Wikipedia talk:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram

Prior participant pings

Pinging all participants/mentions to this discussion while it was at WP:BN in case they want to watch the page. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Time to move?

The WMF's actions here have rightly sparked outrage, and deserve a coordinated and considered response from as many members of the community as possible. As this thread is now sprawling, to aid a clear and structured discussion I suggest setting up a dedicated page (titled Wikipedia:Community response to Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram or similar), then advertise it through utilities such as WP:CENT and MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages as previously suggested.

Once the discussion has been moved, we should focus on drafting a letter or petition akin to meta:Letter to Wikimedia Foundation: Superprotect and Media Viewer requesting the WMF undo their ban and instead pursue sanctions through usual community processes. More radical proposals such as banning WMF accounts, an administrator strike or halting Main Page activities can also be discussed, but I fear these may not achieve a complete consensus. – Teratix ₵ 11:39, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Teratix:, possibly, though I'm concerned with us coming up with an answer, and then having the community board members tells us (post the board meeting on the 14th June), that actually, the WMF's actions were justified and justifiably vague. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I am betting against it. ∯WBG^converse 11:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

That scenario can be considered if and when it happens, and if the board does come up and say "actually, the WMF were justified for reason X" – great! But until it does, based on what we know currently I'm struggling to envisage a scenario where the ban has been competently handled all the way through. Assuming Fram is accurately representing the series of events (and until he is contradicted I see no reason to doubt this) there was absolutely no reason to bypass usual community processes, which is the core of the issue, and a one-year ban with no course of appeal for minor to moderate civility violations (possibly even justified, though I haven't looked deeply at the disputes in question) is grossly disproportionate. – Teratix ₵ 12:06, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Yes please, I'm fine at least temporary translcuding the page here so people can find it easily and pinging the prior participants on the new page's talk. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  I concur that moving is probably a good idea. In the interest of avoiding edit conflicts - I will perform this move, and will transclude the resulting discussion here when finished. Primefac (talk) 12:17, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Primefac: thanks for doing the dirty work here, but wouldn't this be better off as a talk page to an actual proposal/statement? This jumble is hardly that. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

People still haven't even figured out what they want to propose. Not sure throwing this on a talk page will do any good. Primefac (talk) 13:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Secondary discussion

Would it be feasible to get a watchlist notice on this? Get more people than the usual policy wonks here to weigh in? —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 10:15, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Up until yesterday, this page received about the same number of pageviews as my errors page. Let's reach out to the whole community. Perhaps we can add something to the main page........ The Rambling Man (talk) 10:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I have mentioned this proposal at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages. If there is no opposition it can be added. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Maybe someone can edit T:CENT and add a link to here, and/or announce on the usual dramaboards. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 10:38, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Idealy we would have a coherent objective (petition, !vote to use sitenotice, whatever).©Geni (talk) 10:47, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Somebody open an arbcom case against User:WMF Office; that will force hands one way or another. 5.69.233.115 (talk) 11:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)x2 The Committee has no jurisdiction over: (i) official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation or its staff;. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 11:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  No. But it can take notice of conduct outside its jurisdiction when making decisions about conduct on the English Wikipedia if such outside conduct impacts or has the potential to impact adversely upon the English Wikipedia or its editors. Even exemplary on-wiki conduct will not prevent a ban for off-wiki harassment, and as far as arbcom jurisdiction is concerned, "official action" and "off-wiki action" are in the same bucket. In the Media Viewer RfC case, I was going to propose a remedy desysopping the (then-) WMF employee had he not resigned his tools. T. Canens (talk) 13:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• I don't think a watchlist notice is beneficial, but a CENT notice definitely is. Nosebagbear (talk)
• I don't really have much to say here (and I'm still on the fence on any possible action so I'll not comment on any of the above sections for now), other than that the lack of transparency from the WMF on the matter is worrying, especially after reading Fram's comments. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• As noted below, this discussion is going to be moved elsewhere, which presumably makes such a thing easier. That being said, while the message is "The WMF did a bad thing to en.wiki," I would think the optics are closer to "The WMF did a bad thing to an admin." At least at this juncture, when the leading proposal is "go bonkers" rather than something concrete, I would think such a notice would appear to be closing ranks. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
• Now the discussion has been moved I have listed it on CENT – this issue clearly needs widespread community input. – Teratix ₵ 13:10, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• (merged from a standalone comment) There has been some talk of advertising this discussion. I suggest it gets added to T:CENT but as it is currently worded as a "single user issue" that watchlist or "higher" type notifications are unwarranted. Should a general RfC about community/foundation interactions be formulated, I'd support wider advertisement. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

What do we want?

If we're going to issue a statement to the WMF, we need to have a clear ask. There's a few proposals on the main page already to the effect of "here's what we're going to do", but I don't see much discussion of what we're actually asking for. I have some thoughts: (these aren't proposals, just brainstorming)

1. Immediately rescind Fram's unilateral office ban?

   ... and then proceed with WP:LEVEL2 procedures?

2. Condemn the behind-closed-doors action of the Trust & Safety team, in an instance where privacy does not appear to have been an issue?

   Community ban T&S' staff accounts, for violating our community banning policy?

   Demand the resignation/termination of Trust & Safety?

3. Demand that the Wikimedia Foundation defer to the enwiki community and/or the Arbitration Committee for local matters, as a first step?

   ... assert that the WMF has no authority to impose local bans at all?

Feel free to add to the list, or discuss below. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

1 and the first part of 2 at a minimum. – Teratix ₵ 14:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I for one would like T&S to focus on actual safety issues, in particular child protection, and commit to not involving themselves in civility policing or otherwise interfering with or overruling the processes we have in place for routine disputes among editors. 28bytes (talk) 14:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)