence if T&S sticks to its original remit. Discussion and sanctions for the level of problematic behavior as shown by public information in this case can be fair and transparent. Without a full reset, distrust of T&S is likely to to complicate the forthcoming community consultation. — Neonorange ( Phil) 09:50, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ GorillaWarfare: thank you for your post (12:27 am, Today (UTC−4)) explaining your progress on this case.

I believe en.Wikipedia fails to nourish leadership—this at the root of incivility/harassment/bullying'; failure to retain hardworking admins and content producers; and failure to develop and retain new and diverse editors. What we are left with are bureaucratic attempts to make en.Wikipedia a welcoming context to diversify and develop new editors. T&S made bureaucratic errors in handling this case. In cases that do not involve illegalities, promising that complaints will remain undisclosed does not help develop new editors. It solves no problems. En.Wikipedia exists in societies that express the exact same problems we see in this case (at least in the three nations where most English speakers live.) Solving these problems requires public discussion. Though some of the incivility/harassment/bullying comes from the same place that white supremacy arises and that#me too targets, very few of the problems in en.Wikipedia rise to that level. Rather than a bureaucratic approach, we need to work on developing leaders in a program that builds trust that we are all here to build an encyclopedia. A solution will take thousands of participants, not a half-dozen more or less isolated functionaries.

Your post today gives me hope that a new direction can be taken. Thank you. — Neonorange ( Phil) 07:27, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

While there are minor points I disagree with here and there, I am basically content with the proposed FoFs and remedies adopted by the majority of Arbs at the time of this post. The issue of re-sysopping of Fram should be a matter for the community, whatever wording is used by ArbCom to get it to us for a decision. If Fram wishes to be resysopped, then RfA is available when and if they choose. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 10:53, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I agree with your points here. The decision to sysop someone has always been in the hands of the community via RFA and not the Arbitration Committee. Meanwhile, the committee should take full responsibility for the desysop now that T&S has passed the matter on. Fram has their own role in all of this to decide for themselves what they want. "Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others". If being an administrators is something Fram wants, then it is something they can decide to pursue. Mkdw ^talk 16:41, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I think the prudent course of action would be simply to refuse to endorse the de-sysop which would give leave to Fram (if they so desire) to request the tools from the community in the manner they see fit (either a restoration request at BN, by advancing the argument that the original removal of user rights was out of process) or at RfA. To force RfA as the only restoration path is to endorse the removal by office action. If a majority feels Fram needs to go through RfA, they should take over the desysopping. – xeno ^talk 12:43, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I am inclined to agree with you here Xeno. The Arbitration Committee should take over responsibility for the situation. If the ban is vacated, then ArbCom should definitively decide the other matters as well. Self-governance was the core issue raised in our open letter to T&S which also means having to deal with our problems even if we had not done so effectively in the past. Mkdw ^talk 16:31, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• SilkTork, on meta: I am frustrated we have been given a document and then told it is private and confidential, but we have to use it to make findings and discuss and defend these findings. I do not want to stray into fouling foul of either my moral or legal responsibilities, but at the same time I want to make this as fair as possible for you.

Here's the thing: I don't think you have to do any of that. The best thing to do at this point is to declare this experiment in parallel construction a failure, vacate the T&S action in its entirety (vacate ban, re-unblock, give leave to bureaucrats to reverse the procedural desysop action) without prejudice to a public case being brought on the same grounds in the usual manner. Shut it down, restore status quo ante.

The half-measure on the table now (sua sponte de-sysop based on the private evidence) will leave everyone dissatisfied, with a number of significant concerns: that of "double jeopardy" with respect to any of the undisclosed evidence should Fram regain administrator status following the enactment of 2d and a new case becomes necessary; not sufficiently setting expectations for Fram or the wider community; outstanding questions concerning the conflicts of interest that existed within T&S and the WMF; the concern that the T&S document lacks significant context; the fact that Fram is only now - at the 11th hour of the decision phase - being provided insight some of the allegations within, ... the list goes on. – xeno ^talk 12:27, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I think if Fram or anyone else is actually flabbergasted and mystified at why there is concern regarding Fram's approach to problem solving, then we are in a worrying place. Fram can sometimes use the admin role as one of law enforcement rather more than one of trusted user with extra tools, and at times can assert that role rather strongly (Fram is not alone in this). Fram does so within the letter of policy, but perhaps not always within the spirit. It's all borderline stuff, and there are many on the project who are supportive of what Fram says and does, particularly when Fram speaks out against authoritative figures, such as ArbCom and the Foundation. Meanwhile there are those who feel that Fram goes too far with the zeal to weed out weak or problematic editors, and are not supportive of Fram's approach, feeling that plain criticism, even if not rude, can generate a bad atmosphere rather than assist in working toward a solution. The overall concern regarding Fram is not so much in any individual incident, but in the number of them, and the effect they may have on the moral of the community. It's all a debating point rather than anything cut and dried. And I can empathise with views on both sides.

Fram was given a caution in 2018. Fram asserts that since that warning there have been no incidents of concern. I have been talking with Fram about incidents since the warning that have been raised as matters of concern. Plus an incident that concerned me and the Committee, but has not been raised in the T&S document, nor in the community evidence - Fram using admin tools to edit through full protection to revert an arb on an ArbCom page. I was getting a feel for Fram's perspective, and was hopeful the talks would end constructively. Unfortunately the talks have stalled. I am conscious that in the Wikipedia community and elsewhere there has been speculation since the Foundation banned Fram about those who filed reports, and one, possibly two, people have felt so strained that they have permanently left Wikipedia. I am conscious that I am discussing quite closely the T&S document with Fram, and wish to ensure that nothing I say will lead to speculation about any user. As such I have requested that Fram not mention anyone who Fram feels might have spoken to T&S in case that sparks unwanted attention. Fram is not comfortable with this request. I feel I can't proceed without that reassurance.

I am still hopeful we can resolve this case with some form of restriction rather than a desysop. However, I am more confident we can achieve that with Fram's support than without it. SilkTork ( talk) 14:29, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

SilkTork: I am not insensitive to those concerns. I do object to them being used as the basis for a desysop that has been shoe-horned into the current case. Bring a new case where all stakeholders can contribute appropriately, in public, on the case pages, on this project - if the committee wants to self-initiate, go ahead. But to just throw the de-sysop in as an alternative remedy when the case has been run in such a peculiar manner comes rather close to bringing the administration of justice into disrepute. – xeno ^talk 15:29, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I fully empathise with and share concerns about the nature of this case. It is problematic. And I welcome all feedback and comments here as it all helps to make a decision. I have struggled with the notion of desysopping right from the start. I have no real history with Fram, so I don't come to this with any bias. Fram was named as a party in the recent GiantSnowman case, and I looked at the incidents and felt that while not ideal, the incidents were acceptable so voted against the findings. I was (and still am) concerned about the decision to revert an arb through full protection rather than raise the matter in discussion - but that wasn't an action against me, so there is no personal involvement in that. I looked back on my talkpage, and Fram and I had a brief discussion about a user nearly ten years ago. It's curious in that the discussion there sort of echoes a discussion we've been having on Meta regarding another user. Looking at it initially, it appeared to me that Fram was not offering the help that might assist the user to improve. I asked Fram for their view on the matter, and Fram explained that the user had been offered help, and it wasn't working. The same sort of discussion we had nearly ten years ago. Now, my philosophy is that Wikipedia is actually quite complex, and at times almost daunting - there are so many arcane procedures, and so many experienced users who have seen it all before, so have no time for those who don't know what to do, and just want to fix what has been broken and move on, so the inexperienced or unsure user can get demotivated. If we don't offer the patience and the explanations, such users will not improve, and will not progress. On the other hand there is a limit to how much time we can spend on such users. I was a teacher. Good teachers were always those who had the time and the patience to explain. Sometimes over and over again, never getting impatient or censorious, but always being encouraging. Balanced against that were the students who didn't want to learn, and were disruptive. Now, there's little point in spending time and energy in patiently explaining something to those who don't want to listen. So, yes, sometimes we have to show people the door. And the sooner the better. It's all about getting the balance right, and - just in case it is a good faith editor who might improve - offering the appropriate help and assistance in an encouraging manner first, and if that doesn't work, then go for the sanctions. Now, there is a tendency for Fram to lean toward the "little point in spending time and energy in patiently explaining something to those who don't want to listen", while I lean toward the "never getting impatient or censorious, but always being encouraging". Because I am in the "encourage" camp I tend to view the actions of those in the "little point" camp with a little bit of bias. However, I am a realist - I learned the hard way through being the mentor of Mattisse that there comes a point where there is "little point" in continuing to "encourage". Where I am with the desysop question is: has Fram genuinely been egregiously pursuing the "little point" approach, or am I viewing their actions too much through the eyes of an "encourage"ist? So, the desyop question is a genuine one, and is separate from the FramBan and from the activities of T&S. But that doesn't make it any the easier to resolve. SilkTork ( talk) 02:00, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

SilkTork: I’ve been administratively involved with some of the users Fram has, and I’ve been worn thin on following up the issues their edits cause. Meanwhile Fram did not allow these users to simply exhaust the community’s collective patience and continued to hold them accountable for their undesirable editing patterns. When being worn down like this, it’s difficult not to become curt in messaging. I’m sure we can all do better. – xeno ^talk 23:19, 15 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ GorillaWarfare and SilkTork: Vacating the ban and unblocking eliminates the basis for the procedural removal of administrative privileges. The motion may require an injunction if Fram is meant to remain desysopped for the remainder of the case. – xeno ^talk 23:19, 15 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  Thanks for pointing that out. Would it be sufficient to just add a sentence to the existing motion asking that Fram's sysop rights not be restored until that point is decided in this case? Since SilkTork and I are the only ones who've voted on it, that would seem the simplest. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 00:11, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  @ GorillaWarfare: The motion that I had in mind was along the lines of: "Having studied the document prepared by T&S the Committee are of the view that while there are understandable concerns regarding Fram's conduct toward Foundation staff and users of a website legally owned by the Foundation, that these concerns do not amount to a violation of the Foundation's Terms of Use, and therefore the site ban and attached consequences (desysopping) are not valid, and will request that the Foundation undo that ban and attached consequences. The Committee, however, do feel that Fram's conduct may have breached policies and guidelines of the Wikipedia's self-governing community, and will continue to look into that matter using such evidence that has been supplied, regardless of the source." I felt this would get around some of the difficulties I am having regarding the status of the desysopping, and make the rest of the case more clearly a standard ArbCom case. It would also resolve what I feel the community want to hear about the Foundation's action, but split it away from ArbCom's final decision regarding Fram's conduct. SilkTork ( talk) 06:25, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks Arbcom for taking on a difficult case and in true Wiki style showing that volunteers who are determined to get things right can often be more professional than those who are paid. But there are some things where you are not yet clear or you have shied away from.

Firstly re precedents. Of course Arbcom sets precedents, those precedents are important for the community and for future Arbcoms. One relates to secret evidence. There's a very basic step that was missed, the equivalent of the police asking "are you willing to press charges?". If complainants insist on secrecy then all you have is some intelligence, you can then go through that individual's edits and if you spot other problematic behaviour you or T&S can bring a case, a proper one where you can say what someone is considered to have done wrong, and crucially, what you want them to do differently when they are allowed to return. It would be helpful if Arbcom were to clearly state that the price of keeping evidence secret is that it is much less likely to be used as evidence, or at least remind all admins of WP:BLOCKEVIDENCE. Arbcom is loathe to punish admins with anything in between an admonishment and a desysop. This is part of the problem of Arbcom, and it would be healthier if you gave yourselves more precedents for sanctions that were intermediate between a desysop and an admonishment.

This brings me to T&S. There is precedent for Arbcom desysopping an admin who was also a WMF staffer. I'm not sure that this is merited in this case, if only because there are at least three admins who are in the T&S team and without seeing the secret evidence I don't know which of them contributed to this incident and to what extent. It may be that admonishments are more in order, or just a general reminder to all admins. But T&S and or all admins need to know understand and accept that banning or blocking someone for a fixed period, but not telling them or the community why, is "toxic" behaviour. There is also the whole business of punching down and the whiff of corruption that others have detailed. As for sugar coating things versus plain speaking, these are not easy things to get right. But if you sugar coat a warning to the extent of saying that it isn't an interaction ban, and then punish someone for breaching it as if it was an interaction ban, your communication is faulty, you needed an intervening step where you imposed an interaction ban. A key part of this farrago has been over a ban that was of excessive length. If Fram had been blocked for 24 hours it is unlikely that this would have become what it has, and it would be helpful for Arbcom to remind admins, especially those in T&S, to occasionally reread the blocking policy and specifically " While the duration of a block should vary with the circumstances, there are some broad standards: - incidents of disruptive behavior typically result in blocks of from a day to a few days, longer for persistent violations". On this site we are all warned that our contributions may be "ruthlessly edited", that includes to be frank, much more rampant deletionism than we have seen from Fram. It is hardwired into the site that if you find a problem you are encouraged to boldly deal with it and look for similar problems - when you click rollback you are taken to a screen with other edits by that same account or IP who you have just reverted. New Page Patrol is similarly designed to encourage people to look at other contributions by the person whose new article you have just tagged for deletion. I'm all for making this site a more inclusionist, collaborative one, but I'm conscious of the need to work with the grain rather than against it. If you want a change of policy such that some of Fram's deletion tags didn't result in deletion, try arguing for a policy change, don't harass or sanction the person who has been following and enforcing a policy you disagree with, doing so is itself toxic behaviour.

Lastly re Fram. As others have said, if a desysop was disproportionate then you should reverse it. I'd add that if a three month block was disproportionate then you could say that also - rather than time served, if you think that his "F*** Arbcom" merited a 24 hour block then now is the time to say so. As for the admin bit, Floq's RFA tells us that an RFA that revolves around secret allegations v alleged WMF corruption is unhealthy for the community, nor a fair way to judge an admin candidate. If you have specific behaviour changes that you want from Fram then I'd suggest you make that clear, and either restore Fram's bit now with a specific admonishment, or say that Fram can request the bit back from you (or perhaps the crats) in x months so people can check if the requested change has happened.

Ϣere SpielChequers 13:03, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SilkTork what specific pledge(s) are you looking for Fram to make? Ϣere SpielChequers 08:57, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I proposed to Fram wordings that I felt covered the concerns that had been raised:

"Fram agrees to abide by WP:ADMINCOND, leading by example by offering assistance where possible and appropriate; directing problematic users to the appropriate policies and guidelines; and bringing the matter to the attention of another admin (or admins) when a problematic user has not amended their ways after appropriate assistance has been given." / "Fram agrees to abide by WP:ADMINCOND and "behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others", which includes - where appropriate - raising concerns before taking an admin action, and voicing any concerns, including toward those in authority or that Fram feels "should know better", in a tone and language appropriate for civil discussion."

These were wording that were up for discussion with Fram. With regards to the civility issue (the second wording), Fram's recent remarks on Meta indicate that Fram broadly agrees with that. To be fair though, civility was not the big issue. The evidence doesn't indicate many incidents of incivility, and I don't think the community has much of an issue with Fram's civility as such. A good number of us, me included, have hot moments. As long as such moments are not the norm, I think most of us are understandable. As I have just said on my talkpage: "Fram has rarely been incivil, and where he has, he has recognised that and accepted that was inappropriate (and, to be fair, such uncivil outbursts are not uncommon in the community); the main concerns regarding Fram relate to Fram being "harsh, direct, precise" (albeit in a civil manner) a little too much and too often such that the person receiving such comments are not able to appropriately respond." So what I was looking for was a difference in tone and attitude rather than to stop being rude or offensive, though both pledges, I feel, are appropriate. And, to be fair, I think they are appropriate to all of us. SilkTork ( talk) 09:14, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Somewhat along the lines of what @ Xeno: said above, but please don't shift this to a future debate a WP:BN, or having to come back to ARCA. A very clear remedy of one of these would be best:

1. A very specific statement that the desysoping is voided, including the involuntary nature of it, even to the length of specifically endorsing that Fram may request restoration at BN or at RfA (their choice).
2. That the case has resulted in a desysop requiring a new RfA (which functionally requires no action) (Basically where 2d is going); with or without any sort of delay period before such may be requested.

— xaosflux ^Talk 14:43, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• I think the "decline to reinstate" part that GorillaWarfare called out in 2c is what will lead to potential drama: yes the committee "didn't" do something, yes the committee said RfA "may" be used but it doesn't rule on if BN "may" be used and at the conclusion of this long event; last thing we need is another dispute at BN. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:25, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Dragging feet?

@ GorillaWarfare and SilkTork: saw you just started a motion to take care of only one tiny piece of this case that has been dragging on for a long time. What am I missing in this section: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram/Proposed_decision#Implementation_notes? It shows that every single proposed item has a decisive decision (i.e. even ones where some committee members are dragging their feet on voting - they all have majority-proof votes in place), why isn't this case closing so that we can move past it? — xaosflux ^Talk 20:41, 15 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Also I think it's very odd that you would pass a remedy in to force without any thing to back it up, (i.e. no supporting principals or findings of fact). — xaosflux ^Talk 20:57, 15 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Xaosflux: I've explained in more detail at my section that I have stricken my votes on the desysop because I am revisiting the evidence, and will be submitting new principles/findings along with my votes. I am working on that as we speak, and am nearly finished. Though things may be numerically passing, I am not satisfied with the clarity of the decision (including the lack of supporting principles/findings) and so would not support a vote to close the case at this point. Although I hope that my suggestions will help move this case to its conclusion quickly, I can't guarantee that the other arbs will be satisfied with what I propose, and so I suggested the motion to unban Fram in the event that we continue discussing the issue of the sysop rights much longer. Whether or not Fram is unbanned as a result of this case is not really in question at this point—we're just working out what to do about their sysop rights ——so I'd rather let them get back to editing (and also participate here on the PD talk page, if they so wish) while we figure out that detail. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 21:09, 15 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare: thanks for the reply. If the Principles and FOF's are really in dispute, I can't see how a remedy can be supported. This seems procedurally messy, not to mention the issue that xeno raised - which I expect would lead back to the problem I initially listed above - setting up a dispute at WP:BN. If some sort of limited ban relief were to be ordered, shouldn't it be an injunction? Ping to Newyorkbrad who was credited with this motion text. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:13, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Xaosflux: That's why I struck my votes on those remedies while preparing more robust principles and FoFs. I'm not sure there are any existing ones that I'd say are "in dispute"—my concern is more that they don't explain the situation in as much detail as I'd like. As for whether the ban decision is implemented early via a motion or injunction, that's the kind of procedural thing that I'm not so great at. If the motion needs to be moved to an injunction, I'm happy to do it. Agreed that that sounds like something NYB would probably know more about :) GorillaWarfare  (talk) 01:18, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare: It's really that I don't expect ArbCom to be passing baseless "remedies" to disputes - baseless in that no supporting principals or findings of facts are being put forward for approval. This is skipping all of the customary Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Format_of_decisions, cutting right to a remedy and never requiring that the rest of the case actually ever get settled. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:25, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Xaosflux: I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly. Are you referring to remedies outside of the set of sysop/desysop remedies (the 2x ones)? GorillaWarfare  (talk) 01:35, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare: simply that passing a remedy should also require passing a principal and finding of fact (likely multiple). That motion would be setting a precedent that a remedy can pass on its own - that is that arbcom can just make binding decisions without doing any other work. You stated you will be proposing new principals and FoF's, presumably some that you expect to gain support and augment or replace the existing ones. If so even the principals and fof's that are currently passing may no longer be present at the conclusion of the case. We may certainly disagree here - but I see a couple ways to resolve the procedural quandary: (a) use an injunction or some other mechanism instead of passing the remedy on its own (b) also pass the principals and findings of fact elements that support that specific remedy while leaving open the principals and findings of facts that are still under discussion that could impact other remedies. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 10:46, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Oh, thank you for explaining. That's a good point, and I'll give it some thought. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 16:56, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I've moved the motion to the injunctions section, and reworded it to be clear that we are unbanning in the interim rather than passing any principles/findings/remedies. Hopefully that will resolve your concerns. Thank you again for bringing this up. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:36, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The rationale given by Opabinia R. is 249 words. So double that. It's more than enough to establish a point. OR themselves might follow their own advice - they are frequently unnecessarily prolix in their adjudication opinions. 200 words should be enough for them. Lead by example. :) Leaky caldron ( talk) 14:55, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

FoF 5 says the evidence reveals instances in which Fram has made mistakes as an administrator, including the overturned blocks of Martinevans and GorillaWarfare, but does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response..

As Joe Roe has now pointed out The part "but does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response" goes beyond a finding of fact and into a remedy, and seemingly contradicting remedies 2b-d (which several of the supports here have also voted for). Can we take it out?

Do I read this correctly? There wasn't any evidence for which desysopping would be a proportionate response, but 2d says The behaviour shown in the case materials falls below the standards expected for an administrator. Accordingly, the committee takes over the decision to remove Fram's administrator tools. Joe has realised that the Committee is completely contradicting themselves, and now wants a FoF taken out because it is completely not in line with 2d (and for that matter 2b and 2c).

This is an utter shambles. Black Kite (talk) 16:09, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Please see my discussion with Jbhunley above. I'm obviously not suggesting we remove an entire FoF, which would be completely out of process. I believe the FoF was intended to mean that none of the incidences of Fram making mistakes with the tools (i.e. the immediately preceding sentence) are grounds for a desysop. However, after reading the comments here I realised that the wording could be taken as meaning that a desysop is "not a proportionate response" to the case as a whole. This is obviously not what we think: the reason for desysopping just doesn't have anything to do with tool misuse. –  Joe ( talk) 17:41, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

OK. So, in that case, with no tool use issues, we have a standard desysop case based on purely on-wiki behaviour per ADMINCOND. In any other case of this type, the diffs of such behaviour would be presented so that the community, and more importantly, the accused admin, would be able to defend themselves. In this case, this simply hasn't happened. Imagine an ArbCom case where a random editor starts a case with "I have a problem with an admin, they've been harassing me on-wiki, I've sent a number of diffs to ArbCom, but I'm not going to tell you what they are", followed by ArbCom desysopping that admin without any further interaction. Ridiculous, no? But if you own the T&S desysop, that's effectively what has happened. Don't get me wrong, there may be egregious behaviour from Fram, but no-one in the public evidence appears to have found it, and then there's the Ritchie333 case... Black Kite (talk) 23:33, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

And furthermore, of course, if the Committee finds that Fram can gain back his tools via an RfA, how is he supposed to defend himself against any opposes that say "Doesn't have my support, previously desysopped by ArbCom"? How are editors supposed to decide on such an RfA without the evidence for them to decide whether he was justly desysopped or not? At least in the Floquenbeam case (and a few others where previously desysopped admins reapplied for the tools), people could decide on the basis of actual evidence that they could see, and decide on. Black Kite (talk) 22:11, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

And this comment by @ KrakatoaKatie: is exactly my point. ...if the community is okay with this behavior from an administrator, and Fram wants the mop back, by all means, go ahead and give it to them. To which the reply by the community would be "what behaviour?! You won't tell us what it is nor even what the context was". Black Kite (talk) 18:15, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Wait ... WHAT??

@ Mkdw: Broadly speaking, I do not see a way forward that does not allow some private evidence to play a factor in a process where we would also be allowed to continue to self-govern on issues of harassment and abuse. I really hope that you've written this poorly, because that sentence as it stands basically says to me "We have been told the parameters that our decision in this case would be allowed to reach, otherwise ArbCom decisions on harassment and abuse will be overridden by the WMF in the future". I would really hope that you can inform us that this is not what you are implying. Black Kite (talk) 00:42, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

No, that is not what I meant. I am talking broadly, not specifically about this case, that it will not be sustainable in the long term to have a community dispute process that does not allow for private evidence in order to protect victims of harassment from being attacked further. I had previously elaborated about this topic here (particularly the second paragraph) and here. Mkdw ^talk 02:16, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Nowt changes

And still, in remedy 2e, certain Arbs are still weaselling out of their votes for desysopping with "well, an RfA is the best way of doing this", without the obvious self-awareness that by the act of desysopping they are poisoning the well of any future RfA. It's a Catch-22 situation for Fram, and it does not reflect well. Kudos to GW, OR and WTT for taking the time to go over this and understanding the points that many of the community have been making. Black Kite (talk) 23:18, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

There is very strong evidence out there that one of the editors that Fram has been accused of harassing (to be called X) is married to a member of the board of trustees of WMF (to be called Y). Y has spoken publicly in defense of X, arguing that X is being harassed, without disclosing this relationship. Given that Fram has been accused of harassing X, it seems plausible that Y was referring to Fram as a participant in the alleged harassment. Interestingly, in the ArbCom case involving X, another editor, to be called Z, failed to disclose their personal relationship (X and Z seems to have lived together and traveled together, the latter sometimes paid for by WMF). There are also allegations out there that X and Z received money from WMF to give away as a prize (in a form of a trip), but gave the prize to themselves, allegedly because there were no worthy participants. If true, that behavior also involves a fairly obvious conflict of interests. This raises several questions/issues:

• Given that there are two instances of people close to or in WMF neglecting to mention their conflict of interests, is there a culture of ignoring conflicts or interest (or worse) at WMF? Note that in my opinion, favoring those you are close to is part of the human condition and not a moral failing, but therefor also not something that can be easily avoided with diligence. This is why a common standard is to avoid even an appearance of impropriety, as even very good people can not be expected to police themselves effectively, when it comes to treating people they are close to (or those that people close to them are close to) equally to others.
• Are there other people involved in this process who also have a conflict of interest? Given that we already had two instances, it may be helpful to demand an explicit statement from everyone who votes or otherwise wields power, with a clear and serious penalty for not divulging a conflict of interest.
• Given that in both cases where people didn't disclose a conflict of interest, this benefited the same editor (X), is this editor so close to various people in power that they are unable to see X's flaws as an editor and/or fair treatment of X seems like harassment to them?
• Was Fram banned because some people are heavily (emotionally) invested in X being an editor and any threat to this, even due to a fair application of the rules, is seen unacceptable? If so, or if it is perceived to be so, punishing Fram may establish a culture of fear, where people will worry less about the fair application of the rules, but more about whether the people they interact with are close to people in power. To prevent this, it might be necessary to ensure that WMF doesn't get involved in cases where there is a conflict of interest with influential people at WMF and editors. If this cannot be ensured, it might be necessary to remove X as an editor, not because of impropriety on her part, but because conflicts of interest involving her threaten rule of law at Wikipedia.
• Given the less than ethical behavior by Y and Z & the rather unfair way in which this arbitration process is being performed (with fishing expeditions, secret evidence, etc), is it fair to make demands of Fram, including Kafkaesque demands that he stops with undisclosed behavior? Should there not first be an investigation in the background of these accusations and whether there is even a level playing ground in the first place?
• If this investigation can't be done in public, it might be helpful to seek out one or more highly respected, independent people to investigate the secret evidence, as well as the way in which T&S decided to ban Fram. This can include handing over the relevant (email) correspondence to this independent investigative committee. Aapjes ( talk) 20:47, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

desysop

You haven't even decided whether there is evidence supporting a desysop, but have decided that there is grounds to desysop. The evidence is not defined, and community discussion is far from exhausted, ignoring signs of improvements and self reflection, and ignoring that there have not been earlier attempts by ArbCom to resolve this. Let the community bring a case to you if the community feels there is ground for a desysop.

You are in your full right to decide that there was no grounds for T&S to desysop Fram and therefore vacate it. That is NOT a 'we are resysopping' you, it is a 'we see no grounds to desysop you'.

You are writing an unwritten policy here, and are condemning your colleague in exactly the same way as T&S did. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:12, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

It gets more funny, we now have a passing FoF (when User:Joe Roe adapts the numbering) which states: '.. but does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response.' (the only FoF that uses the word 'desysop'), but ArbCom decides to actively take over the desysop nonetheless. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:26, 8 September 2019 (UTC) (upon re-reading -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:30, 9 September 2019 (UTC)) reply

'hounding'

As not everyone is following meta, user:SilkTork has just asked Fram to provide evidence that they actually stopped hounding someone that Fram thought they was hounding ... the fact that there is no evidence of hounding since the last WMF warning presented may make that rather difficult. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:53, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

1 pillar or 5?

User:SilkTork: Talking about Fram: I understand that the behaviour is sometimes borderline failing 1 of our pillars, but this lifts that one pillar out of the rest. We have 5 pillars to uphold: we are writing an encyclopedia here that contains neutral, 'free' material while respectfully editing and ignoring rules that stop us from doing so (to dumb it down a bit to the extreme).

Do you consider that editors should sometimes just drop all other 4 pillars in order to make sure that we should keep up the 1 most important one (if that is how we have to interpret that one pillar), or do we sometimes borderline on that one so we keep on with the rest?

There is a sockpuppet that I encounter every so many weeks who has a history of incivility, edges on our free-use interpretations, makes erroneous translations, does some other practices that we discourage. It appears that I am the only editor who 'detects' the socks (I sometimes get them handed to me), it could very well appear that I am 'hounding' this editor. I report them all to SPI and they all get blocked. Maybe I should stop (we've had recently an AN/I regarding him, I think the rest of the people are aware of him), and let other admins do the hunting (so maybe I should give up enforcing 3 pillars in order to adhere to one of those 3 pillars!). -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:04, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Sorry for delay in answering - the PD has opened at a very awkward time for me, and I'm struggling to find the time to examine and re-examine the PD and deal with queries. The short answer, obviously, is that I would hope that people working on Wikipedia would pay attention to all the 5 Pillars. I'm not quite seeing the incompatibility that you are. I also see no problem with a Wikipedian specialising in one particular misbehaving individual. Indeed, we value such Wikipedians, and ArbCom will consult such Wikipedians. But dealings with that individual, problematic though they may be, should be respectful. Often, people misbehave not because they are evil or malicious, but because they are misinformed or misguided. Wikipedia is so arcane and changeable that I doubt if there is anyone who really knows all the rules. I suspect I fall foul of a procedure or two every week. Neutral, respectful and helpful dialogue is likely to be more beneficial to the Wikipedian, problematic user, and the project as a whole. In addition, passing the concerns along for others to deal with, as you suggest in your example, is exactly what I feel is best practise. SilkTork ( talk) 12:45, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

No worries, SilkTork, I saw your comments regarding being busy.

Well it is what I do, I pass all on to SPI first, sometimes taking over when the SPI takes longer than the duck's quack (though SPI until now always confirmed the quack).

I'm happy that you bring up evil and maliciousness vs. misinformed or misguided. It misses number three and four: competence vs. frustration. And maybe also 'mistakes'. Where do you feel where I stand with respect to the sock, and Fram with respect to the parties? -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:10, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SilkTork: this! (though I'd like to ask you as well to reflect at the party's side (from Fram's point-of-view)).

Remark: I know, two wrongs don't make a right, but (mathematically speaking) two wrongs do not equal one wrong either. It has been my long-time problem with ArbCom, to me, the shit flies only in one direction. For Fram here: Evidence has to point in Fram's direction, it has to show that Fram is wrong. Fram got banned/blocked, there must be a reason right? Lets confirm that! -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:27, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

'more than a dozen'

The argument is appearing again that the T&S document contains evidence from a lot of people:

1. T&S has all the reason to obscure it that way. If the evidence is actually from 1 or 2 people and the document shows, they would be easy to identify. Fragmenting it makes it appear that it is from many people / about many people, which protects the identity. (and I do not have to assume bad faith to suggest that it is in T&S' interest to make it look that way).
2. I can understand in the case of 1 or 2 people that do not want to be identified that they also do not provide evidence to ArbCom. Even if that means that their evidence is not being considered by ArbCom and hence Fram's ban could be overturned. If there are really more than a dozen, then at least some of them would have understood that their evidence would have kept Fram banned. Their evidence, if it is really so bad as T&S makes us believe, should have appeared. And not only did none of that 'more than a dozen' decide to speak up, neither did any other of the editors here uncover that egregious evidence. Certainly not during the evidence phase, but not even when presented with the little evidence posted in the evidence phase. It may not be the official ArbCom evidence phase anymore, but showing that evidence now would still have convinced me and all others here.
3. It is, probably extremely, unlikely that NONE of the 'more than a dozen' people who provided evidence has publicly declared that they provided evidence to T&S (especially when knowing at least one editor who did provide evidence to ArbCom did declare that).

This makes it, in my view, very unlikely that the real number of complainants/targets from T&S is as large as being projected, likely less than 4, and likely with one major case between smaller ones. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:45, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

(adapted/expanded; @ Mkdw: as it is their diff that made me repost this; and @ Worm That Turned: with whom I discussed this earlier. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:26, 10 September 2019 (UTC)) reply

By the way, it is not Fram that these anonymous providers of evidence are afraid of. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:26, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Evidence

Can Arbs please at least start an FoF stating their evaluation of the specific evidence upon which they do base the desysop decision? -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:45, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

So it has now turned into trying to find a reason to uphold your choices for remedies. You agree that the ban was a disproportionate measure, and are scrambling to find reasons to uphold your decision to desysop. As I explain below, that is putting the horse behind the cart, and what you now present is so utterly thin that it makes a mockery of your process. This does not give me confidence that ArbCom is performing a fair process here. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:58, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Bovlb: and if I understand it correctly those people still have concerns about Fram's edits which Fram made before his pledge to improve. Clutching at straws .... we decided, now we try to find a reason. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:08, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

On the order of cases

(this likely belongs somewhere else, but this case is a prime example)

Classically, Proposed Decisions are all posted in one go. Principles, Finding of Facts and Remedies. Often remedies are reasonably clear from the onset and there is nothing wrong with that. FoFs and Remedies are still tweaked but no major changes. Not being necessarily wrong does not make it by definition right, though.

Here we see one of these cases where (passing!) FoFs are being tweaked to not contradict the (passing) remedies, there is no agreement on some of the FoFs, and the community here on the talkpage argues that some of your remedies are not supported in any form by the FoFs.

And I am sorry, the only way that I can interpret user:SilkTork's and user:GorillaWarfare's re-examination of the evidence (an effort that I do appreciate, especially allowing discussion with Fram) is that you did not look very well at the evidence in the first place. Still, you voted on remedies. And that extends then to other Arbs (remember, none have started an Fof to discuss the evidence supporting a desysop), especially those who expressed to have a stronger view on the subjects that appear to be the locus in this case.

It gives me (currently) no confidence in the outcome of this case, nor in ArbCom in total. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:31, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I have talked about this somewhere recently. It may have been on this page. When posting the PD so it becomes public for the first time, that act in itself causes an almost instinctive deeper and different angled perspective on the findings, coupled with feedback from the community, and rationales by other Committee members. Sometimes this reflection will reinforce the views already held, and sometimes it will alter those views. In both cases, it may provoke a re-examination and rethinking of the evidence. For me, I actually prefer all this discussion and thinking and re-examination of the evidence to be as public as possible. Messy it may be, but it's the essence of an open community as well as the essence of a wiki. SilkTork ( talk) 11:23, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SilkTork: the discussion is good, but I was aiming at first discussing the FoFs until they are significantly crystallized ánd agreed upon, and only then post fitting remedies and start voting on them. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:39, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Beetstra: We don't always come up with the best solution to a case in the first go. If we did, why would we bother with the whole proposed decision side of things at all? We would just come up with that optimal solution, post it, and close the case. You're right that there are cases in which the proposed decision portion is pretty straightforward, but this is not one of them. The discussion among the arbs on the proposed decision, among the community and the arbs here, and among Fram and others at Fram's meta talk page is doing precisely what it's supposed to: allowing us to talk through a few different options without necessarily committing to the first ones we think of, challenging us when we have not explained ourselves properly, and raising questions that we may not have considered. I am not revisiting the evidence because I "didn't look very well at it in the first place"; I spent quite a lot of time reading through all the evidence in this case. But this case is unusual, in that the evidence spans a very long period of time and in that portions of it are partially redacted. One thing I am doing in my second pass through the evidence is being more mindful of explicitly determining a time frame in which it is appropriate to consider evidence, and also being careful which evidence I consider at all. I will explain more on this when I'm finished. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:07, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare: And I commend you on that due diligence and discussion. My point still is that you should never be voting on remedies if you haven't agreed on the FoFs. Do you understand how much that (especially here) looks like a predetermined decision: 'I am going to be an Arb who is strong on cases of harassment. Here is implied that there is harassment, I vote desysop, who cares about evidence!' -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:42, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Beetstra: I had come to the conclusion that the hounding behavior displayed in the private evidence was sufficient to desysop, and I'd said as much in my comments on the FoFs. However, after some thought and some of the conversations here, I realized I was not fully comfortable with that decision. Hence why I am revisiting it. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare: Nah, most of you agreed that there was no behaviour worthy of desysop, but voted to desysop without agreeing on the FoFs. You and SilkTork come back on that, still that is how the PD reads: no articulated evidence and a desysop. First, collectively, agree on the evidence, then, draft the remedies from there. I understand that your first view was that there was reason to desysop, I would have preferred that that was first clearly articulated in a FoF. It is still not there. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:15, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

That FoF was specifically scoped to discussing "The evidence provided by the community" (as opposed to the evidence sent to us by the T&S team). As for new FoFs, I am working on those. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 18:43, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

<rewind/>. I guess I made my point, I am stepping out of this subthread. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:09, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Disappointing

No, SilkTork, what is disappointing is that this case is still not done and dusted, and that you (pl) are first deciding to not resysop Fram, and then scramble to think of all possible nonsense to keep that decision up. As I argue above, you first have to agree on the evidence and what it means, and then you decide on what remedies that evidence needs. Here it is a blatant misuse of procedures by ArbCom in first accepting an FoF where you agree that there is nothing worth desysopping for, then decide that there is need to desysop, after which you rework the first FoF so that it at least does not contradict your decision to desysop, and then, more than a week later, still haven't come up with a single diff, despite several editors here asking, to show evidence shows that consistent flouting of WP:ADMINCOND. 4 diffs over 4 years. Your comment "... I feel there are concerns in the community that you sometimes say things that are not just unhelpful, but can be demotivating, and this is not something that I feel is appropriate in an admin. I'm not at all sure you will take this on board, especially in the current climate, but I thought it appropriate to point it out. does not address evidence. 'Oh, we don't have evidence of you are doing bad, and we know that you have promised to better your ways, but, well, some editors have concerns' .. 'I just feel you should be hanged. I know, we don't have any evidence of murder, but my neighbour just has a bad feeling about you and she is concerned that maybe you killed someone'. I am sure that if you ask around, that you can find 5 editors who have concerns about my editing behaviour (I can name 2 without looking).

I've now said this two times here, but I'll repeat it again: I have no confidence in what ArbCom is currently doing here, and I would (!)vote for a vote of no confidence on ArbCom. I am not that type of guy to write that on-wiki, but you have me at a point where I would quote the only line of 'evidence' on Fram that you have after his pledge to improve. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:15, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Noted. I put this here because you have pinged me so you can see that I have read your comments. SilkTork ( talk) 15:05, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SilkTork: I have a concern: ArbCom is not telling clearly what the concerns with Fram are, they hide behind 'there are concerns'. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:41, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I noticed that I did not ask a question: can you please address my concern? -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:45, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

... after a long time

@ Mkdw: After editors here have been asking for days and days in a row for actual evidence that shows that Fram was actually short of ADMINCOND, and feeble attempts to give evidence that is being shot down, you (pl) think that 'oh, we actually cannot say it becauseit is secret' is even remotely believable? Especially since you all confirm that everything is on wiki. I have again the tnclination to use words I try not to use on-wiki, I will restrain myself from it again. (fourth time: motion of no confidence?) -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:42, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

And especially since you first pronounced a majority that there was no community provided evidence to which desysopping was a proportionate response. You oppose that with I believe the evidence we received from the community does not adequately support the view that Fram's conduct was consistent in keeping with ADMINCOND ( revid). Now, can you please articulate which parts of the community provided evidence about Fram's behaviour AFTER the February non-passing ArbCom remedy and the last WMF warning does not adequately support the view that Fram's conduct was consistent with ADMINCOND? It is all public, posted by ArbCom. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:08, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Ashaming

ArbCom, what you have done here is ashaming, and your attempts to silence critics here is even more ashaming. I hope you have a bit of self respect left, and thus to all resign both your positions in ArbCom and your advanced rights and go through an RfA afterwards. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:55, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

As far as I understand, the links to actual diffs in the secret document have been redacted, so it's hard to see the exact context. Would it be possible to get another finding of fact, such as one of the following? Κσυπ Cyp   07:21, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• The secret non-public on-wiki evidence does not show any signs of being fabricated or taken out of context.
• The secret non-public on-wiki evidence does show some signs of being fabricated or taken out of context.
• The secret non-public on-wiki evidence may or may not have been fabricated or taken out of context, but we have no idea either way.

  I've certainly seen no evidence of fabrication. Taken out of context is more difficult, because diffs on their own are always out of context. As has been said, the document does show a considered approach and does not appear to be taking diffs in isolation or completely out of context. Does that help? Worm^TT( talk) 14:07, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  I suppose that answers the question as much as possible, given that it's impossible to say anything at all about the actual content of the secret document. So it's either not fabricated nor taken out of context, or cleverly fabricated or taken out of context in a way that doesn't look as such. In general I'd expect the former, but since I have trouble understanding the concept of secret non-public non-oversighted on-wiki public evidence that's somehow too dangerous to show or even summarize (and the actual links to the on-wiki diffs are somehow too dangerous even for the arbs to handle), I'm unsure what to think in this particular case. Come to think of it, if the evidence hasn't been paraphrased, it should be possible to search all diffs to find the actual original diffs, which would actually definitively answer the fabrication part (assuming the servers are clean), but not definitively answer the taken out of context part which can't really be answered without the defendant being able to explain them. Κσυπ Cyp   15:43, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Just to reiterate the obvious that others are saying — why not unban Fram now, before waiting for the rest of the case to finish (despite the risk of Fram then actually getting a chance to comment on the case)? Κσυπ Cyp   14:48, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Should the secret evidence have been classified as secret?
Although I am mostly happy with the proposed decision, the lack of an answer to the above bolded question is IMHO a significant omission. If the answer is no, then the WMF will have obtained a desysop by improperly bypassing a fairer “trial” in which both the community and the accused have an opportunity to examine and contest the evidence presented.

There has been speculation that the evidence shared with Arbcom may have be part of a non-disclosure agreement between WMF and accusing parties, and thus cannot be legally shared with Fram or the community. If this is the case then of course the evidence cannot be shared in violation of the non-disclosure agreement, but unless there were deeper reasons than non-disclosure agreements, the evidence should probably not be admissible.

Could there be an additional finding of fact to answer the question of whether the secret information presented to Arbcom should have been secret? Or perhaps a statement of principle that secret evidence should not be considered unless the person presenting the secret evidence also presents reasonable evidence that unacceptable harm (harassment, off-wiki hounding, etc.) would likely result from making the evidence public?-- Wikimedes ( talk) 07:49, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

It looks to me that there's pretty much consensus on this talk page that the current state of the proposed decision is incoherent. The community-evidence was largely farcical, and under any other circumstances I do not believe a desysop-remedy would be considered adequately supported by the rest of the proposed decision. One side or the other of that equation needs to be fixed. Either provide adequate grounding for issuing de-sysop order, or don't issue a de-sysop.

I also expect any new RFA on Fram will be a trainwreck. The bulk of votes on both sides will be garbage. I don't know whether percentage of junk-support votes vs the junk-oppose votes will pass the standard RFA-pass-percentage, however what I do know is that it will have little connection to Fram or reality. Alsee ( talk) 08:03, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Why did the Foundation de-sysop? Does this mean that Fram will not be an administrator when his ban ends in 2020? The removal of administrator access is intended as enforcement of the temporary partial Foundation ban placed on Fram. It is the community’s decision what to do with Fram’s administrator access upon the expiration of the Office Action ban. -- WMFOffice 20:58, 10 June 2019 [32]

I think the above quote gives striking context to the (de)sysop question. There was never a desysop sanction. As of today, Fram still is not sanctioned with desysop. The desysop was merely technical support for the ban, a ban which is (presumably) about to be vacated as invalid.

If Arbcom were to issue a desysop, that sanction would be a novel creation by Arbcom. I reiterate my previous comment, the current proposed decision falls short of reasonably or respectably supporting such a result. Based on what I have seen, based on what various Arbs have written, I have a distinct impression that Arbcom would not have issued a desysop-order if this case had proceeded through a normal Arbcom process. I get the distinct impression that Fram would have been reminded, warned, or admonished.

It's even more troubling when Fram (and the rest of us) are denied any opportunity to answer or explain the secret-list-of-public-diffs. Alsee ( talk) 23:20, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Additional observation: If simply none of sections on the sysop question pass, Arbcom would presumably issue a decision vacating the ban and remaining silent on the sysop issue. Given that the desysop was merely technical enforcement of a vacated-ban, I would expect Bureaucrats and the community to treat re-sysop as routine housekeeping. Alsee ( talk) 23:46, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

That's possible, but it's more likely that we'll continue working until we find a solution we can agree on - that's what normally happens. SilkTork ( talk) 12:01, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I feel like far too many of you think that previous statements made by ARBCOM are set in stone...they can change their mind. Anyway, I'll echo Alsee's point—an RFA on Fram will be a mess, and will probably be the most controversial RFA this project has had. Abequinn14 ( talk) 12:04, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Also, I don't know if you noticed, but ARBCOM has been working on the PD for Antisemitism in Poland...and they're already voting on it. Why they are voting on it in such an awkward time with this workload on their hands is beyond me, unless they are planning to close these 2 cases at the same time...? Abequinn14 ( talk) 21:17, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

User:Ched (and an addendum to above) I'm pretty sure they;re all focused on voting on Antisemitism in Poland. See you in a week! | abequinn ^fourteen 01:11, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Remedy 4 ("Fram's sysop status examined") seems like too much of an extension for an already very long case. I would honestly rather have remedy 2d pass than open a whole new case. | abequinn ^fourteen 03:17, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

My only comment is that I wish arbcom would institute a minimum of, say, a 6-month waiting period before Fram's RFA just to let the flames die down a bit. This has been a very divisive situation for the project and some cooling off before a dramatic RFA would be a good thing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by B ( talk • contribs) 12:33, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Comment, but I'm too lazy to sift out the answer, so take this as a question: Did Fram request an RfA? Another query, while I am here: Is Fram an identifiable individual? I don't care to know who he/she is, just if someone has met them and says what-you-see-is-what-you-get (like me, the known quantity/bastard). ~ cygnis insignis 13:54, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Cygnis insignis, To the best of my knowledge - the answer to both questions is no. Worm^TT( talk) 14:01, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Worm That Turned:, not the first time I asked, the answer is much appreciated as I think it is relevant to, well, everything here and happy to respond on why. ~ cygnis insignis 14:18, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I am more disappointed than I can politely say, and therefore will refer to the tactful remarks of others above, in particular Jbhunley. The committee has apparently decided to cut short Fram's block because the evidence does not justify continuing it, and yet has apparently decided not to reverse the desysop, despite admitting the evidence does not clearly justify a desysop (or something; the committee went back and changed a finding of fact so it would not conflict with the decision to maintain the desysop that had already crystallized). The wonky basis of the desysop is already highlighted by WJBscribe's having returned Fram's bit and its having been re-removed on procedural grounds, as has also been noted above. Since it has come to appear that writing "Fuck Arbcom" on-wiki is grounds for desysopping, and I've already been desysopped so I imagine I'm gunning for a block if I speak plainly of fairness, morality, and courage, I will just urge Arbcom to look again at its own finding of fact as originally accepted and its members' own statements about the grounds for desysopping and resysop him or her. Please. Yngvadottir ( talk) 05:35, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

There's a number of people who feel that somehow ArbCom are afraid of the Foundation. In my two terms on the Committee I didn't note any arb who was in any way intimidated or afraid of the Foundation or any individual who worked for the Foundation. That belief feels odd to me. The Foundation have always been professional, polite and respectful, and give the clear impression of people who wish to assist ArbCom to remain independent and to carry out their duties on behalf of the community. That is not to say that the Foundation do not occasionally ask for something from the Committee, but they don't make any kind of fuss if after discussion the request is turned down as being out of ArbCom's remit. On the other hand, the Committee is elected by the community, and as such is open to scrutiny and criticism, which can at times be hostile. And this is the community where we devote our time, not with the Foundation. So, on the question of courage, it is going against the community that requires the greater courage. Going against the Foundation requires no courage at all, and is actually the easier route. So if arbs are voting against the wishes of those on this page, they are doing so with a clear sense in their own mind of fairness, morality and courage. You may disagree, that's fine, arbs often disagree with each other as well; and you may give your reasoning (which I value, as I do read this page); but it's not necessary to imply that any arbs who disagree with your views are immoral and cowardly. SilkTork ( talk) 12:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thank you for replying, SilkTork, and I'm glad you are reading here, but if your time is so short, I'd personally expect it to be spent participating in the Committee's deliberations, including reading the e-mails, rather than responding to a pleb like me. The thrust of the comments here is that we want to Committee to make a good decision.

With regards to courage and morality, FuturePerfectAt Sunrise has set out some relevant points, but I think the quote he began with bears repeating: The complaints in 2019 all relate to ArbCom. More than one member of the Committee has now said that not only was the desysop out of process, part of the out of process T&S action, but that Fram's conduct was not sufficiently out of line that he or she would have been desysopped by the committee. Putting these two together, we get: saying "Fuck ArbCom" on-wiki (and possible unspecified other offenses against the Committee as contained in those complaints) are the justification for the Committee letting that desysop stand. That, ladies and gentlemen, is not right. Please have the courage and decency to admit you are wrong in effectively making lèse-majesté against the committee a sufficiently weighty offence to justify not vacating an otherwise unjustifiable desysop. Yngvadottir ( talk) 15:53, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ GorillaWarfare: Thank you for reconsidering, and for letting us know what you can of your reasoning. Yngvadottir ( talk) 12:35, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• SchroCat is right. Letting the desysop stand is plain wrong, and only one arb, GorillaWarfare, is unreservedly voting against it? The desysop was procedural, in association with an untenable block that the committee has rightly lifted. There is insufficient cause in Fram's on-wiki actions for a desysop, as many of the arbs have admitted. What's left is lèse-majesté. Making Fram—and the community—go through a second RfA simply to assert your authority, or in obedience to that old chestnut of an argument, "We have to do something. This is something. So we must do this." is reprehensible. Yngvadottir ( talk) 18:26, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I join the clamour of other editors on this talk page, thanking the arbitrators for their work in a very difficult case, but urging them to look again at the findings of fact and remedies, particularly as they relate to Fram's sysop status.

The principles of transparency and natural justice are fundamental to this project. The secret evidence could have been used as background by the arbitrators but should never have been regarded as "admissible" evidence for this case. Quite simply it is not fair to sanction an editor for allegations they cannot see or respond to.

We all know that Fram can be unpleasant at times. But the public evidence does not support revoking their sysop status. We have been assured there is no off-wiki conduct involved and I am confident there is no on-wiki conduct which has somehow escaped the notice of every other editor. Therefore the only logical conclusion is that the public evidence, however poorly it was presented in this case, is the evidence. (Feel free to correct the flaw in my logic, if there is one.)

Referring the decision to RfA sounds like a fair proposal, but it will just further extend this drama and will not help the community to heal. Please return his sysop status and instead, issue a final warning and any other restrictions you think are needed. Thank you — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 11:06, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Hey, arbs? Quick little question here. Wasn't T&S's desysop of Fram simply a part of standard procedure when banning any admin? At no point in their announcement did they mention that desysopping was to be part of the penalty, merely to prevent him from unblocking himself/viewing deleted content. If that's the case, then he would have to be resysopped if the ban was vacated, absent a direct finding of fact by the Committee, with demonstrated evidence, of conduct worthy of loss of privileges... rdfox 76 ( talk) 12:50, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Rdfox 76, my understanding is that yes, it was part of standard procedure - and that they were not expecting desysopping to be part of the penalty (though self unblock does not exist any more). However it is wrong to assume that he would have necessarily been resysopped at the end. If the community had accepted a 1 year ban on an admin - it would be expected that they had lost the trust of the community, and I expect some sort of desysopping would have happened. Worm^TT( talk) 13:11, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I haven't been around Wikipedia in so long that I don't even remember my old username. And yet.. it still seems to be the same toxic place? Because after spending the past month going through all the diffs here, this is the sequence of events that I see:

1. Someone named Laura Hale was barely competent as an editor, and probably had undisclosed COIs
2. An admin named Fram was tidying up after her, and wasn't always polite (to her or others)
3. ArbCom has repeatedly declined to even hear a case about Fram, let alone ban and/or desysop them
4. Laura Hale is involved either professionally, romantically, or both with someone high up at WMF with connections to T&S
5. magically T&S bans and desysops Fram
6. ArbCom asserts itself to review the case, and despite agreeing that there were no grounds for either the ban or the desysop has decided to let the desysop stand?

(I'm ignoring the SOOPER TOPP SEEKRIT EVIDWENCEE because it's been stated repeatedly that it's all on-wiki)

Like, am I wrong here somewhere? Someone who was borderline unable to edit constructively has connections to someone at WMF and used those connections to get Fram banned and desysopped, and ArbCom's response wasn't "bugger that for a game of soldiers, you're unbanned and here's your bit back"???????

WTF. I hope IAR still exists (on preview, it does) and a crat has the fortitude to do what ArbCom is clearly too cowardly to do. Sebthepleb ( talk) 16:16, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Adding: tldr what Jehochman and Jbhunley said above, basically. This is a shockingly sad tale, a shockingly poor set of decisions by ArbCom, and boy howdy is it a good thing that elections are coming. I believe I'll be qualified to vote, and I will a million percent be doing my best to turf out as many Arbs who supported this obvious star chamber/kangaroo court as possible. Sebthepleb ( talk) 16:21, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Another addition: "If the community had accepted a 1 year ban on an admin - it would be expected that they had lost the trust of the community, and I expect some sort of desysopping would have happened." (posted by WTT in the section above, idk what the newfangled quoting templates are)

...the community clearly did not accept a 1 year ban on an admin. ArbCom did not accept a 1 year ban on an admin. And yet you're allowing the desysop to stand. This is shameful, both in terms of sham-trial-grotesquerie and in the assault on basic principles of logic. Sebthepleb ( talk) 16:24, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The original sin was accepting "redacted secret evidence protected by non-disclosure agreement" as the basis for this case. Once that was done, there is no defending the process actually used and no legitimacy automatically granted the result obtained. I've made these views more clear in the relevant thread at Wikipediocracy. I don't object to pulling tools from Fram for "conduct unbecoming of an administrator, causing him to have lost the trust of the community," which is the rationale that can be made and sold based on public evidence and commonly known facts. But Arbcom is gonna have to take their lumps for their pact with the devil made at the outset as well. Which is now happening. Carrite ( talk) 17:25, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

... who believes that Fram's admin rights were removed out of process, and should be restored

Trying to keep it simple: I believe that Fram's admin rights were removed out of process, and should be restored without questions. In case of future problems, the community can get back to arbcom. A new RfA right now seems to offer no fair chances. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 21:14, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The ban and the desysop were out of process. ArbCom have made that clear to T&S. It is this community's role to deal with the sort of behaviour which Fram has exhibited. I don't think there is any doubt about that. Fram did not break the law, so there was no need for the Foundation to step in. There is a discussion to be had regarding the ongoing relationship between the Foundation and the English Wikipedia, but that's for another time and place. This case is for the Wikipedia appointed ArbCom to look into the behaviour of a fellow Wikipedian to see if they broke any of our consensually written policies and guidelines. However, there is a problem because this is a non-standard case on many levels, and that includes Fram's situation regarding the admin tools. I'm now in the position of treating this case as though Fram still had the tools, and would I desysop. Though there is still an element in me that feels, for a number of reasons (including that I feel the community should take more responsibility and involvement in our self-governance as leaving it too much to others can lead to unwelcome decisions), that it is for the community to decide. SilkTork ( talk) 11:52, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thank you for a reply, SilkTork, but I don't think it's to my statement. I understand that the arbs - whom we elected to settle difficult ("non standard") cases, and who were presented with some more evidence than we community - want to delegate the decision whether Fram will be an admin or not to this very uninformed community, and I don't support that waste of more time. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 12:42, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

... who would support Fram in an RfA but thinks he should not have to go through one

Fram was a good admin, and I trust him to continue being one. I'd support his RfA but would prefer if he had not to go through one. Repeating: if future problems arise around him being an admin, which the community can't deal with, we can get back to arbcom. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 12:42, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

"I am known for my dreams. How about amnesty?"

In a discussion with Dirk, I was reminded of my line from 2015: " I am known for my dreams. How about amnesty?" (read a book, take a stroll) -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 09:27, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

LouisAlain

I read my friend's name as a header on meta (where I was pinged), have NO TIME to read anything else there, sorry, I write articles. - This is a copy of what I replied there: "LouisAlain is a very productive French (!) user. He translated all (missing) Bach cantatas to French, and is in the process of translating French and German articles to English. He just was in hospital and barely edits. Fram deleted some of his articles, mostly for coyvio - the tricky kind which you can't see when the article which you translated was a violation. To my observation, LouisAlain understaood that. I'd rather believe that someone who wants to complain about Fram saw and misinterpreted, than that he himself complained."

LouisAlain does have language problems, and if you want to help improving his (often drafted) translations, here's a list.

Can we simply assume a bit more good faith? - In the arbcase I am reminded of (too much for my well-being) these days (same arbs, same concerns to reconsider on the talk, same lack of diffs ...), I said "We can start today ...". -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 06:39, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

now that Fram is back

Welcome back, Fram, and I don't have to change that I believe "that Fram's admin rights were removed out of process, and should be restored". I'd like a thread where those voting for Fram being an admin could simply sign, - threaded discussion makes it impossible, and doesn't help discussion anyway. Please don't do that again, arbs. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 05:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

hope for the community "giving him a fairer assessment as an administrator"

Thank you for wording that, Worm That Turned. "... the community can deal with things as they see fit - hopefully giving him a fairer assessment as an administrator that we managed." - This member of the community thinks it's a waste of time, but Hope is precious and great joy is found in living. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 11:18, 21 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks also to Opabinia regalis and Gorilla Warfare. Listen to the women more ;) -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 11:20, 21 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@Gerda Arendt: +1 William M. Connolley ( talk) 02:56, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

So we're now told by an arb that "The complaints in 2019 all relate to ArbCom. Four complaints" [33]. This raises a number of questions:

Why are details like these suddenly released, when all the arbs were previously adamant that even much less concrete information couldn't be released under any circumstances?

More importantly, it is entirely inconceivable that Fram's conduct was so exceptionally disruptive and stuck out so much from the ordinary that an exceptionally high number of individuals would independently have taken recourse to T&S – an obscure channel of complaints that I'm sure most Wikipedians prior to this affair didn't even know existed, and at a time when there was zero echo of this supposed misconduct on wiki. So how come there are as many as four independent complaints about a single set of situations?

• Explanation A: There weren't in fact four distinct complaints (and complainants), but only a single one, and the T&S report was just carefully crafted to make it appear more than it really was. Earlier comments by arbs indicated that the T&S report was written in such a way that they couldn't actually tell how many people complained, only guess.
• Explanation B: Having so many complaints is not in fact exceptional but just par for the course. If this many people complained about Fram, then equally many may have been complaining about all sorts of others. Unbeknown to the rest of us, some circles on Wikipedia have developed a hidden culture of denunciation, with routine complaints directed to T&S on a daily basis, and T&S has been keeping files based on these complaints, not merely on Fram but on all of us.
• Explanation C: The exceptionally many complaints were not independent but part of a coordinated campaign.

I don't know which of these three possible explanations I find the creepiest.

And a final question: if as many as four people complained to T&S about Fram's behaviour towards Arbcom, how likely is it that all of these four people were not in fact themselves arbitrators? Why would anybody other than the perceived recipients of the abuse take this route? But, excepting BU Rob (who, if he was among the complainants, did the honorable thing and removed himself from the case), I don't see any arbs recusing. So how many of the current arbcom (up to four, presumably?) are in fact now sitting in judgment about their own complaints, possibly without even their own colleages' knowledge?

Conversely, if these four complaints did not come from Arbcom members, then why do the comlainants require anonymity? All these months, we've been told again and again that the T&S complainants deserve secrecy because they were the victims of harassment. But now we're suddenly to believe that the complaints came from uninvolved onlookers who just happened to want to speak up in the poor victimized arbs' defense?

This all stinks, whichever way you look at it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:50, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I am also somewhat frustrated by the privacy constraints of both the T&S document and the ArbCom mailing list. However, if there is a commitment to protecting someone's privacy, and that was the basis for submitting evidence or raising a complaint, that must be honoured. The point of my mentioning those complaints reports was to say that in the discussions between myself and Fram we should look into those reports. We haven't yet, as the discussion hasn't gone that way yet. It's a slow discussion as unfortunately I have limited free time at the moment. But I think it's a helpful discussion. As regards the reports - apart from one instance the document doesn't reveal what was said, it simply describes the behaviour that caused the concern. So it's the behaviour that is the focus of attention, not those who directed attention to the behaviour. I think that perhaps "complaints" is not the right word. The word the document uses is "report", and that is actually more appropriate. The one report we can see is neutral and factual - it is not a complaint, it is a list of links to Fram's behaviour. As an experienced Committee member I understand that evidence can sometimes be selective, as such I tend to look at the context of the evidence, but I treat all evidence the same - I do not disregard evidence simply because it comes from an antagonistic source, nor do I give special weight to evidence that comes from a friendly source. I believe my colleagues do the same. So it's not the messenger but the message that matters. I think the TimidGuy case is a good example of that. A banned editor made an appeal against action by an experienced admin and the site founder, Jimbo. The Committee overturned the ban based on the evidence not on who was supplying it. So while I understand there is some interest in who said what to whom, these are not witness reports where there may be some doubt as to the veracity of the witnesses, but links to behaviour. If there is hard evidence of someone shouting abuse, and that evidence is available for all to examine, then it is not important who reported the evidence - the street drunk, the passerby, or the off-duty policeman, the evidence is the evidence and it doesn't become different depending on who links to it. SilkTork ( talk) 17:59, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare, @ Worm That Turned, @ Joe Roe, @ SilkTork, @ KrakatoaKatie, @ Opabinia regalis: (cross-posting this from Fram's meta talkpage): the final link you cite in "Evaluation of community-provided evidence (2)" [34] contains a link to one of those stereotyped harassment rants from banned user en:User:Vote (X) for Change as one of its two "evidence" links. Your citing this in the PD page is sending a very bad message and serves to proliferate that banned person's abuse, if only indirectly. Can you please remove that from the PD page? If you want to show that people in the community had concerns about Fram, then please find examples of people whose concerns were genuine and who expressed them responsibly. A person who had nothing better to cite in support of their complaint than the confused ramblings of a notorious harassment troll is not that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:22, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I've swapped it out, per your request, and added an explanatory comment. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 21:50, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Hi, I'm reading the proposed decision with fresh eyes in its near-final form (I hadn't checked back here since the workshop closed).

The use of "unredacted materials" jumped out and made me think "huh? what?". I believe something like "the unredacted portion of the materials" would be preferable, per GorillaWarfare's response to Hlevy2

Or maybe just "the materials", leaving it implicit that you can only read the unredacted parts and not the redacted info.

— Pelagic ( talk) 16:26, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

EllenCT and WTT also briefly mentioned this. Pelagic ( talk) 09:41, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

[Off-topic: I tried three times to add this comment using the Reply box in the single-topic mobile interface (not the "view as wiki page" one), and it just keeps failing to Publish. Pelagic ( talk) 09:41, 12 September 2019 (UTC)]. reply

• If the Arbs choose to send it to RfA (vs desysopping and a distinct RfA), then surely it would be ludicrous to make that decision from any evidence other than that publicly available?

RfA participants would only have a single piece of confirmed information - that there was sufficient strength of evidence in the undisclosed report to push it into a reconfirmation RfA that a pure reading the public evidence wasn't enough for. We'd have editors interpreting that in numerous ways, and Fram wouldn't have any way to defend himself against it.

• As a distinct point, that Arb issue raised slightly above is of concern - I do think it unlikely that (at least) 3 of our most vetted and trusted individuals would be so off as to not recuse themselves if they were the complainants. I could in fact see some concern about individuals worrying that they'd have to deal with individuals going "you weren't involved, why are you raising this" etc. I'm not sure how justified that is, but it's a possibility. I'm still inclined to think that other things than that stated comment were in play - if nothing else, even with everything written out, I'm not seeing that reaching 70 pages. Nosebagbear ( talk) 18:13, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• I just wanted to leave a note here, since it's been a minute since I struck my votes on the de/resysop remedies along with the note Striking all of my votes to the variations on 2 while I reconsider my positions on the desysop. I don't think we're in danger of suddenly closing the case as it stands right now, but I did want to mark that I am giving these votes more thought. I will reinstate some of these votes/remove this comment when I'm finished. and I didn't want anyone thinking I'd just wandered off partway through the case. Though I have not responded to all (or even many) of the comments on this talk page and on Fram's talk page on Meta, I have read them all, and they have been very helpful—both in pointing out things I needed to consider, and making me realize that we have not done enough to explain how we landed where we landed. When I make decisions on ArbCom cases, I compile a fairly detailed set of notes about the evidence as I read through all of it (and the discussions of it), as well as my thoughts as I'm considering it and its relation to the PD, and this case is no different. The big difference here is that the case involves an abundance of private evidence (both from the WMF and submitted privately via email) which has only been partially released (in the form of a summary of the non-WMF evidence located at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram/Evidence and a... well, I don't know if it's fair to even call it a "summary"... 3-sentence description of the T&S document at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram/Evidence#Summary evidence). When revisiting these remedies I've found that I didn't do as good a job as I should have of noting where the evidence came from (T&S or community), when it occurred in the overall timeline of events, and how explicitly it was released as evidence to Fram and the community. I'm creating an entirely new document to ensure that I am carefully noting all these things as I go—from that and that alone, I will make my decision on whether to take over the desysop or restore the sysop rights to Fram (I do remain convinced that these are the only two appropriate options). This is not a quick process, so I wanted to leave this post in the interim—I will try to finish up in the next few days, though. I know there have been a lot of concerns over how these decisions are being reached, so if possible at the end of this all I will post the document I've used (in addition to any new FoFs). I don't want to make any firm promises there, because I can't release more private evidence than we already have, but if there's any substantial amount of my notes I can make public I will do so. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 04:27, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Progress update: I am partway through the work I described above, and have found a lot of clarity not only in revisiting the evidence but in writing out my thoughts about which evidence I think is reasonable to consider, as well as a handful of other things that I had previously only thought through but not put on paper. A lot of this is not the kind of thing that would make sense to be written in a FoF, but some of it is, so I will draft those where appropriate. I need to finish sifting through the evidence, but am hoping to get through it tonight (if I put another pot of coffee on). I know now that I will be able to post at least some of my notes, though portions of them referring directly to private evidence will need to be removed for privacy. They have at this point passed 5,000 words, so I'll toss them in a subpage or something where they can be properly ignored by what I assume are most people who have no interest in reading my stream-of-consciousness—goodness knows enough words have already been posted about the ban and everything since. Apologies again for delay—this is something I should have done sooner on, and although I am glad to be doing it now rather than never, it is my fault for delaying the case with it. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 05:23, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

  I was overly optimistic about getting through the evidence tonight, I'm afraid. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 06:41, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Noting here that I've finished posting my changes. I'll sanitize and reformat my notes of private info and post them shortly, but I was careful to ensure there is nothing of importance in my notes that didn't make it into the PD, so there's really no need to read them unless you're curious for more context on how I approached this. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 03:29, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Notes posted here: User:GorillaWarfare/Fram admin status notes GorillaWarfare  (talk) 04:55, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

First, thanks to each and every member of ArbCom for their willingness to adjudicate a thorny situation. To the meat of the matter:

• Per FoF 3.2.7, there has been no evidence of any off-wiki misconduct.
• Per FoF 3.2.5, the on-wiki evidence does not constitute misuse of administrative tools.
• Per FoF 3.2.6, some of Fram's on-wiki behaviour constitues borderline harassment against multiple individuals, but ArbCom can't say exactly what happened, and observers of the proposed decision can't see the relevant context. I'm puzzled: would a regular court accept a prosecutor's secret selection of evidence excerpted from public information, without showing it to the defendant and their attorneys? Would a jury be permitted to enact a conviction based on such secret-though-public evidence? IANAL but I lean no, from basic due process considerations.
• Also per 3.2.6, Fram has been abusive towards the Committee as a whole and specific members. Golly, we're all adults here; how is that a big deal?

Overall, there seems to be no valid case for de-sysopping, and no reason to force Fram to go through an RfA, although s/he may choose to do so voluntarily, as Floquenbeam did. Hence I disagree strongly with proposed remedies 2c and 2d. — JFG ^talk 18:35, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

In recent comments, notably by SilkTork, much weight is being given to the "spirit" of being an admin, citing WP:ADMINCOND as the yardstick by which Fram should be judged. Notwithstanding the exceptional scrutiny on this particular admin (are all admins going to be "evalusted" against ADMINCOND by ArbCom now?), I think it's fair to quote what ADMINCOND actually requires of the admin corps in the "leading by example" department:

Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with adminship; administrators are not expected to be perfect. However, sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the expectations and responsibilities of administrators, and consistent or egregious poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator tools. (emphasis mine)

That's a pretty clearly-defined yardstick, so the question becomes: did Fram 1) indulge in sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia or 2) exhibit consistent or egregious poor judgment? It looks safe to say that s/he is not guilty of #1, and public evidence so far does not indicate a case of #2. Hence, any decision to de-sysop Fram must only be taken if ArbCom members are satisfied that the private-yet-public evidence demonstrates "consistent or egregious poor judgment". Whatever the outcome, I do hope that the committee makes a serious effort to explain how Fram's judgment was, in their considered opinion weighing all the evidence, "egregiously or consistenly poor". — JFG ^talk 21:41, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

In light of Fram's recent comments after his ban was rescinded, I'd like to reiterate my question to arbitrators who support remedy 2d ("the committee takes over the decision to remove Fram's administrator tools"): did Fram 1) indulge in sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia or 2) exhibit consistent or egregious poor judgment? And if he did, upon which diffs and FoFs is your desysop decision based? — JFG ^talk 11:10, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I suppose that FoF 15 "ADMINCOND" (which should be titled "Expectations of administrator conduct" for clarity) is an attempt by the Committee to answer the numerous requests from commenters here for some justification of the currently-passing decision to desysop Fram. That finding, as drafted, sounds particularly weak. ArbCom decisions usually do not shy away from laying out in excruciating detail what the principles are and what specific expectations have not been met. As I twice asked above, which part of the ADMINCOND policy has Fram violated? If the Committee is going to desysop Fram, even without showing evidence due to the WMF-imposed constraints on transparency, they should at a minimum have the guts to state that Fram has 1) indulged in sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia or 2) exhibited consistent or egregious poor judgment. As arbitrators entrusted with the highest judgment and sentencing powers by the community, you can not weasel out of your duty, especially with regards to accountability, with a vague "The evidence supports the view that Fram's conduct was not consistent with ADMINCOND." A view is not a fact, and all Wikipedians are especially well-trained to distinguish those. Unless an exact wording out of our policies is referred to, the decision to desysop will appear illegitimate to many, and create a dangerous precedent. — JFG ^talk 08:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Side note: FoF 15 should be titled "Fram has breached expectations of administrator conduct" or "Violations of expected administrator conduct", otherwise it looks like a principle ("Expectations of administrator conduct"), not a FoF. — JFG ^talk 08:51, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I’m not quite as outraged as others about the desysop - at least it’s being done at the local level with some amount of accountability and can be appealed to the community thru RFA. But I do think allowing the desysop to stand is a mistake, per Beeb. Fram is, I’m sure, aware of the gigantic target painted on his back now, and is surely smart enough to dial back the aggression. Give the tools back, and if the tools are misused or the aggression continues unabated, then have a case or desysop by motion or something in the future. This desysop is, imho, too tainted to be allowed to stand. — Floquenbeam ( talk) 21:59, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Firstly I want to thank everyone at Arbcom for taking on this monumental mess,

Secondly I don't really have much to say other than I agree with Jbhunley, Beeblebrox and Gerda - Had WMF not waded in with their size 9s Fram wouldn't of been blocked, sitebanned or desysopped ..... I absolutely wholeheartedly agree with Beeb in that Arbcom should undo everything WMF did and call it a day.... Everything WMF did IMHO shouldn't be allowed to stand. – Dave | Davey2010 ^Talk 23:03, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Davey2010, Floquenbeam, JFG, Beeblebrox, and others: thank you for your comments. I am probably messing up the sectioned comments by replying to more than one person, however, I want to add to GW's statement by affirming that several of us on the committee have been reading these comments everyday. They are incredibly helpful and appreciated. A few of us are going back through the evidence a second time. It is taking a bit of time and we consider the PD process still on-going and not finalized. Individually, I am not making any promises but I am considering the issues being raised here. I know there are a lot of concerns about private evidence. Even the evidence sent directly to ArbCom during this case was summarized and in some cases not necessarily included in the final summary at the request of the individual. Broadly speaking (not specifically about this case), I do not see a [long term sustainable] way forward that does not allow some private evidence to play a factor in a process where we would also be allowed to continue to self-govern on issues of harassment and abuse. [Please see [35] and [36] for a more detailed explanation]. That being said, I understand your concerns about Fram not having the opportunity to respond to specific incidences and evidence, especially if something like desysop is being considered. Mkdw ^talk 23:35, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• The first post truly did sum up my feelings all in one however I shan't link to or reinstate it ..... so I'll say it in politer terms - IMHO The supported desysop is wrong on so many levels,

I appreciate certain things cannot be made public and I understand that but I still 100% disagree with desysopping him- IMHO the crucial desysopping "evidence" (or whatever you want to call it) should be made public ... otherwise their tools should be reinstated,

Choosing the desysop way means this will drag on and on and it's fair to say it's gone on long enough. – Davey2010 ^Talk 20:16, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Just seeing the latest proposed remedies and accompanying votes... I just have one question: could Fram have engaged in the same alleged behaviors without the mop? If so, then wouldn't the act of removing their Administrative toolset be considered a punitive action as opposed to preventative? Dax  Bane 09:55, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The conduct standards are higher for admins than other users. The desyop is being considered under those special admin rules: WP:ADMINCOND SilkTork ( talk) 10:20, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

And with good reason. A major part of admin work is interacting with other editors from a position of relative 'power', often with little or no oversight. We need to be able to trust admins to remain civil at all times because the mop multiplies the disruptive effect of hostility on community health and editor retention. Removing +sysop from admins who can no longer be trusted to do that is absolutely preventative, even if they could have gotten away with the same behaviour if they weren't admins. –  Joe ( talk) 10:47, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Hi SilkTork re It is unfortunate that the person Fram was paying attention to was connected to someone in the T&S team. This development is a new one on me. I knew about the trustee link, and that a certain trustee recused themselves from the connected discussion. Did you mean to say "someone in the T&S team" rather than "someone on the board", and if there is a link to a T&S member have they recused themselves? Ϣere SpielChequers 11:12, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Yes, my mistake. It should be board, not T&S. I'll correct that now. SilkTork ( talk) 14:40, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Such things happen, glad to be able to strike something as resolved. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:28, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I am not so active on enwp but has followed this case in detail, as it is crucial for our general effort to get a more civil tone in our interactions. I want to express my appreciation for the thorough work being done by Arbcom, both in process and the balanced result. I fully support it as it stand now, and I also want to give my support toe Joes remark when he was elected to Arbcom, that Arbcom must lead in improving our Code of conduct. Yger ( talk) 13:04, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

For a week the votes have been in that the block should never have happened. Per arbcom He's been blocked for months when he should never have been blocked a day. Stop the bleeding. Enact the unblock. Welcome him back. And then if you want to spend another month arguing about admin status, do so without the beating continuing while you can't make up your minds. -- 159.221.32.10 ( talk) 14:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I've been following this for some time now. I am a named editor (nothing higher than that), but am uncomfortable with signing in on this page, in part because I have no faith in T&S, the WMF's actions here, and in part because my faith in Arbcom right now is pretty shaken, too. But I want to say that I find SilkTork's discussion of 'spirit' and whatever other nebulous definitions there are regarding Fram's adminship to be wholly inappropriate. I do appreciate what you're doing, I absolutely appreciate that you're trying to be fair and include Fram in this debate, albeit late. I appreciate, too, how complicated this case is given that you never asked for it and didn't deserve to be put in such an unfair position by T&S's actions. What I don't think is appropriate is that we've crossed the line into debating the 'spirit' of anything. There are two facts here. 1.) Fram's ban was wrong, as agreed by every arb to weigh in, and 2.) Fram did not, at any point at least since they were warned, abuse the tools. If you want to redefine and debate what it takes to have the 'spirit' of an admin, this is not the time nor place to do it. If you want to justify the desysop using it, then you're going to put every admin under a gun to meet some ill-defined, ephemeral standard and potentially lose their bit if they stumble wrong.

If I may, I propose that Fram be completely reinstated, THEN the discussion opened -- including them in it -- as to what the 'spirit' of adminship should be. Nothing about how this case was handled was correct, nothing about it was fair, and if we as a community want to debate the spirit of the tools and the users who have them, then we can't be doing it on the back of an admin who was already wronged. Further, if the discussion that would follow included Fram, then they would have the chance to help shape and own the less nebulous policy and take pride in it.

If you ask me, that sounds like the kind of democracy and collaboration that we want here. 2601:18E:8200:28B8:70CE:AFEC:A683:7C5D ( talk) 15:03, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

It's not the use of the tools that is the main focus of attention, but WP:ADMINCOND, where it is the spirit of adminship and carrying out the spirit of Wikipedia that is important. SilkTork ( talk) 15:22, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I know. And what I'm trying to say (possibly not as well as I want to) is that this isn't a fair or honest time to debate that particular point. That can be done later. Right now, the important thing is to right the wrong and show the community that there is a proper process to be followed for these things. Going onto Fram's meta-talk page and grilling them about past decisions that stood without censure in order to justify a desysop on the back of a known, undeniable wrong -- the ban in question -- borders its own kind of harassment. Like I said, I really do appreciate how hard you're trying, but to me, what you're saying on that talk page and here about Fram being uncooperative is a complete misdirection and is missing the major point. Is the ban wrong? Yes. Did Fram abuse the tools? No! Does Fram deserve the chance to speak up in their own defense? Yes. Does Fram deserve a chance to weigh on on what WP:ADMINCOND means in a proper venue (which this case is not) and whether they actually violated that? Yes. And do you want to keep an admin who has done a lot of hard, thankless work for this wiki, and actually move forward? I hope so. Which is why this ban and the desysop must be overturned in full. Only then can the 'moving forward' happen in any way that would be fair and respected by the community. Thank you for your reply, and I hope I said things better this time. 2601:18E:8200:28B8:70CE:AFEC:A683:7C5D ( talk) 15:33, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Yes, and your view is valid. I think ArbCom are doing two things here: the first is rejecting the Foundation's decision to ban Fram - rejecting not just because it was out of process, but also rejecting it because on looking at the evidence it wasn't valid; the second is deciding ourselves - separate from the WMF ban - if Fram breached ADMINCOND, and if so, how and why. I have from the start been borderline on that. And that's what is taking me the time. SilkTork ( talk) 04:08, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

After seeing the votes by ARBCOM I am happy with the result, Fram while no longer an admin is given a second chance. The desysop I feel is needed until Fram shows that he can earn the admin-ship back. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:54, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Another IP address, a non-admin occasional editor logged out because I'm not sure bringing my account to the attention of T&S is really something I want to do. Also someone that's been reading about the Fram situation for months now.

A finding of fact that has been passed unanimously is number 6, which reads "There was no evidence of off-wiki misconduct in either the Office provided case materials, or the community provided evidence." Had this case been allowed to proceed through a normal evidence phase, evidence of Fram's behavior since the warnings would have been brought to the forefront, as it's all on-wiki. Evidence to support or rebut those claims could then be presented, then weighed during the workshop and proposed decision phase. That's the sort of adversarial system that leads to the best outcomes when it comes to justice, as arguments for both sides are put to the test.

The WMF made a mistake by not allowing a long-time editor to defend themselves in such a fashion. Arbcom made a mistake by choosing to accept the conditions that the WMF provided in exchange for the evidence, rather than letting their resignations - in addition to those of other administrators and editors - bring the WMF further into disrepute in the media, the only reason this case was sent back to the community in the first place. The result is this case, where by skipping the most important phase of both formal and informal dispute resolution, the legitimacy of the process is being widely questioned.

I would suggest that the right way to continue would be one of two ways: Either Fram should be unbanned and this case should be reset to the evidence phase, or the results of the WMF's action should be vacated completely, and (optionally) a new case started. In either case, the evidence phase should be conducted in public, without restrictions as to what is posted. This would probably prevent evidence from the T&S document from being used – but so what? If an editor considers Fram's actions to be relevant, the evidence will be posted. And if not, no editor participating in this process considers that evidence enough to be worth a desysop, or strong enough to withstand community scrutiny, which is a valid result in its own right.

Asking Fram to defend himself piecemeal without being able to present evidence in their defense is wrong. 98.113.245.219 ( talk) 16:14, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I apologise for not being very by-the-book and detailed in my comment. I've read most of what has been posted here, and a great deal of what had been posted on this unfortunate story since June 2019. Apart from all the pertinent comments on logic, justice, transparency, practicality etc. of the arbitration's decision, I just feel the need to point out that, in my impression, everyone is sick and tired of this whole situation, and en.wp needs to move on. Not re-sysopping will likely prolong the limboid mess, especially if there is another RFA. The easiest way to move on would be to just rewind before that date in early June, as far as Fram is concerned. This would also comply with most of what I've seen regarding logic, justice, transparency, practicality etc. posted on this page. --- Sluzzelin talk 23:08, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I was going to skip this, since I really don't give a shit if Fram has a couple extra buttons or not. But do y'all realize it's been over a week now, and you're still screwin around like little kids in a sandbox? Ya managed go off on your own in private to ban Eric from the project in a weekend. (I won't go into what he'd contributed) I have to wonder if you folks can't step back for a moment and look at the big picture - you all look ridiculous with all this hand-wringing and whimpering over a couple words here and there. Tell T&S to kiss off, or *nudge nudge* we'll keep your desysop, but Get on with it already. — Ched ( talk) 23:28, 13 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Ched: As I said yesterday, I am sorry for the additional delay that I have helped introduce to this case. But I would rather it go a little bit longer and feel very confident in my decision, than close it sooner and feel like I had not revisited a decision I felt shaky on. I am working as quickly as I can. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 01:36, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare: - I wasn't singling you (or any other arb) out individually. If you took it personally then I apologize. My complaint is with the collective group, not individuals. And I'm not saying this has been easy - but the agony and woe that's gone on over a couple words seems pointless in the big picture. Unbanned - not resysoped. 3 simple words that pretty much covers the conclusion. If you agree with a result, but not the wording, then "I support this result, although I disagree with the wording" pretty much covers it. — Ched ( talk) 01:48, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Ched: I didn't take it personally, but I am acknowledging that I am certainly one of the ones responsible for drawing it out. To be clear, I'm not quibbling over wording while agreeing with the result—I agree that would be a poor use of time. While I do agree that Fram should be unbanned, and I think that's fairly well settled at this point, I do not know yet where I stand on the decision to resysop or desysop. I am revisiting the evidence for the purposes of deciding how to vote on those remedies (see my section on this page). I believe a handful of other arbs are doing the same. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 01:57, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I had intended to raise concern about delay - and in particular vacillation - by several Arbs. here. That has been ably done directly above so I will limit my comments to this. I accuse certain arbs. of being concerned only with the opprobrium they will receive if they come to a conclusion that they fear the people on this page (note, not necessarily the community at large) will not agree with. But you were elected to do a job. These long-winded streams of consciousness and, frankly, high level of farting about - is unnecessary and pretty pathetic. Get off the fence, make a decision, record it, stick to it. Stop changing your mind. Hint, forget Laura Hale, WP:FAMILY within WMF & T&S, netball, paralympics, paid-editing and the rest of it. This is about behaviours. Focus on whether the guy is suitable as an Admin in this day and age. Yes or no? Yes, he gets his tools back. No - and it's an RFA if he wants one. The stuff at (2) in the decision is a shambles, an utter mess of your making. It looks designed not to be able to come to a decision. Sort it out, quickly please. Leaky caldron ( talk) 07:38, 14 September 2019 (UTC) @ GorillaWarfare: 38+25=63 @ SilkTork: 17+40=57 @ Worm That Turned: 23+21=44. You are by far the highest contributors with the former 2 those with the greatest prevarication. I don't expect a lengthy reasoning for your evident hesitation. I have read all of that stuff. Whatever you do, there isn't a "right" or "wrong" answer. If you are so conflicted, just recuse from the "hard" decision. reply

Noted. Considered. Rejected. That was the easiest decision I've had to make in a long while. Thanks! SilkTork ( talk) 11:57, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I have made my share of unpopular decisions, knowing they would be unpopular, so I'm not sure why I am suddenly being accused of "being concerned only with the opprobrium they will receive if they come to a conclusion that they fear the people on this page". I am not so arrogant as to believe that my first thoughts on a PD are always right, or to refuse to listen to any challenging of my opinions. As I've just said to Beetstra, if we were going to just make a decision with no willingness to change it, why would we bother with the proposed decision phase of a case at all? I am sorting out the shambles at portion 2 of the remedies, but I am taking the time I need to do a proper job of it. Either I can rush to a hasty and possibly poor decision, I can spend the time necessary to go through the evidence while neglecting things like my job and sleep, or I can spend the necessary time and also tend to the other things I need to do in my life. I am going with option 3, and although I apologize for the delay it introduces, I think it is a reasonable thing to do in order to come to a decision I am confident in. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:15, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks for acknowledging that section 2 is a shambles which it has been ever since WTT introduced unnecessary, over-complex, Venn diagram options for what amounts to a fairly simple choice. You know, for a committee, none of you show much evidence of acting in a joined-up, organised way. Leaky caldron ( talk) 17:25, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Fram: Before demanding that sectional pages be dispensed with - es: "Please abandon it in the future" - you might consider that for particular busy pages such as we have had in your case, sections can be updated without fear of the dreaded multiple edit conflict which leads to frustration, delay and confusion, all of which are extremely undesirable. Leaky caldron ( talk) 13:08, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Russian Wikipedia has so called confirmation ( Russian: конфирмация). It can be either voluntary or forced by the ArbCom decision. So an administrator remains an administrator - but her/his status has to be reconfirmed by a new voting process. Failure to get the necessary amount of pro votes - then the adminship revoked. Refusal to proceed with the confirmation - then the adminship revoked.
Unless it is against of English ArbCom methods - it could be a solution of the dilemma "unblock with adminship - unblock without adminship". If such dilemma exists. -- Neolexx ( talk) 20:05, 15 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Folks, I've been watching Fram for years now. I watched him run off editors for ticky-tacky "maybe" violations of editing restrictions. Watching him in one case, I called him the child in the back seat who keeps yelling "he's touching me". Now the editor he was complaining about was trying to walk a line as close as possible to violating his editing restrictions, but Fram constantly hounding the editor was well past healthy for anyone or good for the encyclopedia. [37] is the case and my comments, but you'd have to search for all of Fram's contributions on the editor to see the scale and nature of those interactions.

This type of behavior is hugely problematic. I'd have filed a case here for de-admining but A) the amount of work to put together the case is massive (each individual bit of haranguing could be justified or waived off, it's only in when you see the pattern that the problem becomes clear) and B) even then, the odds of getting any prolific admin de-admined is very low unless the case is crystal clear. It sounds like someone put together the larger case and many of ARBCOM can see the problem. It's really annoying, honestly offensive, that the evidence can't be used in public. I can see why people are hesitant to de-admin someone over secret evidence. And if ARBCOM decides that while Fram's behavior is troubling enough to conflict ADMINCOND to the point that a de-admin is appropriate, but that secret evidence can't use used in that way, well I understand. But given that we've elected these people, we should probably trust them to evaluate the situation. But passing on doing anything isn't free. Perhaps in other forums Fram has promised to check his behavior. But I am unaware of him acknowledging that there is a problem. And so, it seems darn likely that the issues will continue and others will be the target of his ire and constant attention. Hobit ( talk) 03:10, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm not sure your comment followed my changes to the PD or if the timing was coincidental, but I actually did just add (among others) a FoF showing where Fram has acknowledged their problematic behavior: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram/Proposed_decision#Fram_had_pledged_to_improve_their_behavior. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 03:54, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Coincidental for the most part. I was worried that we might get back to having Fram as an admin as I felt that you, and potentially others, were feeling pressure on the issue on this page. I had hoped to manage to get my thoughts here to provide some sense that not all in the community believe having Fram back as an admin is a good thing (and I personally find it to quite a bad thing--someone someone who has behaved like that as an admin has no business having the bit IMO). I don't recall seeing the quote from Fram before. It feels insufficient. Fram caused a fair bit of hurt and should, at a minimum, apologize to the folks to whom they caused that hurt. While the words seem heartfelt, they don't really address the issues of the past. And given just how long running the problems were, it's hard to believe that will be enough to significantly help with the problems of the future either. Hobit ( talk) 12:28, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I find the voting in 1a very scary. As I understand the voting for remedy 1a, the main reason everyone supports vacating the ban is because although the behaviour is objectionable, the community would not have done it. This is scary because it means if we encounter this again, the aggrieved party has no real recourse. There is no impartial third party they can appeal to. Consider:

• If they attempt to implement a community ban at ANI, they're likely to get shouted down.
• If they bring it to Arbcom, the case will just get declined (or it will be accepted, and then the committee says they can't impose sanctions because the community would not have imposed sanctions).
• The consequence of these two points must be the reason the aggrieved party in this case approached the WMF. But after this incident, if the WMF just refers the aggrieved party back to Arbcom, then they're back where they started.

I'll further point out that the evidence Arbcom received from the WMF was partially redacted. I take that to mean the aggrieved party's name is not given. The obvious reason for this is that they are hurt and vulnerable, and to make their name publicly available is just going to make it even more miserable for them. The experience is not likely to be different from RFAs, a process already known to be miserable. To request the aggrieved party to do either of the first two actions is not likely to be palatable to them; they're more likely to just do nothing instead of speak up. Accordingly I find this vote scary.

I'd like to ask the committee how they would recommend an aggrieved user resolve this situation if it happens again. Right now it seems to me as though the committee is sincerely praying that the RfC proposed in 6 will yield a way, because otherwise there'd be no viable option.

Banedon ( talk) 07:16, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

People are, understandably, very curious about the document - mainly because it was the document that was the basis for the Foundation's decision to ban Fram. The document consists of summaries, links, examples, and analysis of Fram's conduct, viewed in terms of Wikipedia's norms. It does not conclude that Fram broke the Foundation's Terms of Use (I don't recall it making reference to the Terms of Use), but that over a sustained period of time that Fram had been borderline incivil with a variety of users, and that after a conduct warning some incivil behaviour continued. Because some of the recent incivility had been directed toward ArbCom as a group and some individual Committee members, I assume (it does not make it clear in the document) that the Foundation felt that ArbCom, the body the community uses to deal with infringements of our civility policies, were compromised, and might find it difficult to make an impartial decision. I would hope that the explanations and reasertions by the Committee and the community (and the Board) that Wikipedia is a self-governing community have allowed the Foundation to come to an understanding that incivility on Wikipedia which does not reach the level of breaking the law (and so would warrant a global ban), but is infringement of Wikipedia's own policies and guidelines, should be dealt with by the community. So, aggrieved users should follow our dispute resolution guidelines, and come to ArbCom as a last resort. If ArbCom feel that the matter is serious enough, the matter will be referred to the Foundation as a matter of course. SilkTork ( talk) 08:29, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SilkTork: I'm going to focus on the last few sentences you wrote since I don't think the document is very relevant. The point is the DR process isn't anonymous - any person following the process is liable to get bashed. WP:UNBLOCKABLE describes some possible scenarios very well. The process is not a pleasant experience to go through if one thinks the other party is abusive, and the point here is that by supporting 1a "because the community would not have voted for it", that removes the last (?) avenue of getting recourse without getting bashed in a public forum. There is no way out now that I can see. If you see a way, please let me know what it is. Banedon ( talk) 00:57, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

If your concern is that as a result of 1a, there will be no recourse for people who wish to submit evidence without that evidence being passed along to the accused party, that's partially the case. It's true that there will be no option for people to do that, but not as a result of 1a: there already is no option for that. WP:ARBPOL requires us to inform the accused editor of complaints against them, and often there is no way to truly anonymize a complaint (if someone acts poorly against one editor, it's often quite clear which incident is being discussed). I do agree that there needs to be some mechanism for people to report concerning behavior without completely exposing themselves to a possibly abusive person, but there is no existing process for this. That is what I am very much hoping the RfC will address. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:00, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GorillaWarfare: it's only fair for the accused party to be able to see the evidence against them, so that's not my concern. The concern is that there's no way to seek redress without getting shouted down by the community (which Arbcom appears to acknowledge is commonly hostile). Right now, that's already hard: if an editor comes straight to Arbcom the case request will be declined because no prior attempt at dispute resolution, but only the masochistic will want to go to ANI with a civility complaint. An RFAR isn't exactly a pleasant thing either, but at least it's better than an ANI case. 1a removes Arbcom as a DR pathway because it indicates Arbcom is going to make the same decisions that the community would have made anyway. It's just very scary. I'm hoping the RfC will address this too. Banedon ( talk) 04:01, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Somewhat echoing what Newyorkbrad said above; it is surprising that a straight forward motion to enact 1a immediately has not been passed already. I know it's the weekend and everything, but it's likely not the best image, in my opinion, for half of the committee to be editing elsewhere on Wikipedia while practically refusing to vote on a simple and logical decision that has the support of the wider community in which we have seen here so far. If there is opposition among committee members against unblocking Fram now, when the remedy seems to enjoy unanimous agreement, let's have some transparency and hear them please. Perhaps the wording can be better to avoid loopholes (as discussed in Xeno and xaosflux's section), but I highly doubt Fram will be going to BN to ask for their bits back prior to a clear conclusion of this case, based on the discussions at their meta user talk page. If anything, these discussions at Fram's meta user talk page really should be happening here at the PD talk page from this point on with their participation. Alex Shih ( talk) 07:59, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

This latest comment by SilkTork ( [38]), in particular the remark "uncooperative attitude of Fram", is by no means an accurate reflection of the discussion taken place at meta:User_talk:Fram#Looking_for_a_solution that was ongoing for the past ten days. I trust any neutral observer would come to the similar conclusion that despite of SilkTork's never-ending, often off-topic and occasionally utterly condescending tones, Fram has engaged cooperatively in search for a solution. I am not a fan of Fram's approach to adminship and do personally think they should be desysopped (in a proper case where procedures are being followed), but this recent comment by a arbitrator strikes to me as both untruthful and vengeful, and is not the best reflection of WP:ARBCOND. Alex Shih ( talk) 15:20, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Days have passed by, and we continue to have arbitrators refusing to vote on Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram/Proposed_decision#Remedy_1a_takes_effect_immediately. May we as the community have the reason(s) why? Pinging Joe Roe, KrakatoaKatie, Mkdw, Opabinia regalis and Premeditated Chaos. I simply do not see any good reason for you folks to refuse voting on a simple and straight forward injunction that would help to move this case forward in the minimal sense. Please provide your rationale instead of ignoring this entirely while editing elsewhere on Wikipedia. Alex Shih ( talk) 22:37, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Alex Shih and SchroCat: I don't oppose it, but I'd prefer to wrap up the whole case together and hope we can do that within the next few days. –  Joe ( talk) 09:40, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I am dissapointed by the conduct of some editors on this talk page. We should all have a re-read of WP:ASPERSIONS every now and then. -- a ^{consensus is queer oppression | argue | contribs} 16:22, 16 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Just another editor logged out.

Strongly against Arbcom using this case to impose their own sanctions on Fram. This case is based on secret evidence out of the necessity of reviewing the ban, and nothing more should be done with said secret evidence if at all possible. Any sanction proposed would be consciously or not tainted by the secret evidence that could not be rebutted or put into context, and could not induce Fram to change his behavior.

I find it particularly worrisome when SilkTork said "Added to which, we now have on this page the statement from 2018 in which Fram said: "the way I addressed some issues and people was over the top, unnecessarily unfriendly and unconstructive", so we don't need to ignore all the evidence which points to Fram being "unnecessarily unfriendly and unconstructive" (which is the bulk of the evidence) because Fram has gone on record agreeing with the conclusions" which seems to me to be twist Fram's admission that he went overboard at times into carte blanche to admit all evidence and conclude that Fram is in breech of WP:ADMINCOND. Not to mention that the decision to desysop doesn't should not be "was Fram over the top, unnecessarily unfriendly and unconstructive before he was warned", but whether he is still consistently and egregiously so for the past year.

If you want to do a community review, then do it without the taint of secret evidence. Many people have spoken out against Fram publicly in the past and even now, it's clearly not fear of retaliation that's preventing them from doing so, but a lack of trust in the process that led them to T&S. Undo this mistake, fix your process, and if after all that Fram remains a problem, let the proper processes deal with that. 118.189.180.8 ( talk) 13:01, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Taking time served into account for desysops

Proposing a compromise solution that probably satisfies nobody, but doing it anyway.

2?) The behavior shown in the case materials falls below the standards expected for an administrator and in other circumstances may have been grounds for desysop. Taking into consideration the conduct warning given to Fram, his pledge for improvement, and time served for his ban of 1 year, the committee declines to pursue a removal of Fram's sysop userright at this time. Accordingly, Fram's sysop userright is restored to him.

I'm sure someone else could word it better. Combined with the admonishment, you get a solution that doesn't endorse Fram's behavior and sends a message while not prejudicing Fram further and doesn't further delaying the resolution of this case. 118.189.180.8 ( talk) 18:57, 17 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I would support that if we had a current pledge. SilkTork ( talk) 03:13, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

For Fram to be able to pledge to improve further, he needs to know how to what to change. On that matter:

Fram admitting fault and promising improvement doesn't mean he knows what to change

Some arbs believe that that because Fram has received criticism and has made assurances that he will improve, this means that he already knows how to improve. Consider that what Fram believes he needs to change may not be the same things as what this committee believes that he needs to change. As an example, based on the discussion that SilkTork had with Fram at Fram's meta page, Fram maintains that he was in the right in reverting an arb, while SilkTork believes that Fram was wrong to do so. Such incidents need to be spelled out to him with context to explain any sanction.

Except in this case that explaining to Fram in what contexts he was wrong is may be impossible because of contractual secrecy. The proper way to do so is with community provided evidence that can be communicated to Fram, otherwise any sanction here will be only punitive (and taint any RfA).

Making matters worse, while it seems that a majority of the arbs currently believe that Fram is in breach of ADMINCOND, there seems to be little consensus on how Fram breached ADMINCOND.

It seems to me that currently, of the arbs that currently support desysops, some arbs voted because the community submitted evidence shows that Fram is in violation of ADMINCOND, some arbs voted because the totality of partially-redacted and community evidence shows that Fram is in violation, some arbs voted because they doubt that Fram improved because of the 2 incidents post-warning, etc. It isn't still clear as of now whether Fram has improved, whether his improvements are in the right direction, or whether his pledge and subsequent improvement (if any) factored into the decision to sanctions.

Seeing how there is little consensus still about what evidence should be considered to determine whether further sanctions should be placed, I am pessimistic about this case closing any time soon if a desysops decision has to be made. 118.189.180.8 ( talk) 15:20, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SilkTork:, understand that you're trying to point out an example of a behavior you feel needs to change — but is it just your opinion, or is it there consensus that Fram has an AGF problem? Is this AGF problem part of why the committee is pushing for a desysops? Then make it an FoF and word it to justify the desysops. Even if it can't be backed up by diffs, that'll be a vast improvement over the current state.

Also, I would say the reason Fram and many other editors here feel like the desysops decision is WMF influenced isn't because of direct WMF pressure, it's because the desysops decision has been very poorly justified, so it really feels like the committee just wants to be seen doing something to prove to the WMF (or whoever) that they can handle this. The FoF wording change, for whatever reason, doesn't help this perception at all. 118.189.180.8 ( talk) 15:12, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

So to takeaway: As nothing in community evidence supports desysops, desysops is mainly based on T&S evidence. T&S evidence is mostly old. Therefore, as Fram has already pledged to improve his behavior, and from his POV he is already making improvements (one or two minor incidents notwithstanding), there's nothing that he currently needs to change besides to continue to improve per his pledge. 118.189.180.8 ( talk) 03:56, 21 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Regarding SilkTork's comment above ("I would support that if we had a current pledge."): perhaps that could be made here if more arbitrators act now on the proposed temporary injunction that remedy 1A takes effect immediately, or at least unblock for purposes of participation in this case. Why delay in doing that? Jonathunder ( talk) 11:54, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

JBH has said most of how I feel better than I could phrase, but there's one aspect here that I think has to be addressed. Much has been made of Fram having a bee in their bonnet and relentlessly watching and correcting less competent contributors. Here's the big matzoh ball: there's a constant repeatable refrain of Fram receiving no support from the community or the general group of administrators when dealing with these types of editors. The main pattern in the diffs provided is Fram again and again feel like he's having to single-handedly police these problem editors and when they finally does something about it, all they get are crickets and someone saying the equivalent of "how can you be mean? X poster has only had 76 chances to get it right."

The true unblockables aren't rogue admins, the true unblockables are incompetent editors with a few friends guaranteed to speak up in a bloc and defend their friends against any consequences. This whole situation exists because when there was a long-term problematic editor with a poorly disclosed connection with a member of the board and numerous political allies in a Wikimedia chapter who could be summoned any time, the entire Wiki community left Fram to fight this battle all by themself.

Fram was suspended for three months in a fundamentally unfair process, had their name dragged through the mud, and watched constant people swooping in on relevant pages declaring for a fact that they were *obviously* guilty of severe harassment. Fram had to sit there and watch that same board member who hid an insurmountable conflict of interest from the community swoop in and attack Fram and in fact, cast aspersions at everyone who objected to this state of affairs, with zero consequences for that board member. Fram could only sit and watch as the CEO of the WMF, completely disconnected from any knowledge of what was going on, managed to find time to take cheap shots on Twitter to the public.

And the response to this? To get hot-and-bothered that "golly, geez whiz, we can't trust Fram because they haven't pinky-swore on Meta that he'll totes promise to be super nice to problematic users." *That's* what you take from this? Fram deserves a medal for being as patient with this process as they have. Very few people would take this kind of long-term abuse -- and that's exactly what this whole situation amounts to -- anywhere near as well as Fram has, so to be upset that they haven't been quite as diplomatic as they could possibly be is borderline obscene. CoffeeCrumbs ( talk) 16:55, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I share the confusion or unease displayed by some people above. It is to me rather unclear on what grounds individual arbs are currently supporting the desysop. In general, it seems that 4 issues in the last 18 months have been identified, 2 cases of incivility and 2 of admin actions?

1. "Fuck Arbcom" (which is explicitly taken out of the equation by some (most? all?) arbs
2. A slightly sarcastic reply to GiantSnowman, made on my own user talk page after they mistakenly accused me of following them around: we ended up resolving this as adults, acknowledging where and why the communication went South. See here
3. My block of GorillaWarfare for a personal attack, where consensus at ANI was quite clear that it was a bad block ("bad" as in shouldn't have been made, not "bad" as in nefarious abuse of the tools)
4. A 1 month block of MartinEvans for copyvio, which was seen as correct (reason) but way too long

In the FoF 8, the arbs have agreed that "The evidence provided by the community, as summarized on the evidence page, reveals instances of incivility or lack of decorum on Fram's part, but does not reflect any conduct for which a site-ban would be a proportionate response. In addition, the evidence reveals instances in which Fram has made mistakes as an administrator, including the overturned blocks of Martinevans and GorillaWarfare, but does not constitute misuse of administrative tools. " Before the Arbs realised that they have manouvred themselves in a corner they couldn't get out of, they supported in this FoF that the evidence " does not reflect any conduct for which desysopping would be a proportionate response", but instead of proposing a new FoF (8a), they rewrote this to change the meaning quite drastically.

The FoF9 explicitly confirms that, wrt "recent" incivility, only the above two incidents (at most) are considered.

Can the arbs, especially those that support a desysop, confirm which of these 4 incidents actually are their concern and reason to vote for a desysop (apart from the "continuing a pattern from before March 2018" aspect).

I doubt that, if a regular case had been presented at ANI or at ArbCom citing these four diffs as the reason to start a case for a desysop, it would ever have been accepted (the remainder of the evidence is either old or invalid). While these issues show that I won't get the "admin of the month" award and should be more careful in words and deeds sometimes, it is hardly a convincing case to base a desysop on: nothing in it is really egregious, and to call it persistent is rather a stretch as well (certainly for the admin actions, and one uncivil comment per year is hardly a persistent pattern warranting a desysop or a case either). So it feels as if the only reason for a desysop is to appease the WMF, as if a 100-days ban and an admonishment isn't enough. Fram ( talk) 06:59, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

(as an aside, we really need to rethink some aspects as how cases are handled, including this sectioned commenting. The result is that arbs, if they want to reply to questions, must repeat themselves in each section; that people reading this as a page (and not as a series of diffs) can hardly follow what is happening, with people referencing a comment made by someone else far away on the same page, instead of just posting a "yep, I want these answers as well" [39]; that we get disputes about section headers, subheaders allowed or not, ...; that archiving is much harder, resulting in a very long page; and all of this for very few benefits. I understand the sectioned commenting on the case request page, it makes sense there (though the word limit always causes trouble). But on the talk pages of cases, it should be abandoned. What to do with case clerking will have to wait for another post... Fram ( talk) 11:56, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Welcome back to en.wiki Fram. I note your first edit back was to thank those on your user talkpage, which is positive and encouraging; however, your second edit is here, above, where you make an accusation of bad faith to some of the people who played a key role in getting you unbanned: "it feels as if the only reason for a desysop is to appease the WMF". That's, at the mildest, rather disappointing. This ArbCom and this community have been stunned and appalled by what WMF have done, and there are a number who have resigned not just their positions of trust, but also Wikipedia itself, because of that action. There are tensions and frictions and divisions in the community, and particularly between the en.wiki community and the Foundation. After talking with you I genuinely feel you are not someone who intentionally sets out to harm the project. I feel you are a good person. Strong. Committed. Honest. Far from someone who is here to harm the project or the community. People are looking for what you will say, and in your first significant post where you can publicly acknowledge what the community and ArbCom have been doing, and start a healing process, you make a statement that is more likely to stir the pot and be divisive. Now, you can say what you like (within reason). But it is these little niggly, needling, pointless posts that attack people's integrity and honesty that tend to irritate people, and which are at the base of concerns about you. You keep asking for evidence of why some people are concerned about you, and here it is. So there is no avoidance of doubt about the situation, and to underline why your accusation is unhelpful: I made it clear to T&S and the Foundation that I felt their banning of you was out of process. My colleagues did the same. We wrote a public letter. We made comments on Wikipedia and by email to the Foundation and T&S, indicating that we felt the ban was out of process. We overturned the ban unanimously. So, I am supporting the desysop not to give in to any demands by WMF (indeed, I am totally unaware of any requests or suggestions or demands by the WMF that we bias our decision making process in favour of a desysop), but because I feel there are concerns in the community that you sometimes say things that are not just unhelpful, but can be demotivating, and this is not something that I feel is appropriate in an admin. I'm not at all sure you will take this on board, especially in the current climate, but I thought it appropriate to point it out. Again. Welcome back. I know you will do good work here. SilkTork ( talk) 13:13, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I was not aware that any Arbs resigned because they were "stunned and appalled by what WMF have done". I do know that there are some arbs who have so far given very, very weak reasons for the desysop (if one claims that the desysop is for the civility issue, and also claims that the "Fuck Arbcom" comment doesn't come into play, then that means that the only actual reason for a desysop is supposedly my comment to GiantSnowman on my user talk page. Right...), who in words supported the unban but did nothing to actually make it happen (but at the same time didn't oppose or abstain the actual motion, but simply ignored it), arbs who made incomprehensible statements and refused to do anything about it when this was pointed out, arbs who made personal attacks, an arbcom who didn't have the rights to reveal anything of the T&S document unless it suited them (until you finally tried to use it for its actual purpose, which was way too late but otherwise useful), ...

My post here was not "pointless", on the contrary. If expressing how I feel, how this whole episode comes across, is "pointless", then that is a sad state of affairs. Apparently it is perfectly allright for you arbs to use "evidence", "findings of fact" which boils down to "some people feel unhappy about Fram, but don't provide actual evidence for their claims", but when I post that I am unhappy about ArbCom because of X, Y and Z, it suddenly is unacceptable? All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal, something like that?

Oh, and perhaps you can also answer the fundamental points of my post, i.e. the actual reasons for the desysop, instead of focusing only on the one sentence showing how I feel about this whole situation. "I made it clear to T&S and the Foundation that I felt their banning of you was out of process. My colleagues did the same. We wrote a public letter. We made comments on Wikipedia and by email to the Foundation and T&S, indicating that we felt the ban was out of process. We overturned the ban unanimously." You got permission to take over the case and do with it as you pleased two months ago. You, and all you colleagues, couldn't be bothered to answer, even once, to the requests by me and by many others about why I couldn't be unblocked to participate in the case only, or at the very least have my talk page access restored so I could comment from there. Yes, in words you condemned the ban, but in practice you as a committee tried your very hardest to keep it in place until the case was over, and only the pressure of non-arbs here made an actual change. So no, I don't really am expressing my gratitude to ArbCom in glowing terms, and have no plans to do so.

"you sometimes say things that are not just unhelpful, but can be demotivating, and this is not something that I feel is appropriate in an admin. " Too bad, it often is necessary to point out the truth, even if it is demotivating. Just like keeping someone banned for 100 days without good reason is rather unhelpful and demotivating, just like nitpicking over one sentence where an editor then expresses his impression of these unfortunate events is rather demotivating. If you want to desysop me over community concerns, then you aren't doing your job right. Create an evidence / workshop / FoF chain where you have actual, serious cases of me being "unhelpful and demotivating", preferably without good reason, and then you would have the necessary evidence to discuss a desysop. "Some people are unhappy" though is, I hope, still not an acceptable reason to desysop (and not really much better than "the WMF wants it"). Fram ( talk) 13:34, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

"What is the difference between making a guess and Wikipedia:Casting aspersions? I think it's when the guess is both baseless (going against reasonable evidence and assumption) and damaging (especially if not challenged). That appears to me to be the case here. SilkTork ( talk) 14:47, 19 September 2019 (UTC)" Let's see: I have been banned for 100 days, and will likely remain desysoped if the Arbs have their way. The evidence this is based upon is very, very thin. Repeated requests to plainly give the actual evidence (not some people's opinions) each Arb considers serious enough to warrant the desysop have mostly been met with total silence. But when one, not really very farfetched, possibility is given which I feel may be beneath all this, that assumption goes "against reasonable evidence" (which is lacking). Perhaps, if basic questions had been answered a long time ago instead of leaving people wondering and scratching their head about the discrepancy between the evidence and the FoFs and remedies, and about the addition of evidence after the workshop phase had been close, and about the changing of unanimously accepted FoFs because they obstructed the preferred solution... perhaps then you wouldn't have people speculating about why you are all acting so strange (though not all to the same degree). What I feel is not the only possible answer, and it may be the wrong answer, but it is rather unfair to claim that it goes against reasonable evidence. reply

Why would it be so outlandish to get the impression (rightly or wrongly) that what ArbCom has been trying to do for the last 100 days is on the one hand appease enwiki ("look at us going against T&S in our open letter and by eventually overturning the ban after 100 days!), and on the other hand appease T&S ("no need to intervene, look at how firmly we deal with minor problems from now on, desysop based on unhappy people is the new normal!"). It may be totally wrong, or it may only be the case for some of you, but don't you think it may be important to know how people feel about you?

Considering how you all are so concerned about how people feel about me, and accept such statements without any actual diff in them as sanctionable evidence against me, isn't it weird how a statement about how someone feels about you suddenly is such a big issue?

Now, can we get back to the actual questions? Fram ( talk) 15:04, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Is FoF15 intended as a reply to the numerous questions asking for specific reasons (with diffs) why some of you support a desysop? Because, well, it is completely free of any concrete, actionable information. It is not a "Finding of Fact", it is an "Expresssion of Opinion". The supports are big on words like "evidence", but sadly any actual evidence is totally lacking. Shame. I guess the RfA will have to be a referendum about how the community feels about ArbCom continuing the work of T&S by desysoping someone without providing the evidence to support that decision, and where the actually available evidence is extremely weak. Fram ( talk) 06:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I said above "What to do with case clerking will have to wait for another post...". I guess the only answers will be abandoning it or limiting it to pure clerking, i.e. counting stuff, not let then become some class of super-civility police with instant block rights. One critic down, three others who have posted the exact same thing presumably in the line of fire, all over this?. Does anyone from the arbs or clerks really think taking these actions will improve anything at all? Was that comment really worse than e.g. someone being called "unpleasant, uncollegial, and arrogant" or "not particulary incisive". Or does the civility police only work in one direction? Fram ( talk) 17:56, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I just want to echo what @CoffeeCrumbs and jburnley has said. From someone who can be considered detached from the arbcom and administrator related issues, I would be more confident in Wikipedia if collaboration do not necessairily lead to collusion and preferential concern towards personality and politics over the content improvement. This is just a general thought I believe will be good for Wikipedia and 'community health'. Especially, if people are treated fairly and policies do not always conflict with one another that implementation can be considered unfair and at the whims of an individual's biases or mood. If people are not been treated fairly a mechanism can be devised that an outcome will lead to the improvement of content on Wikipedia. I am saying this because I believe more than two thirds of problems are systemic and need holistic approach to problem solving. For example, there has been a shift towards enforcement of policies over content improvement. I suspect a reason Fram was never banned is because he has always been enforcing part of wiki's policies, sometimes harshly but still enforcing the policies, and honestly I believe that line of thought has significant support and will always have support within the community. Dreadfully, it can be worse if a code of conduct is implemented. Rightly or wrongly, I think it is partly because Western related content are becoming 'full'. This policies sometimes contradict one another, Fram seems to be a few at the apex of enforcing policies. So at the closing of this case, should editors or administrators still enforce policies or certain policies harshly with has much fire in their belly?

My advice is that administrators can get together and hash out which ever policy they can follow to take control of cases whereby another administrator may be treating an editor harshly and help the editor improve content according to wikpedia's 100 hundred pillars. In a situation Jburnley has mentioned we may have a case here in which content was partially improved, one editor gone and one banned for three months and few neutral people will want to continue to improve those published content.

In addition, voice my opposition to that RFC on harassment until WMF has a policy that prohibit it from monitoring the activities of editors without the full knowledge of those editors. And other personal reasons that relates to my opinion that this case is more about ego and personality and politics than harassment, harassment should be treated with concern not to win fights and play politics.

Alexplaugh12 ( talk) 19:32, 19 September 2019 (UTC). reply

I had a tough time deciding whether I wanted to comment on this case or not. I haven't really interacted with Fram that much, although in the few times that they and I have interacted, it was nothing short of collegial, as it has been with my interactions with almost all editors here. At the time Fram was banned, I was in the middle of a long term wikibreak to finish teaching during the school year and ease into teaching summer school courses. By the time I returned, I returned to a project that was embroiled in controversy. It was disheartening to see so many editors that put countless hours of time and effort into improving this great project leave it because of this controversy. This controversy will eventually pass, but the loss of editors and talent from it will have a lasting effect on the project. And that's the one thing that no ArbCom case can fix.

I don't envy the work that ArbCom had to do with this case, and unfortunately, I don't see a solution to the desysop issue that doesn't cause the committee members to end up pilloried by the community in one way or another. To each and every arbitrator, you have my heartfelt thanks for taking on a truly thankless job. OhKayeSierra ( talk) 00:52, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I should also add that I think one of the fundamental questions to the desysop issue that should be asked is "Is Fram acting in their capacity as an administrator a net positive to the project?" OhKayeSierra ( talk) 01:09, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I believe the clerking on this page has gotten a little over-zealous. While some individuals could certainly do a better job of moderating their tone, this is a particularly poor time for strict clerking. Our current climate is heavily charged with resentment towards both real and perceived misuse of power and the removal of criticism that is not egregiously over the line is an action likely to further fan the flames. I respect that the clerks have a difficult job and some of the backlash they are receiving is unfair, but it would be helpful if moderation was carried out a little more, er, moderately. Lepricavark ( talk) 19:16, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Lepricavark, there is a fine line between criticism and insults. Criticism of the committee on case pages is expected, and often even appreciated. Insults are not. I realize this is a subjective decision, and it's impossible to enforce consistently, but in this case it was pretty straightforward. GoldenRing removed a comment that he deemed a personal attack. It was then restored twice by the same person, once more by someone else, and then two other people posted it with their own signature. This is obviously quite disruptive.

The orderly way to appeal clerks' decisions is by email to ArbCom, or to start a discussion somewhere (perhaps the clerks' noticeboard), but not to revert the clerks. – bradv 🍁 19:29, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Bradv the only portion of the reverted text that I believe can be genuinely considered an insult is the part that goes: it would have been overturned by any sensible body. Unfortunately, it went to ArbCom. The rest of it is criticism, albeit strongly-worded criticism, and not insults. On the balance, I don't think that one excerpt was bad enough to justify removal. Lepricavark ( talk) 20:08, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Agreed. Edit warring with the clerks is not helpful here. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 19:37, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I was not endorsing the edit-warring. As for the rest, I've said my piece. Lepricavark ( talk) 19:56, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The case is closed & the rest is up to the community. Very interested, to see the pending result. GoodDay ( talk) 19:33, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Please count me in as one of the "cynical observers" that Jehochman refers to. Fram has stated his "feelings" in a restrained and civil manner. I suspect that I am not the only person who agreed with Fram's "feelings" before he stated them and has wondered for many days if the poorly-evidenced attempt at a desysop is the result of pressure (by WMF) on Arbcom to "punish" Fram in some manner. Silktork's strong (and lengthy reaction!) to Fram's statement seems to support this conclusion: "look, he's doing it again." I am sorry, @ SilkTork:, but this appears to be an overreaction. Frankly, it is not the "honesty and integrity" of Arbcom that is so much in question, but the lack of same in the WMF.

Up and down this disjointed page, people have been asking for better quality evidence to support the desysop, which has not been provided in a satisfactory manner, based on precedence. Others repeatedly have expressed their dissatifaction with the evidence given. Where is the misuse of tools? How will a desysop serve as a preventative rather than a punishment? I think this desysop will, quite rightly, be seen as a new precedence, and a punishment. So much of this case has been wildly divergent from standard procedure. Deciding to desysop based on seemingly new precedence, without community discussion/agreement of same, is a bridge too far. Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 21:43, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

To be extremely clear: there was zero input, interaction, consultation, or whatever else you want to call it, from WMF on this case. We were never contacted about the case at any stage after the initial handoff, let alone pressured to make a decision any which way. The only interaction after the handoff was the email exchange confirming the injunction could go forward, which we initiated. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 22:01, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Premeditated Chaos: Thank you for this clear statement. It is good to know that you did not receive any direct pressure from the WMF. The fact that a powerful entity has interfered with our self-governance causes concern. In view of the acknowledged fact that the original desysop was merely an artifact of the WMF ban, I appreciate your confirmation that the responsibility for this desysop lies solely with the committee members who voted in favor. Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 06:44, 21 September 2019 (UTC) reply

One part of the decision is "RfC regarding on-wiki harassment". As I see no open RfCs of the kind - but there is a Community consultation - and other wikis has been informed (like w:ru:Википедия:Форум/Новости#The_consultation_on_partial_and_temporary_Foundation_bans_just_started) - would it be correct to assume that this is the chosen consultation format? Or these are two independent things and the RfC from English ArbCom will be somewhere in the future as well? -- Neolexx ( talk) 19:39, 30 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm sure they are independent. I don't see why they can't run concurrently, but perhaps there is discussion about the wording. I hope it's open-ended, as in, "How should the movement address harassment?" and just let it run. We don't need another dozen leading sub-questions with amateur-hour attempts at bias. EllenCT ( talk) 06:27, 4 October 2019 (UTC) reply

An RfC on enwiki is coming, though I'm not aware of any schedule at this point. GoldenRing ( talk) 07:25, 4 October 2019 (UTC) reply

The committee is still working on the RfC, but it is independent of the WMF RfC - both of which are mentioned in the final decision. Worm^TT( talk) 08:29, 4 October 2019 (UTC) reply