User talk:Fram

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

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

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

Copy over Commons discussions?

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

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

Emails

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

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

Thinking out loud

I'm reading all discussions at en:Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram with a lot of interest, of course. One of the main problems seem to be finding a good way to show your disagreement with the way the WMF handled this (no matter if you agree with the actual sanction or not), since most of you don't want to "destroy" enwiki to spite the WMF.

I agree that letting in attack pages, BLP violations, ... is bad because it creates innocent victims. So I tried to think of something which wouldn't make enwiki worse (for factual credibility), wouldn't include BLP attacks and the like (or not more than usual), but would still, if widespread enough, cause problems or embarassment for the WMF. An added bonus is that is one of the topics I regularly worked on.

So, what if enwiki admins made it clear that, out of fear of being accused of harassment, stalking, nah, simply persistence and looking at too many edits by one editor, they are no longer going to take any action against copyright violations?

Mark G12 and CCI as "historical". If someone asks, tell them that enwiki is no longer feeling "comfortable" going after copyright violations and that contributors may feel persecuted if you remove their contributions simply because they are not written by themselves.

Does that mean that I argue that copyvios should be allowed on enwiki? No, of course not, don't be silly (oops, attack phrase there!). It simply means that the WMF will have to pay some professionals to deal with this problem from now on. Which obviously they're good at, so that will be a walk in the park!

Seriously, what's the actual harm to enwiki readers and subjects (apart from some minuscule monetary loss to whoever wrote the original?) Why do we even bother with removing copyvio's? Mainly to protect the WMF, not to get a better encyclopedia, as you don't necessarily get a better encyclopedia by rewriting and summarizing bits instead of simply copying bits.

It won't make the WMF tremble in their shoes of course, but every small bit might help? Fram (talk) 21:29, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

• Fram, as you know I'm not your biggest fan. But wow, is this a really bad idea that's likely to cut off sympathy for your cause. I'd urge you to retract and apologize for suggesting this. (It was just posted on EN.WP:ANI). Hobit (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Hobit: This wasn't posted on ANI, it was posted (by me) at en:WP:FRAM. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 17:28, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

  • Have you made the same demands for apologies from anyone suggesting this or worse? As there have been many much more damaging suggestions than simply not removing copyvios and letting WMF deal with these instead. Not removing copyvio's is about the least damaging thing we can do, no idea why you consider this especially a "really bad idea" and not e.g. calls to close down all bots or to simply go on a general strike. Fram (talk) 17:45, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
    • Feel free to ignore it. Certainly not a demand. I'm trying to be helpful. My sense is you may have just shot yourself in the foot. But I could easily be wrong.

The difference is that you're the person people are so upset about. If you make it "hurt the encyclopedia in my name" I think it tarnishes you and is just generally poor PR. But again, I could be wrong and probably should have just let it pass. Sorry to bother you with this. Hobit (talk) 17:58, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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