There are some non-controversial facts that apply:
* The WMF was created to operationally support the projects, by design
it is not a police force for social conduct, even though it may have a
duty to remove unlawful content
* There is no consensus with the English Wikipedia community for WMF
employees to use role accounts for social conduct issues that might be
otherwise handled by other administrators, oversight or Arbcom
requests
* Policies developed away from the English Wikipedia community such as
for Safe Spaces and the Technical Code of Conduct would require
consensus on the English Wikipedia to become applicable on that
project
The one year WMF Office English Wikipedia ban of Fram overturns these
prior understandings of how our community works collegially with the
WMF. It is hard to conceive of any eventuality where Fram's months in
advance WMF warnings could not have been reviewed with Arbcom, and if
WMF T&S then thought action was needed, that there was some new legal
or confidential issue that stopped them choosing to escalate as a
confidential request to Arbcom. Any Arbcom approved sanction against
Fram based on the evidence would not be controversial for anyone.
The fundamental difference between an Arbcom sanction and a WMF Office
ban, is that:
1. Fram would have the opportunity to contribute to the review of evidence
2. Fram would be able to follow a well defined appeal procedure
3. The English Wikipedia community elected Arbcom for this specific
role, and consequently actions taken via Arbcom motion have automatic
community support
4. If the English Wikipedia's policies are inadequate or not being
implemented correctly, including administrator conduct, Arbcom can and
does recommend improvement to the community
Peter's comments below are just factually correct. For sanctions to be
considered "justice", there has to be governing processes that ensure
all evidence which can be safely published is published and subject to
public scrutiny and all sanctions must have a process for appeal. As
the Wikipedia article on natural justice puts it "The right to a fair
hearing requires that individuals should not be penalized by decisions
affecting their rights or legitimate expectations unless they have
been given prior notice of the case, a fair opportunity to answer it,
and the opportunity to present their own case." The current and
significantly extended use of the secretive WMF Office role account,
fails to meet those basic expectations.
After the dramah dies down, let's hope that meaningful lessons are
learned and the WMF takes the opportunity to revisit whether they want
to pay employees to act as social police officers with ban hammers, or
instead solve these problems by working with the community to improve
local policies to make the projects more welcoming and more civil
places to volunteer our time.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_justice
--
faewik(a)gmail.com
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
On Wed, 12 Jun 2019 at 12:13, Peter Southwood
<peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net> wrote:
I don’t think that is the point at all.
For justice to be accepted as justice, it must be comprehensible. The process was badly
flawed, and instead of sending a message that T&S was looking after our trust and
safety, it sent a message that anyone could be blocked without reference to our internal
processes and without explanation of the reasons. The notification supplied after the fact
was by an unidentified functionary and consisted of a boilerplate non-explanation. Not
helping either.
This could reasonably be described as a PR blunder. An exercise in opacity. A failure to
communicate of noteworthy proportions. Another brick in the wall between the enwiki
community and WMF. Maybe WMF just don’t care, and consider us all expendable. It certainly
looks like it. That is kind of worrying to those of us actually trying to build an
encyclopaedia. In spite of all his alleged defects, I see Fram as one of those.
Anyone reasonably familiar with the dramaboards will recognise that not everyone taking
exception to this action are friends of Fram. Several would probably have supported a
desysopping and/or a block, but never without due and visible process and not without talk
page access or no right to appeal.
Your mileage may differ. I judge on what information is available to me. I do not just
accept what someone tells me, I try to check. One gets that way after working on Wikipedia
for a while. One gets to know what a reliable source is likely to look like, and keeps a
lookout for disinformation and non-answers. Read what is available before passing
judgement on those who have taken that step.
Cheers,
Peter
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