Fram blocked by User:WMFOffice for 1 year

[Vigilant]

Had they permabanned him, site wide, this would have been a far smaller issue.

Core of the issue. Not related to your ban, not related to admin bit really. There would not be issue if the ban was global.

Expect the next 'troublemaker' to eat a full SanFranBan regardless of the 'evidence'.

[SixOClock]

Had they permabanned him, site wide, this would have been a far smaller issue.

Core of the issue. Not related to your ban, not related to admin bit really. There would not be issue if the ban was global.

Expect the next 'troublemaker' to eat a full SanFranBan regardless of the 'evidence'.

No argument. The community took up arms because of the limited ban.

[Vigilant]

Fram really should send a SAR to the WMF.

Trust and Safety produced the dossier.
Their work materials will likely prove illuminating.
The SanFranBan approval process and obvious lack of due diligence must be in there.

Who knew what and when did they know it.
#FramGate

[Vigilant]

Well...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... _by_motion

Request for reversal of vanishing &/ ban by motion

I do not think this is appropriate for a case request and the attendant drama so I'll try it here instead. This request is two parts. Neither in my opinion require a case and may simply be done by motion. I really am trying to be sensitive here but I believe strongly that not examining the roots of this whole mess will be far more toxic to the community than allowing easy scrutiny.

Per my comments and reasoning here please reverse the vanishing of Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr. I believe I have made a prima facie case that the vanishing was done expressly to avoid scrutiny. There is evidence that other, active, editors may be open to community or Arbcom sanction but it would be very difficult for the community to do should this account remain vanished. The delete/move of the account's talk page made this even more difficult so, regardless of the outcome, please put it back in its proper place.

The intent of this is to allow the edits and behavior of those active editors which may have facilitated this mess to be examined. I believe these interactions may give some clue to the genesis of FRAMGATE and the vanishing will allow the editor in question to avoid scrutiny both by the community and any interested parties who may be unfamiliar with the arcana of Wikipedia. In particular subpages.

Since there are now many issues relating to the user that is Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr I request that, regardless of the outcome of the unvanishing request, that the user be banned by motion. This will insure that she is unable to return to editing until the community/Arbcom are able to address the issues which have been raised. If she truly does not want to return then being banned will not be an issue.

I have purposely used much less detail than is customary because the vanished user is unlikely to speak in her own defense. I can recast the material I linked to specifically address the issues raised re this user upon request should you find the linked material and reasoning unpersuasive. Jbh Talk 21:29, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Fair point.

[Beeblebrox]

My guess is that the 'Fram reverting BU Rob' incident made a big impression on SilkTork (and other arbs) because BU Rob kicked up a massive fuss about it on the mailing list. Quite possibly other arbs told him he was over-reacting.

He really was not ready to be an arb if that shook him that much. I don't know how one decides they want to run when they have such a poor understanding of the shit that arbs go through.

[Vigilant]

All of the people listed on this page should be considered as pair editors without disclosure on en.wp and should be questioned about edits made on behalf of an external entity.

Project Structure and Management

Paralympic Games 1972 in Heidelberg. Graphics by Schwarz. First Day of Issue / Erstausgabetag: 18. Juli 1972. This stamp is in the public domain in Germany because it was released by Deutsche Bundespost on behalf of the Federal Minister of Post and Telecommunication and thus is an official work according to German copyright law (§ 5 Abs. 1 UrhG).
We are proposing an inclusive approach in this project. At the time of the submission of the tender (25 March 2011) the following roles are allocated in this project:

Project Managers

We have identified two distinct project management roles and nominate two individuals to fulfill these roles throughout the life of the project. Both Project Managers will assure the ongoing viability and stability of the project.

Keith Lyons

Director of UCNISS will be responsible for:
Oversight of project timelines, meetings, events, production, communications and reporting
Networking and promotion of the project
Quality assurance of the whole project and primary point of contact for the APC

Leigh Blackall

Learning Commons Coordinator with UCNISS will be responsible for:
Representing the project to Wikimedia Australia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikibooks, and the Wikimedia Foundation community outreach programs.

Sport Historians

Sport historians will be responsible for primary research, gathering resources, reviewing for accuracy and consistency, structuring and writing content, referencing, linking and editing. They will be supported by the Librarians and Copy Writers. We extend an open invitation to any sport historian to join this group.

UCNISS is developing a keen interest in Australian sport history and has a number of PhD projects underway at present. This open proposal seeks to build upon the ethnographic research experience of Keith Lyons and the historical research credentials of proposed contributors that include:

Greg Blood

Bruce Coe

Robin Poke

Each of these contributors is a highly regarded sport historian with excellent local, national and international contexts. Greg is a member of staff at the Australian Institute of Sport and has been a librarian at the Australian Sports Commission since 1983. Bruce is completing a PhD on the life of E S Marks. Robin is undertaking a PhD in the history of Australian Rowing. Since 2007 Robin has been an interviewer for the National Library of Australia’s Sport Oral History project, which has involved him in interviews with Australia’s first Paralympians. All three are members of the Australian Capital Territory Chapter of the Australian Society of Sports History.

Robin McConnell

Robin has significant historical research experience most recently applied in his project, Sport in Prisoner of War Camps. He has researched the History of Rugby in New Zealand. He has supervised postgraduate research in sport history, and has taught the history of sport at University of Ulster. Robin has written about the Special Olympics and is the author of a study of a Maori leader Taua of Kareponia (Te Maru Publications 1993). Robin is an external examiner of sport history PhDs.

Wayne Goldsmith

Wayne will work with Keith Lyons to coordinate the work of the sport historians and will take a lead role in gathering data for the project. Wayne will use his extensive experience of social media to ensure that the project has a strong user focus. He will have an important day-to-day role in content delivery.

Nigel Thomas

To ensure that our work meets international benchmark standards we have secured the services of Nigel Thomas (Staffordshire University) as the senior editorial consultant for the project. Nigel is the co-author (with Andy Smith) of Disability, sport and society: an introduction (2009).

Librarians

Librarians will support the Sport Historians in sourcing material, checking for and negotiating copyright, digitisation and formatting to open standards, uploading media and ensuring appropriate meta data, linking and categorisation is included. They are supported by the Copy Writers. We propose:

John Vandenberg

John is the President of Wikimedia Australia and will assist in managing the collection of APC media on Wikimedia Commons. John presently manages the State Library of Queensland project where several thousand images where loaded to Wikimedia Commons and are presently being categorised and integrated into Wikipedia. John also created extension software to Media Wiki, that can automate many processes we will need to undertake in the initial preparation of content and its uploading.

Pat Tandy

Pat is University of Canberra's Faculty of Health Liaison Librarian. Pat's brief is to assist with research work, helping us find primary and secondary resources across Australia's library data bases, including the National Library, Archive and others.

Copy Writers

Copy writers support the Sport Historians in formatting text to MediaWiki text, linking, and copy editing. They support the Librarians in uploading, formatting to open standards, meta data, linking and categorisation. We propose as copy writers:

Graham Pearce

Perth, Western Australia
Wikipedia administrator
Expert in the use of Media Wikis with a Screen Reader

Laura Hale

PhD student with UCNISS
UCNISS Undergraduate students
Once this project is worked into existing assessment assignments in their units

Trainers

Trainers support the APC Liaison with work on community awareness campaigns. They go to regional centres around Australia to meet with Australian Paralympic Community members, to show them how to edit Wikibooks, Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia. In this role they also support the Librarians and Historians in gathering media and primary resources. They monitor the Wikibooks and Commons pages relating to the project, and provide online support for anyone contributing. We propose the following trainers:

Graham Pearce

Perth, Western Australia
Wikipedia administrator
Expert in the use of Media Wikis with a Screen Reader

Laura Hale

PhD student with UCNISS
Wikimedia Australia
A committee with resources for training Australian's in the use of Media Wikis

Project Reporters

Project Reporters support the Project Managers in documenting the project, and the APC Liaison in setting up the forum and publishing updates to it. They prepare press releases for mainstream media, and participate in research work. They also monitor social media and public relations generally. Our proposals for project reporters are:

Keith Lyons
Director of UCNISS, and sport blogger

Leigh Blackall

Learning Commons Coordinator with UCNISS

Laura Hale

PhD student with UCNISS

Project Advisor

We recognise that the project needs a high level of quality assurance particularly in relation to access to the information we present. In addition to Graham Pearce's role we have identified Michele Fleming as a key member of our team. Michele is the Dean of Students and Director of the Student Equity and Support Unit at the University of Canberra Disability Service. Michele has responsibility for elite athletes at the University of Canberra. At present she is the second investigator on an ALTC research grant that aims to develop an online tool for the Higher Education sector on the Disability Standards for Education. Michelle is working to ensure that all of the University's web content meets accessibility requirements. The University of Canberra Library has considerable experience of the support for diverse learning needs and through Pat Tandy will advise the Project team about accessibility better practice.

APC Liaison

We will work closely with the APC and nominated APC liaison personnel throughout this project.

Given the execrable content created in this project funded with Australian tax payer dollars, it seems reasonable to contact those individuals in academia who facilitated the creation of these, largely incorrect, articles in volume for their own ends.

Also, notice how Laura Hale and Graham Pearce are triple dipping by appearing under multiple headings.
I would STRONGLY suspect that any investigation into their billing and time tracking practices will immediately turn up criminal fraud.

[Vigilant]

Jorm aka Brandon Harris is still butthurt about Fram

I don't understand why it is difficult for people to grasp the concept of "yeah, the behavior wasn't bad enough for them to be sent to prison, but we don't want them working here, either." We see instances of this all the time in the real world. Again, I post this link to Fram's entire contribution history on mediawiki.org, which should tell you all that you need to know about their behavior. Admittedly, this isn't on enwiki, but that kind of wikilawyering is exactly why no one trusts anyone to actually do jack or shit. --Jorm (talk) 16:32, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Names to faces

I mean, just look at HOW COOL he is.
Sadly, long hair and stupid tattoos do not make someone a good software engineer.



Yeah Brandon,

I know he shot your feeble work to pieces, but that's what customers get to do.
You produced utter garbage and tried to foist it onto en.wp.
You got your shit packed in for your trouble.
I understand that you're still upset.
You are a shit developer and always have been.

I see you trying to poison the well with your salty, salty tears, but Fram's not on review for his behavior on mediawiki.
Molly sees that too.

Your friend,
Vigilant

P.S. In reference to our previously unconcluded business, I say that, "you are an unreconstructed Nazi," and I would still love to have fisticuffs with you. Time and place, chickenshit.

[Kumioko]

My guess is that the 'Fram reverting BU Rob' incident made a big impression on SilkTork (and other arbs) because BU Rob kicked up a massive fuss about it on the mailing list. Quite possibly other arbs told him he was over-reacting.

He really was not ready to be an arb if that shook him that much. I don't know how one decides they want to run when they have such a poor understanding of the shit that arbs go through.

I'd say we agree on this. He wasn't ready to be an admin either.

[Vigilant]

22:02, 17 March 2015 Jalexander-WMF talk contribs changed status for global account "User:Jorm (WMF)@global": set locked; unset (none) (No longer with WMF)

Sad trombone...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... _2014.webm
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Design/Archive/Athena

Lol
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... a_2013.jpg

Professional
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... -03-08.jpg


JOINGO!
https://rocketreach.co/joingo-profile_b5d05a57f42e4064

Facebook

Brandon Harris
September 6 at 2:29 PM ·
I want to comment on the Framgate case with only a link to their mediawiki contribs.

So, so salty!

[Giraffe Stapler]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... Courcelles

Resignation of Courcelles

Effective immediately, Courcelles (talk · contribs) has resigned from the Arbitration Committee. He has also relinquished the CheckUser and Oversight permissions. The Committee sincerely thanks Courcelles for his service and wishes him well.

For the Arbitration Committee,

WormTT(talk) 22:58, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

[Jbhunley]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... Courcelles

Resignation of Courcelles

Effective immediately, Courcelles (talk · contribs) has resigned from the Arbitration Committee. He has also relinquished the CheckUser and Oversight permissions. The Committee sincerely thanks Courcelles for his service and wishes him well.

For the Arbitration Committee,

WormTT(talk) 22:58, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Was this expected?

--
Jbhunley

[Kumioko]

No but good!

His participation in the Arbcom and especially this case was a conflict of interest anyway.

[el84]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... Courcelles

Resignation of Courcelles

Effective immediately, Courcelles (talk · contribs) has resigned from the Arbitration Committee. He has also relinquished the CheckUser and Oversight permissions. The Committee sincerely thanks Courcelles for his service and wishes him well.

For the Arbitration Committee,

WormTT(talk) 22:58, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Was this expected?

--
Jbhunley

How many arbs are going to be left by the end of this case?

[Vigilant]

Non-Australian

* Courcelles has reviewed many of the disability sport articles, and participates in the HOPAU discussions. He supports the HOPAU project however he can.

Involved from the beginning, knew what was going on, married to a Trust and Safety person...

Complicit

[Vigilant]

Earlier thread

f I were a Wiki-Sock-Hunter, I would find Courcelles quite suspicious indeed:

*The account was originally created as "Bradjamesbrown" on February 28, 2006, but its first edit wasn't until September 19 of that year.

*Over the next three years, only about 50 edits were made using the account. Those 50 edits suggest familiarity with Wikipedia and its lingo. He uses the phrase "vandalism revert" in his first edit ever. His fifth and sixth edits are to the article on the WMF's Erik Moeller. The purpose of his 11th edit was to "remove unverifyable [sic] information." In his 15th edit, he used a stock vandalism warning template. With his 22nd edit, he created an ANI thread. In his 36th edit, he used the abbreviation "NPOV."

*Then, starting on November 21, 2009, Bradjamesbrown dove headlong into AfD, AfC, patrolling, etc., and the account became truly "active" for the first time. Six months later, he had accrued over 55,000 edits, about half of which were made in March and April 2010 alone (source). At that point, in May 2010, he became an administrator after his RfA closed without a single opposing vote. A few days later, on June 1, the account was renamed "Courcelles."

*In December 2011, he completed his meteoric rise when he was elected to an ArbCom seat with the highest support percentage of any candidate. He and Elen of the Roads are the only members of ArbCom apparently hailing from the "next generation" of Wikipedians, such as it is; both started actively editing in 2009 and became admins in 2010. All other arbs passed RfA in 2008 or earlier.

Good eye, RED2.

[Kumioko]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... Courcelles

Resignation of Courcelles

Effective immediately, Courcelles (talk · contribs) has resigned from the Arbitration Committee. He has also relinquished the CheckUser and Oversight permissions. The Committee sincerely thanks Courcelles for his service and wishes him well.

For the Arbitration Committee,

WormTT(talk) 22:58, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Was this expected?

--
Jbhunley

How many arbs are going to be left by the end of this case?

Hopefully none!

[ZettaComposer]

Somewhat but seeing Jorm on Wikipedia was a bit of a surprise. He had a really fun MMORPG-like browser game going for a few years called Nexus War. It went offline about 10 years ago, I think due to trouble maintaining server costs. The game was revived by someone else as Nexus Clash. Jorm had a kind of abrasive personality on the game forums back then but I always thought it was because of the stress of trying to maintain an active game mostly by himself along with a "my game my rules" line of thinking. Looks like that carried over to Wikipedia.

Taking a brief look at Jorm's contributions to GorillaWarfare's talk page, it looks like Jorm fancies himself as a self-appointed moderator of her talk page. Chivalrously defending a woman from annoying online trolls is another habit he seems to have carried over from the game forums.

[Vigilant]

Non-Australian

* Courcelles has reviewed many of the disability sport articles, and participates in the HOPAU discussions. He supports the HOPAU project however he can.

Involved from the beginning, knew what was going on, married to a Trust and Safety person...

Complicit

How likely is it that Karen Brown aka Fluffernutter aka Trust and Safety specialist DID NOT know that her husband, Courecelles aka Brad Brown, was intimately involved with and aware of Laura Hale's grifting which lead directly to Fram's ban?

[Vigilant]

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants: ... ch_Oceania

This is from before the WMAU/Paralympics grift.
2011...

Participation

LauraHale , Courcelles , Hawkeye7 and Chzz are leading the in-person outreach efforts.

They seem close

Short response to beria

Too hard for one person to do. Australians are not cheaper. Region is historical connected to USA. Asia might be cheaper but visas come into play. Need decision ASAP to find chapter solution if WMF not funding. If I take one, I pick Courcelles. --LauraHale 21:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Courcelles was already deep into en.wp

User:Courcelles -Admin, OS, CU, Abuse filter, with over 200,000 edits, among the 100 most active editors on en.wp. Active on IRC, well trusted and liked by the community.

Looks like they moved on to the next grift together.

[Vigilant]

Ched, we have been under significant strain with such a difficult issue and have largely burned out. As for infighting, no, I haven't really seen that much at all. WormTT(talk) 23:53, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, there has not been infighting to speak of. The ArbCom workload is high (higher than it may appear on-wiki, given much of the work involves email), and not friendly to the competing (and often unexpected) demands on time that real life often throws at us. It's also emotionally draining; this year more so than any year I've served in the past. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:43, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

This doesn't happen when you know you're doing the right thing and your conscience is clear.

[Vigilant]

Courcelles, RIP
Another editor down for getting entangled with Laura Hale.

[tarantino]

Somewhat but seeing Jorm on Wikipedia was a bit of a surprise. He had a really fun MMORPG-like browser game going for a few years called Nexus War. It went offline about 10 years ago, I think due to trouble maintaining server costs. The game was revived by someone else as Nexus Clash. Jorm had a kind of abrasive personality on the game forums back then but I always thought it was because of the stress of trying to maintain an active game mostly by himself along with a "my game my rules" line of thinking. Looks like that carried over to Wikipedia.

Taking a brief look at Jorm's contributions to GorillaWarfare's talk page, it looks like Jorm fancies himself as a self-appointed moderator of her talk page. Chivalrously defending a woman from annoying online trolls is another habit he seems to have carried over from the game forums.

Here's an interesting intersection. Rivselis (T-C-L) was recently blocked as a sockpuppet of Neotarf (T-C-L). Rivselis's first edit was to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nexus War (T-H-L). Their fifth and sixth edit were to Jorm's user and talk pages.

Neotarf denies being Rivselis on TonyBallioni's meta talk page.

Hello, TonyBallioni. It has come to my attention that I have been checkusered by you, and that you think Rivselis is the same person as me. It is not. I have heard the checkuser tool is not very accurate. In this case I think it has given a bad result. I understand that anyone using checkuser must provide a case-specific policy-based justification. Can you point me to the discussion where you explained your reasons for the checkuser? Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 18:08, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I have not run a CheckUser on your account. A check was performed by a CheckUser on another project who informed me that the technical data and behaviour matched. I compared with the data available on en.wiki and determined that this was likely true. I do not have access to the rationale behind what led to the check on your account by a non-en.wiki CU. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:19, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean by "the data available on enwiki"? There is absolutely no data on enwiki about me going back at least four years. If you didn't checkuser me, who did? If you are just following orders, who has instructed you to do this? And don't you think an email response would be a more appropriate venue for a discussion of this sort? —Neotarf (talk) 19:46, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

If you wish to discuss this further, you should contact the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee, the Ombudsman commission, or Trust and Safety. I have forwarded the email you sent me to the en.wiki ArbCom and Trust and Safety. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:10, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for responding here. I find it concerning there are non-transparent surveillance files being collected about me by unnamed persons, on unnamed projects, for unnamed reasons. I also find it concerning that an email I sent with the expectation that it would be kept private has not only been revealed to have been sent here on a talk page but has also been forwarded without my permission to individuals who have published Personally Identifying Information (PII) about me in seeming contravention of the Privacy Policy. —Neotarf (talk) 20:53, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I won’t be responding further. I’ve told you how to proceed. Meta does not exist to further en.wiki disputes, and continuing to use it for that purpose after you’ve been told how to move forward can result in you being blocked here by a local meta sysop. Please address any future concerns to the groups I have listed above. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:06, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────┘
Hey Tony. Neotarf has a history of using Meta to wage a war against the Great Injustices done unto them. FWIW, you've took the right tack here. If anything, I'd have disengaged sooner! AGK ■ 13:42, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

[Alex Shih]

Courcelles, RIP
Another editor down for getting entangled with Laura Hale.

That's too bad, although like many people here said, he has been doing the equivalent of fuckall and should have resigned much earlier.

Neotarf denies being Rivselis on TonyBallioni's meta talk page.

To be this worked up, Rivselis is definitely Neotarf's sock. But you can see the art of Wikispeak in TB's reply; Rivselis is being tagged as "suspected sock" rather than "confirmed", meaning that TB did not think "technical data and behaviour matched". As the Rivselis account edited recently, CU checks were definitely run, if not by TB himself (which is plausible, as he has the tendency to back-channel excessively). Which makes the use of the word "data" almost feels like a slip of the tongue, as "data" almost always refers to technical data. And lastly, "I do not have access to the rationale" is simply pile of bullshit; CU probably don't go around investigating, comparing technical data and making sock blocks without having the rationale being passed on to them. If that is true, it is not the right practice and should be scrutinised as such.

[eagle]

Non-Australian

* Courcelles has reviewed many of the disability sport articles, and participates in the HOPAU discussions. He supports the HOPAU project however he can.

Involved from the beginning, knew what was going on, married to a Trust and Safety person...

Complicit

Courcelles was an active defender of LH since day one. As you know, LH filed an Arbcom case against Racepacket in 2011 for "harassment" and contacting the WMF ("my employer") will concerns about her conduct. Although she was not employed by or funded by the WMF at the time, the inquiry was fielded by Australians, not SanFran staff. Courcelles stated that he felt so strongly about Racepacket's alleged harassment of LH that he had been considering a long-term block of Racepacket independent of any ANI or Arbcom case, as show by his "uninvolved" non-party statement

Statement by Courcelles[edit]
I'm uninvolved here by the letter of WP:INVOLVED- my only contact with this case has been in an administrative capacity. After the RSN thread linked in the opening filing, I left Racepacket a fairly-strong request to cease bothering LauraHale, [82]. This was the morning of 22 April. Instead of disengaging from the area, Racepacket has continued to go after LauraHale, most of the diffs having been provided in the filing. At Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Racepacket/Archive, CheckUser Thatcher confirmed that the IP 66.173.140.100 was under the control of Racepacket. This morning, that IP filed a DR on Commons against an image uploaded by LauraHale that, admittedly, did need about 30 seconds of licence clean-up. With the preponderance of the evidence (most provided by LauraHale), I had already decided before I saw this filing to place an indefinite block against Racepacket for serial harassment of another user. I still think that block would be justified, and am still considering it. Courcelles 22:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

So, Courcelles has been covering for LH and her problematic edits for years.

[Alex Shih]

My guess is that the 'Fram reverting BU Rob' incident made a big impression on SilkTork (and other arbs) because BU Rob kicked up a massive fuss about it on the mailing list. Quite possibly other arbs told him he was over-reacting.

There are a lot of former arbs in the current batch, and I am pretty sure they were the vocal ones on BU Rob's antics in trying to exert control and manipulate public opinion.

Please expound upon this. What was the game that Rob was playing? What exactly was he trying to do and how did he try to accomplish it? Why did he abruptly leave?

tim

I don't have the reason why he abruptly left, but I can make educated guesses. Rob was regularly condescending and barking orders over mailing lists (despite of being an account from 2015, he was often telling people along the lines of "this is not the way we do things", and has expressed obsession over "image" – image of both him and the committee being competent. Once you understand these, I think a lot of his on-wiki behaviour starts to make sense. Someone here once said Rob is simply soft, and I think that's true – he is the kind of person that pretends to be tough, but really is soft, which explains the gross overreaction over a revert. After ACE2018 I have predicted that he will clash with the new batch filled with former arbs like AGK that have similar style, and that did happen in multiple places on-wiki even prior to Rob's rage quit.

[Alex Shih]

On a side note, it's quite disturbing to let a 8-person committee (5 being the majority) being in charge of determining the outcome of such important case with potential lasting ramifications. There really should be a community motion of no-confidence filed somewhere, so that this case cannot be concluded until ACE2019 is onboard in late December. Wouldn't that be exciting? Although to be honest, they should just close this now and let Fram run a new RfA. It wouldn't be the first time to close arb cases with nothing resolved.

[Vigilant]

Courcelles, RIP
Another editor down for getting entangled with Laura Hale.

That's too bad, although like many people here said, he has been doing the equivalent of fuckall and should have resigned much earlier.

Honest question.

Courcelles aka Bradford James Brown was deeply involved in and completely aware of the grifting being run by Laura Hale.
That's incontrovertible from the documentation on this thread.
It also implicates his wife, Fluffernutter aka Karen Brown, in a gross conflict of interest.
That's almost certainly why he resigned.

The 'collaboration' between Courcelles and LauraHale goes back to AT LEAST 2011.

Courcelles should have, at the very, very least, have announced his COI and recused immediately when this case came to the docket.



Why, oh why, is his resignation a bad thing?
In any sense?
Don't we want professional and ethical people in positions of power?

[Alex Shih]

Courcelles, RIP
Another editor down for getting entangled with Laura Hale.

That's too bad, although like many people here said, he has been doing the equivalent of fuckall and should have resigned much earlier.

Honest question.

Courcelles aka Bradford James Brown was deeply involved in and completely aware of the grifting being run by Laura Hale.
That's incontrovertible from the documentation on this thread.
It also implicates his wife, Fluffernutter aka Karen Brown, in a gross conflict of interest.
That's almost certainly why he resigned.

The 'collaboration' between Courcelles and LauraHale goes back to AT LEAST 2011.

Courcelles should have, at the very, very least, have announced his COI and recused immediately when this case came to the docket.



Why, oh why, is his resignation a bad thing?
In any sense?
Don't we want professional and ethical people in positions of power?

Because he was in a position to do something about this case but like you said, not ethical nor professional enough. So that's too bad; and I was also hoping they can be more a counterbalance to this useless committee, but that did not happen in the end, so that's also too bad, not the resignation itself is bad.

[Vigilant]

Thanks Alex,

I appreciate the candor.

If you wouldn't mind indulging me, given what's been dug up about Laura Hale and her coterie, does this decision look faulty in retrospect?

What I see is a lot of the same names on the tender and the pdfs I dug up on the 'witness list' for this case.
Undisclosed COI, much like Hawkeye7, but participating anyway.

[Vigilant]

This section seems all too familiar

Fluffernutter, Courcelles, John Vandenburg, Hawkeye7, a whole slew of people with already developed COIs.

[Midsize Jake]

Midsize Jake: do you think it is by chance that Laura Hale targeted the Paralympics?
Hell, no.
If their coffers are filled, they will always be targeted by grifters. And "good causes" are wonderful in that "good people" do not want to criticise them. And one problem about "good causes" is that often real idealist are involved in running them: that is: idealist who thinks that everyone else getting involved is an idealist, too! Alas, when coffers are filled: that is not so.

I thought about suggesting this, but I'm glad you did it and not me!

Further digging (as if we really need more digging) reveals that the person behind the History of the Paralympics in Australia (HOPAU) project was another Ph.D. candidate at the University of Canberra named Leigh Blackall (aka User:LeighBlackall (T-C-L)). He held the title of "Learning Commons Coordinator" there, and it was actually his project; he wrote the 2011 proposal (extensively quoted above by Mr. Vigilant) pretty much all by himself. It turns out that he was one of Laura Hale's Ph.D. dissertation supervisors (I'm not sure if he'd earned his own Ph.D. at that point, but that's a peripheral detail at best).

Despite his successfully selling the WMF on the project, Dr. Blackall was let go by the University later that year, after which he lost interest in it. (His CV can still be found on Wikiversity, FWIW.) He appears to be a True Believer; IOW, he's the sort of person who, at one point, might have thought there was a chance Wikiversity could become a real university if only people were willing to be more "open-minded" about such things.

Anyway, my guess would be that Laura Hale's involvement in the HOPAU project was actually Blackall's idea, or at least he's the one who informed her that the opportunity existed and that she could apply for the internship. Of course, Blackall is still an active Wikipedian, so someone there could just ask him. However, I can understand why he wouldn't want to volunteer any of that information, given all that's happened recently. And please note that I still don't think anyone at the University of Canberra or any of the HOPAU participants, including Blackall himself, had any real reason to think they were doing anything wrong (other than the usual "everything about Wikipedia is wrong" rationale, obviously). I'm not exactly thrilled about dragging them into this - I thought we'd all learned our lesson with Gallipoli, but who knows, maybe not.

That said, one slightly-curious thing I noticed was this page, minutes of a 6/26/2011 meeting for the HOPAU project that took place after a Wiki meetup in Brisbane. Under the heading "Laura Hale and NSIC dimension," there's this bit (NSIC is Australia's National Sport Information Centre):

Wikipedia: Conflict resolution – issue between Laura Hale and another Wikipedia editor seems to be a problem with the latter. Laura Hale to continue with the Wikipedia dimension of the project.

So she was definitely "on board" at that point and already having "issues," but it doesn't look like the editor being referred to was Fram - he was still happily editing articles about the Smurfs at that point. (Hard for me to say though, since LH's contribs are now "vanished.") It looks like the problems between Fram and LauraHale and Hawkeye7 didn't really start until well into 2012-2013 - here's an example from Nov. 2012, and here's another, clearer one from a few weeks later. (Three days after that, he was getting pissed about the "decline of DYK standards" related to HOPAU.) There may be earlier examples that I missed, though.

Btw, my apologies to anyone who might have already posted some of this stuff, in case I just missed it or forgot.

[Vigilant]

Doc_James (T-C-L) sure turned out to be a disappointment.

He can't be bothered to answer questions on his talk page, but he can edit all night.

Must have learned it from Katherine Maher and Jimbo Wales.

[Vigilant]

I'm fairly certain that there is a very strong case to be made that Courcelles (T-C-L) has violated WP:ADMINCOND in the Fram case.
Enabling paid COI editing should also figure in.

Eight years he's been doing this grift with Laura Hale.
CU, OS, ARBCOM, admin, .....
He's run cover for her in other ARBCOM cases.

Someone should add a FoF that desysops and indef blocks him in the Proposed Decision talk page.

ARBCOM and Trust and Safety *should* be all in, given their tenor with Fram.

[Randy from Boise]

If you wouldn't mind indulging me, given what's been dug up about Laura Hale and her coterie, does this decision look faulty in retrospect?

I particularly enjoyed this nugget from that case:

Request to disengage

Your conduct towards LauraHale is beginning to border on the unacceptable. I'm asking you to please stay away from her, not to go to her talk page, not to look through her contributions for problems, and generally forget that she even exists. You may have even have a general point at the RSN, but you filing it against one of LauraHale's images was little more than one more shot in this dispute. This needs to end, and it needs to end right now. --Courcelles 7:36 pm, 21 April 2011, Thursday (8 years, 4 months, 23 days ago) (UTC−7)

linkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =425219335[/link]

RfB

[Midsize Jake]

I particularly enjoyed this nugget from that case:
linkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =425219335[/link]

Ahh, that would probably explain who the person writing the minutes to the HOPAU meeting I quoted above was referring to when he said that Laura Hale's "issues" with another WP user "seems to be a problem with the latter." Should've remembered the Racepacket (T-C-L) case - sorry folks.

[eagle]

Someone needs to ask who got that PhD student funding...
I think I have a pretty good idea.

I am not sure about that. I think the sequence of events was that in 2011, the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) was planning to hire a historian to write a conventional book that researched and covered the APC's history and accomplishments. Such institutionally sponsored works are commonplace. Some young faculty at the University of Canberra got wind of the forthcoming RFP, and decided to compete with a crowd-sourced research project instead, thinking that all of the biographies, etc. would be produced as Wikipedia articles with some quality control and gap filling to be done by paid staff and the overall work would have much higher visibility using WP's Google Juice than some dusty limited-press run book. At that time WP offered the ability to purchase on demand hard copies of bound books that consisted of a curated collection of Wikipedia articles. Canberra won the RFP and signed the $110,000 contract, but the crowd of volunteers never materialized. The APC staff attended Laura Hale-led sessions on Wiki editing, but it was not their job to do the work for which they paid the contractors.

When the contract expired on 12/31/2012, there was a large gap in the intended scope of work. (That is, one trained historian, with a research assistant could knock out a competent history in that time, but a large group of grifters who are unable to motivate and channel the "crowd" could not.) So to fill the hole, a second contract was drawn up to use a professional historian at the University of Queensland to supervise a graduate student to actually dig through the materials and finish the job. At this point, one of the faculty sponsors of the 2011 RFP had left the University of Canberra, and it appears he left conventional academia. His departure appears to have set LH's dissertation into a bit of a tail-spin as well. The secret revolutionary technique for evaluating twitter activity is now lost forever.

The APC did continue its relationship with WMAU, but the funding, if any, was not disclosed linkhttps://www.paralympic.org.au/wp-conten ... Report.pdf[/link]

History Project
Work continued on the written history of the Paralympic movement in Australia under the APC’s agreement with the University of Queensland (UQ). UQ was awarded a Linkage Grant of $244,266 from the Australian Research Council to aid the online component of the project and enable a more comprehensive history to be recorded. Further work continued on capturing Australia’s Paralympic history including; the delivery of 2,500 transparencies and negatives from the Sydney Games, six new oral history interviews recorded by the National Library of Australia, the donation of uniforms from eight Paralympic Games by APC Board Member Nick Dean, scrapbook and photo donations from past athletes and administrators, and completion of the initial organisation and cataloguing of the APC’s archives. A poster on the history of alpine skiing was produced in collaboration with the University of Canberra. The poster was displayed in the Australian allotment of the Sochi Paralympic Village and was available for download from the APC’s Paralympic education website.

Reporting
The APC conducted two Wikipedia workshops, in conjunction with the Be the Influence Tri-Nations Wheelchair Rugby Tournament and the Sochi Paralympic Games. Both workshops attracted new volunteer editors to work on Paralympic sport articles in Wikipedia. Work commenced on the report of the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Games, which will make several recommendations that will assist the APC to deliver the Team in PyeongChang in 2018.

Partnerships with specialist organisations
A feature of the reporting period was the ongoing focus on partnering with expert or specialist organisations to add value to, and extend, the APC’s activities within the Knowledge Services division. In 2013/14 these partnerships included: • The National Sports Information Centre at the AIS in Canberra, which holds and manages the APC’s audio-visual collection and has incorporated the APC’s library holdings within its catalogue to ensure they are globally discoverable.• The Australian Sports Information Network, which has been established to improve access to sportrelated information. • The National Library of Australia, which continues to record and manage the oral histories of people of significance to the Paralympic movement in Australia. • The University of Queensland for the written history of the Paralympic movement in Australia. • The National Sports Museum in Melbourne, which advises the APC on its physical collection and currently displays medals from the 1960 Paralympic Games as well as other noteworthy items donated to the APC. • Wikimedia Australia, which supports the creation of articles about the Paralympic movement in Australia, Australian athletes and classification.

[Jans Hammer]

Resignation of Silk Tork

Did we miss this? linkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... ode=source[/link]
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.

[el84]

Resignation of Silk Tork

Did we miss this? linkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... ode=source[/link]
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.

Someone did post it above, but I think he has only mentioned it there so far.

[Randy from Boise]

I'm fairly certain that there is a very strong case to be made that Courcelles (T-C-L) has violated WP:ADMINCOND in the Fram case.

Courcelles properly recused from the Fram case, as has been forcefully called to my attention on-Wiki.

tim

[MrErnie]

I would like to see the option of a Topic Ban from addressing other users' qualities and behaviour. Almond Plate (talk) 20:39, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
(@Jbhunley) It seems very unlikely that the person you mention filed a complaint. There are far more prominent candidates, none of which have been mentioned even once in this entire case. Almond Plate (talk) 00:47, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
(@Jbhunley) It's not what has been communicated that tells the tale, but what hasn't been communicated. Since I believe that T&S and ArbCom have kept silent for good reasons I won't say anything more, but it didn't take much research. Almond Plate (talk) 01:52, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... en_Broeder

Guido - did you send in a complaint to T&S? Who do you think are the "far more prominent candidates" to have sent something in?

[Mason]

Regarding the infamous BU_Rob13 revert:

...I am not saying that Fram was banned for that incident (though I am realist enough, as is Fram, to join the dots and assume that that incident was likely to have led to one of the complaints to T&M that resulted in them issuing their ban)...

[Alex Shih]

Regarding the infamous BU_Rob13 revert:

...I am not saying that Fram was banned for that incident (though I am realist enough, as is Fram, to join the dots and assume that that incident was likely to have led to one of the complaints to T&M that resulted in them issuing their ban)...

Which means BU Rob13 lied about not having complained to T&S about Fram. If I remember correctly, what Rob said was something along the lines of "I spoke to T&S, but I was not the complaint that led to the ban".

[TheElusiveClaw]

Regarding the infamous BU_Rob13 revert:

...I am not saying that Fram was banned for that incident (though I am realist enough, as is Fram, to join the dots and assume that that incident was likely to have led to one of the complaints to T&M that resulted in them issuing their ban)...

Which means BU Rob13 lied about not having complained to T&S about Fram. If I remember correctly, what Rob said was something along the lines of "I spoke to T&S, but I was not the complaint that led to the ban".

"not the complaint that led to the ban": so there was someone who complained after him? Or was it one of his socks?

[eagle]

Just slightly off-topic, but to complete the APC picture, in 2014-15 which was a non-Olympic year where the APC cut back spending, funding of the History Project continued at the University of Queensland, and Hawkeye7 was once again acknowledged for his volunteer efforts. Whatever cataloging work John Vandenberg and other librarians did was moved to Sydney. No mention of Laura Hale (who had left for Spain), but the full time "Knowledge Services" staff member was laid off:linkhttps://www.paralympic.org.au/wp-conten ... Report.pdf[/link]

KNOWLEDGE SERVICES
The role of the APC knowledge services program is to help grow and manage its knowledge base. Formerly a division of the APC with a full-time staff member, the knowledge services program became part of the corporate services division at the end of 2014 and - following a corporate restructure in May 2015 – is now managed by the APC Communications division. This program relies extensively on the contributions of volunteers, as well as partnerships with expert organisations. During the reporting period, the program’s activities included: • Continuation of the multi-dimensional Australian Paralympic History Project to capture, manage and preserve the history of the Paralympic movement in Australia. The project incorporates physical holdings (APC archives, APC library, uniforms, equipment, memorabilia and ephemera), electronic collections (scanned and digital photos and documents, video, oral histories, Wikipedia articles) and communication and recognition activities (Paralympic alumni, Australian Paralympic Hall of Fame, written history). As part of this project, the APC continued to receive memorabilia and audio-visual materials from past athletes and administrators on loan or as donations. • Continuation of the written history of the Paralympic movement in Australia under the APC’s agreement with the University of Queensland (UQ). • Relocation of the APC’s catalogued archives from Canberra to a new site near the APC’s head office in Sydney. • Ongoing partnerships with expert or specialist organisations to add value to, and extend the APC’s knowledge services activities. The APC thanks the following organisations for their ongoing support: - The National Sports Information Centre at the AIS in Canberra, which holds and manages the APC’s audio-visual collection and has incorporated the APC’s library holdings on its catalogue to ensure they are globally discoverable. - The Australian Sports Information Network (AUSPIN), which has been established to improve access to sport-related information.
- The National Library of Australia (NLA), which continues to record and manage the oral histories of people of significance to the Paralympic movement in Australia. In 2014/15 the APC entered into an agreement with the NLA to make online assets of the history project discoverable through Trove, a major information collation service. - The University of Queensland for the written history of the Paralympic movement in Australia. - The National Sports Museum in Melbourne, which advises the APC on its physical collection and currently displays medals from the 1960 Paralympic Games and other noteworthy items donated to the APC. - Wikimedia Australia, which supports the creation of articles about the Paralympic movement in Australia, Australian athletes and classification. In addition to these organisations, the APC also received strong support from dozens of individual volunteers in the reporting period, including Wikipedia editors, students and others. Notable volunteers included Patricia Ollerenshaw (a regular APC volunteer since 2000) who plays a significant role with the library and liaison with past Team Members; Greg Blood, who assisted with the APC’s Sochi Games report, Wikipedia articles and the archives relocation; Liz Watt, who coordinated a group of students from the University of Canberra and assisted the archives relocation; and Ross Mallett, who continues to be a major contributor through Wikipedia. Tony Naar, whose full-time role with the APC ended in May 2015 after 15 years, continued a role as a volunteer. The APC thanks them for their contributions during the period.

[eagle]

Regarding the infamous BU_Rob13 revert:

...I am not saying that Fram was banned for that incident (though I am realist enough, as is Fram, to join the dots and assume that that incident was likely to have led to one of the complaints to T&M that resulted in them issuing their ban)...

Which means BU Rob13 lied about not having complained to T&S about Fram. If I remember correctly, what Rob said was something along the lines of "I spoke to T&S, but I was not the complaint that led to the ban".

"not the complaint that led to the ban": so there was someone who complained after him? Or was it one of his socks?

I think you are perhaps missing BU Rob13's point. The wife of the Chair of the WMF Board has caused you to receive two warnings, and T&S is looking for an excuse to ban you. Whether BU Rob13 goes to T&S or you get a speeding ticket driving your car, the complaints from the wife is what "led to the ban."

T&S has never claimed that Arbcom is unable to deal with the editing of its case pages, but they have claimed that Arbcom is unable to deal with wikihounding and/or "unblockable" people. Now whether you view Laura Hale or Fram as unblockable is a matter of debate, and neither is currently editing WP today.

[Vigilant]

Things are getting spicy on the Proposed Decision Talk page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =915099379

Comments by Fut.Perf.

So we're now told by an arb that "The complaints in 2019 all relate to ArbCom. Four complaints" [9]. 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)

[Kumioko]

He makes some good points.

[C&B]

Jbhuntley, one here, fighting a good fight: Request for reversal of vanishing &/ ban by motion.

Worm That Turned (T-C-L) is a fucking idiot. And corrupt. Now is it that he is corrupt, or likes, always was it corrupt!

[MrErnie]

Lol @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk ... fdfmykrdyr:

Community Insights Survey
Share your experience in this survey

Hi Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr,

The Wikimedia Foundation is asking for your feedback in a survey about your experience with Wikipedia and Wikimedia. The purpose of this survey is to learn how well the Foundation is supporting your work on wiki and how we can change or improve things in the future. The opinions you share will directly affect the current and future work of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Please take 15 to 25 minutes to give your feedback through this survey. It is available in various languages.

This survey is hosted by a third-party and governed by this privacy statement (in English).

Find more information about this project. Email us if you have any questions, or if you don't want to receive future messages about taking this survey.

Sincerely,

RMaung (WMF) 16:38, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

[Klahn]

So how is this supposed to work? Arbcom is saying they have enough evidence to de-sysop Fram. They also can't disclose what this evidence is. Then we the community are going to be trusted to decide if he should get the bit back?

Fram's RFA can't possibly be a referendum on whether we trust Fram. It can only be a referendum as to whether we trust Arbcom to have judged the secret evidence properly.