Maria Sefidari COI timeline

[Giraffe Stapler]

We know from Laura Hale's published dissertation (archive) that she and Maria Sefidari are married.

The final three years of my thesis journey were accompanied by María Sefidari. After the initial research for the thesis had been complete, she had to live with this thesis and me. Dating, living with and eventually marrying a PhD student during their thesis is no easy feat because this period is filled with all sorts of insecurities on the part of the student, of doubts, of having imposter syndrome, of trying to plan a life around thesis submission dates, and of occasionally being asked to be an expert in a topic that you may not be an expert in.

Maria Sefidari speaks about her spouse in a 2015 Quora post (archive).

In my case, I married someone from a different country, a different culture. You bet we lived together before taking that step. Things as small as who cooks dinner, what to cook, who cleans up... can have a lot of cultural assumptions built into them that we had to deconstruct and figure out. Language was sometimes an issue. One of the worst fights we ever had was over a Whatsapp conversation where I was in a hurry and used a contraction for Gotcha, that my partner thought meant Grow Up! As a result, we no longer have any important conversations via text to avoid potential misinterpretations. These little things and strategies take some time to figure out. I think it was very good that we took that time (~2 years) to learn how to live together and nurture our relationship until we decided that yes, marriage was the next step.

Both of those are dated October 2015. So we know that Sefidari and Hale were married before that. Hale says that they were romantically involved for 3 years before then and Selifari says that they lived together for "~2 years" before getting married. Anyone looking to pinpoint when a demonstrable conflict of interest starts for Sefidari needs to find out when Sefidari and Hale married and count back from there. Are Spanish marriage records publicly available?

[Vigilant]

As far as I can tell, Laura Hale went to Madrid with no connections other than Maria Sefidari Huici.

I show her first time in Madrid as January 2013.

[Poetlister]

Surely if they were living together, the question of conflict of interest would be quite important even if they were not married. Indeed, even if they were dating but not yet living together it would be an issue, but harder to prove. Whatever, they must have been married well before T&S started its investigations.

[Moral Hazard]

"Conflict of interest of Laura Hale's wife, WMF Board-chairperson Maria Sefidari" would be a better title.

[Anroth]

Whats the timeline of Hale's grants?

[Vigilant]

Whats the timeline of Hale's grants?

That’s actually a bit tricky to determine.
You can’t be sure you’ve found everything because the process is Balkanized over many pages, some of which have been deprecated and/or moved and/ or deleted.

I can’t find a single source that says,”these are the total monies paid out to X person.”

[eagle]

The time line would have to consider the committee assignments which Maria Sefidari held prior to being elected to the WMF Board.

I am very active in the Movement, and have held different roles during the years. I was a founding member and the first Vice Chair of Wikimedia España (2010-2012), an Iberocoop representative, a proud member of Wikimedia Argentina, a member of the Affiliations Committee (Affcom) and its first Treasurer (2012, reelected on 2013), and I also served as a member of the IEG Committee for the first 2013 round.
In August 8th, 2013 I became a member of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, after a community election. During that tenure I served as a member - and later Chair - of the Board Governance Committee, as an AffCom liaison, and as a FDC liaison. After that, I co-founded Wikimujeres in November 2015. In January 2016 I rejoined the Board as next-in-line to fill in a vacancy, and became a member of the Audit Committee and again an AffCom liaison. I am an advisor on both Wikimujeres and Whose Knowledge?
In June 2016, the other trustees elected me Vice Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board, and in May 2017 the community reelected me to continue to serve for three more years. In August 2017 I was reelected Vice Chair, and in July 19th, 2018 I was elected Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. In August 15th, 2019 I was reelected Chair.

Non-financial support is also significant. LH was active in starting the User Group for WikiNews editors and the User Group for WikiBase Users, both of which were approved by the "AffCom". In addition, once Maria was on the Board, the Board decided to give User Groups voting participation in the selection of the two WMF Board seats which were originally established to represent Chapters. In the 2019 WMF Board election, Laura Hale voted on behalf of the WikiBase User Group.

We need to determine whether LH received a IEG during the first round of 2013.

[MrErnie]

The German Wikipedia has an article about Maria - linkhttps://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Sefidari[/link] - surely she is notable enough for her own article on en.wiki?

Anyways, regarding the timeline, here's a nice picture on Commons from October 2015.

[Poetlister]

Non-financial support is also significant. LH was active in starting the User Group for WikiNews editors and the User Group for WikiBase Users, both of which were approved by the "AffCom". In addition, once Maria was on the Board, the Board decided to give User Groups voting participation in the selection of the two WMF Board seats which were originally established to represent Chapters. In the 2019 WMF Board election, Laura Hale voted on behalf of the WikiBase User Group.

We need to determine whether LH received a IEG during the first round of 2013.

That sounds suspiciously like gerrymandering to me. Give voting rights to people you expect to vote for you. And there's a severe danger that some people, who are active in both their local chapter and a user group, wil get double voting rights. But to be fair, do we know if Maria was behind the move to enfranchise these groups?

[Poetlister]

The German Wikipedia has an article about Maria - linkhttps://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Sefidari[/link] - surely she is notable enough for her own article on en.wiki?

Yes, several senior WMF people have articles. Obviously, Jimbo has one but there are also among others Sue Gardner, Mike Godwin, Katherine Maher and Lila Tretikov.

[Giraffe Stapler]

There were two requests to send Wikipedians to Sochi for the 2014 Paralympics. One was to send four Ukrainian Wikipedians and the other was to send three Australian Wikipedians. Neither of these included Laura Hale (who was living in Spain by this time). The Ukrainian request was accepted, while the one from Hale's former colleagues in Australia was not. Laura Hale went to the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi and hung out with the Ukranians, but she apparently paid her own way. According to a post on Wikinews:

The Ukrainians have funding to attend the Sochi Games. Their successful grant proposal can be found at Wikimedia Ukraine - Wikimedians to the Games which includes their specific goals.

Laura Hale's covering of the Games is completely self funded. There was no outside funding acquired from anyone else, and outside media accreditation, she currently has no ongoing formal relationship with any Paralympic committee.

Where it gets just slightly interesting is on the talk page of the Ukrainian request. Maria Sefidari seems to be upset that the request approval specifically states "Please note that we are not interested in supporting the development of content for Wikinews because we do not consider it to be impactful". Sefidari says "I find this message regarding (the lack, and active discouragement, of) supporting smaller projects very sad. A year ago this was not so. :-(". I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Hale had hitched her wagon to Wikinews at that point, or if Hale had planned to ask for funding?

We also learn from that WikiNews page that Hale (as project coordinator) took the show on the road. Someone should track down who paid for the travel expenses for those junkets.

Laura discussed/presented at the Paralympic efforts at the 2013 Wikimedia Central and Eastern Europe conference in Slovakia in November.
Laura discussed the Paralympic efforts at the EduWiki 2013 conference in Cardiff, Wales.
Laura discussed some of the Paralympic efforts at the Scholar and Feminist Conference at Barnard College in New York in February 2014.

[Vigilant]

I don't think Wikinews has no impact. I think the expectations outside its communities are very unclear, which is what leads to the lack of support and understanding. I still don't understand why the funding of this request, despite being successful, demanded to drop the Wikinews measures of success. That's active discouragement to contribute content in said project. As such, it bothers me. We should encourage people, not discourage them. But if Board guidance is needed to be applied to all projects, I'm sure that can be arranged. Thank you. Raystorm (talk) 22:20, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

A barely-veiled threat to a WMF employee for refusing to fund her girlfriend's DOA venture...

That's a great look.

The totality of Maria Sefidari Huici's meta contributions from Jan 1 2014 to June 1 2014...
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? ... 2014-06-01

Who do we find editing on those same pages?
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants: ... _Wikipedia
I'll give you one guess.

[Vigilant]

In August 2013, Raystorm was elected to the Board of the WMF and resigned from AffCom.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? ... id=5760031

In September 2013, Laura Hale went to Madrid for the first time I can find.

By February 2014, Raystorm was adding voting authority for Board elections by AffCom members.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ch ... resolution

By April 2014, they're both editing the same grant pages.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants: ... _Wikipedia


Must be a coincidence...

[eagle]

In September 2013, Laura Hale went to Madrid for the first time I can find.

Was it January or September 2013?

[Giraffe Stapler]

In September 2013, Laura Hale went to Madrid for the first time I can find.

Was it January or September 2013?

Sefidari wrote in her "2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships La Molina" grant application that "LauraHale is currently in Spain and will have been there for approximately six weeks prior to the start of the event.". That was written 6 January 2013. The start date of the event was noted as 20 February 2013. That means that Laura Hale was in Spain from mid-January 2013.

[Vigilant]

In September 2013, Laura Hale went to Madrid for the first time I can find.

Was it January or September 2013?

Sefidari wrote in her "2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships La Molina" grant application that "LauraHale is currently in Spain and will have been there for approximately six weeks prior to the start of the event.". That was written 6 January 2013. The start date of the event was noted as 20 February 2013. That means that Laura Hale was in Spain from mid-January 2013.

Good catch.
It's confusing trying to merge several sources.

[eagle]

In September 2013, Laura Hale went to Madrid for the first time I can find.

Was it January or September 2013?

Sefidari wrote in her "2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships La Molina" grant application that "LauraHale is currently in Spain and will have been there for approximately six weeks prior to the start of the event.". That was written 6 January 2013. The start date of the event was noted as 20 February 2013. That means that Laura Hale was in Spain from mid-January 2013.

Good catch.
It's confusing trying to merge several sources.

Same source reported:

a meeting set up by LauraHale with Comité Paralímpico Español regarding developing a similar programme in Spain on Tuesday, 15 January, in Madrid.

So, LH was meeting with the Spanish Paralympic Committee to try to become a WiR on January 15, 2013. Meanwhile, Maria was active on selecting the first round of 2013 IEGs, before she got elected to the WMF Board. The most likely opportunity for a direct conflict would be in the spring 2013 round of IEGs.

[Vigilant]

We really need a common calendar where sightings can be linked to sources for both players.

[Midsize Jake]

So, LH was meeting with the Spanish Paralympic Committee to try to become a WiR on January 15, 2013. Meanwhile, Maria was active on selecting the first round of 2013 IEGs, before she got elected to the WMF Board. The most likely opportunity for a direct conflict would be in the spring 2013 round of IEGs.

Not to throw a monkey-wrench into the works, but it at least appears that, based on subsequent on-wiki activity from 2013, her January 2013 appearance in Madrid was more of a visit, and her actual move to Madrid took place later that year. For example, there's this bit of business between the two of them on Ms. Sefidari's user-talk page, dated July 11-12, 2013 - I guess it's possible that they wanted to hide the fact that they were a couple, and the request (by LH for translation help) was posted just to establish a documentation trail, but if they really were living together and wanted to hide that fact, why post the request at all? She didn't really need a documentation trail, and LH could have just as easily walked up to her and asked.

Another point of reference is that same-sex marriage was legalized in Spain on Nov. 6, 2012 (here's Ms. Sefidari updating the appropriate es.wp page that same day). I guess the actual MS/LH wedding date isn't all that relevant, but it seems more likely that it would have taken place later in 2013 if only for practical reasons - and that might also support the idea that she was just visiting in the earlier part of the year.

[Poetlister]

Where it gets just slightly interesting is on the talk page of the Ukrainian request. Maria Sefidari seems to be upset that the request approval specifically states "Please note that we are not interested in supporting the development of content for Wikinews because we do not consider it to be impactful". Sefidari says "I find this message regarding (the lack, and active discouragement, of) supporting smaller projects very sad. A year ago this was not so. :-(". I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Hale had hitched her wagon to Wikinews at that point, or if Hale had planned to ask for funding?

The treatment of Wikinews is an interesting topic in itself. Was Jimbo even then planning to launch his own for-profit news site and trying to remove competition? If not, the WMF was being rather half-hearted. If they thought (probably correctly) that Wikinews had become a waste of time, they should have closed it down.

[eagle]

So, LH was meeting with the Spanish Paralympic Committee to try to become a WiR on January 15, 2013. Meanwhile, Maria was active on selecting the first round of 2013 IEGs, before she got elected to the WMF Board. The most likely opportunity for a direct conflict would be in the spring 2013 round of IEGs.

Not to throw a monkey-wrench into the works, but it at least appears that, based on subsequent on-wiki activity from 2013, her January 2013 appearance in Madrid was more of a visit, and her actual move to Madrid took place later that year. For example, there's this bit of business between the two of them on Ms. Sefidari's user-talk page, dated July 11-12, 2013 - I guess it's possible that they wanted to hide the fact that they were a couple, and the request (by LH for translation help) was posted just to establish a documentation trail, but if they really were living together and wanted to hide that fact, why post the request at all? She didn't really need a documentation trail, and LH could have just as easily walked up to her and asked.

Another point of reference is that same-sex marriage was legalized in Spain on Nov. 6, 2012 (here's Ms. Sefidari updating the appropriate es.wp page that same day). I guess the actual MS/LH wedding date isn't all that relevant, but it seems more likely that it would have taken place later in 2013 if only for practical reasons - and that might also support the idea that she was just visiting in the earlier part of the year.

I agree. LH came to Madrid to visit for an indefinite time with no specific return date to Australia. She then met with the Spanish Paralympic Committee to convince them to sponsor her as a Wikipedian in Residence, and obtained a WMF grant and accreditation to attend an Paralympic alpine skiing contest with Maria. Her political career at WMAU had ended with the failed coup, and the funding of her project at the Australian Paralympic Committee expired on 12/31/12. I could not find out when LH moved out of her housing provided rent-free by Hawkeye7 (T-C-L).

[Giraffe Stapler]

I started this discussion only about narrowing down when Maria Sefidari and Laura Hale were married, so we could determine if Sefidari had any possible conflicts of interest. The thread got retitled by someone else. The current title implies that Sefidari had conflicts of interest, which I don't think is necessarily true in any formal sense, but she was definitely involved in Hale's dispute with Fram. It's impossible to separate her private role of Wikipedia editor from her public role as a board member. And since we now know that she was also Hale's romantic partner at the time, it looks really dodgy. But I am sure that many people would say she was just a Wikipedia editor defending a colleague.

Having said that, there are a few things that don't smell very good. One of those is Hale's proposal to make "The Wikinewsie Group" a "Thematic Organization" in April of 2013. Laura Hale would be the chair, of course. Being a Thematic Organization would mean an easy path to WMF funding. At that time, Sefidari was a member of the Affliations Committee (the group that decides on such things).

On the talk page of the Wikinewsie Group's proposed bylaws, Hale mentions a conference in Iceland. Asaf Bartov seems to be wise to the game, judging by his response.

If this conference is to be funded with Wikimedia funds, I urge the Wikinewsie group to discuss its plans with us sooner rather than later. I find I must caution once more against the assumption that any Wikinews-centered activity (and particularly an airfare-intensive international gathering of any size) is likely to meet our impact criteria. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 02:18, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

By the time the Affliations Committee votes on the proposal in November 2013, Sefidari has been tapped to join the WMF board (but remains as a liaison to AffCom). AffCom approves the proposal. The WMF board did not agree.

The Board discussed recognition of the Wikinewsie Group as a Thematic Organization, and took the Affiliations Committee’s recommendation under consideration. The Board decided that it was not ready to approve the Wikinewsie Group as a Thematic Organization at this time, and the Board would like to encourage them to continue activities as a User Group. Phoebe made a motion to vote, seconded by Sam. Phoebe, Jan-Bart, Sam, Ana, Stu, and Alice supported this decision; Bishakha, and Patricio opposed the decision; Maria and Jimmy were recused.

So AffCom approved the creation of a "Wikinewsie User Group" in February 2014. It looks like the group lasted a year and then didn't bother to put in the minimal effort needed to keep it going. I think Hale had probably moved on to Wikidata/Wikibase by then as a source of income.

So Sefidari recused herself in the WMF board vote, but presumably knew what Hale was planning when she was on AffCom. And didn't stop her. Were other AffCom members influenced by the fact that their former colleague was now on the WMF board? Would people have looked at the proposal differently if they knew Sefidari and Hale were a couple?

[Vigilant]

Find me a credible alternative explanation for why Maria Sefidari Huici was that involved in Laura Hale's business.
Appearance_of_impropriety (T-H-L)
Conflict_of_interest (T-H-L)



An interesting aside for Gibraltar
Definitely working to prevent Laura Hale from getting caught up in Gibraltarpedia

[Anroth]

As someone who did travel across the world for a relationship, I can say mine started at least a good year before I actually went to Australia. I would be looking at places where Hale & Sefidari physically crossed paths in the 24 months prior to Hale's first visit to Spain.

[Vigilant]

As someone who did travel across the world for a relationship, I can say mine started at least a good year before I actually went to Australia. I would be looking at places where Hale & Sefidari physically crossed paths in the 24 months prior to Hale's first visit to Spain.

WikiWomensCamp

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... e_(48).JPG

Edit: Derp

[DanMurphy]

As someone who did travel across the world for a relationship, I can say mine started at least a good year before I actually went to Australia. I would be looking at places where Hale & Sefidari physically crossed paths in the 24 months prior to Hale's first visit to Spain.

WikiWomensCamp
Correct link. From 2012.

[eagle]

The many junkets of Laura Hale:
WikiWomenCamp - Argentina - 23 May (Wednesday) to 25 May (Friday) 2012 - LH and MS
Amsterdam GLAM Camp - Amsterdam - December 2-4 2011 - LH and Fae, but no MS
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2013 (#WMCEE) - Modra, Slovakia - November 14-17 2013 - LH but no MS

[Eric Corbett]

The many junkets of Laura Hale:
WikiWomenCamp - Argentina - 23 May (Wednesday) to 25 May (Friday) 2012 - LH and MS
Amsterdam GLAM Camp - Amsterdam - December 2-4 2011 - LH and Fae, but no MS
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2013 (#WMCEE) - Modra, Slovakia - November 14-17 2013 - LH but no MS

Who paid?

[eagle]

The many junkets of Laura Hale:
WikiWomenCamp - Argentina - 23 May (Wednesday) to 25 May (Friday) 2012 - LH and MS
Amsterdam GLAM Camp - Amsterdam - December 2-4 2011 - LH and Fae, but no MS
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2013 (#WMCEE) - Modra, Slovakia - November 14-17 2013 - LH but no MS

Who paid?

The above were WMF. The Australian Paralympic Committee and WMAU paid for the trip of LH and Hawkeye7 to the London Paralympic Games.
The Camp in Camberra did not involve travel expenses.
The 2013 Paralympic Alpine Skiing Competition was paid by WMF

There were several that were not funded including a six week outreach trip around Microneasia
A trip to Mubia India for a WikiConference India was not funded because her talk about GLAMs in Australia was not accepted
The trip to Colorado to cover a Paralympic ski competition was not funded because Hawkeye7 and LH left before finalizing the application and also perhaps because their coup attempt at WMAU failed.

We should compile a master list of all grant applications, amounts, and dispositions. But it is painful work -- I compiled the above by using the search function on the meta-wiki.

[The Adversary]

The many junkets of Laura Hale:
WikiWomenCamp - Argentina - 23 May (Wednesday) to 25 May (Friday) 2012 - LH and MS
Amsterdam GLAM Camp - Amsterdam - December 2-4 2011 - LH and Fae, but no MS
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2013 (#WMCEE) - Modra, Slovakia - November 14-17 2013 - LH but no MS

Lets list them by timeline, adding a couple:
Amsterdam GLAM Camp - Amsterdam - December 2-4 2011 - LH and Fae, but no MS
WikiWomenCamp - Argentina - 23 May (Wednesday) to 25 May (Friday) 2012 - LH and MS
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2013 (#WMCEE) - Modra, Slovakia - November 14-17 2013 - LH but no MS
Wikimania 2014. 8-10 August 2014, London - LH and MS
WikidataCon 2017 October 28th-29th 2017 in Berlin: - LH but no MS


link, London, 2014:

archive
archive

[Vigilant]

Guy Macon cosplaying as Grima Wormtongue on JimboStalk

I see zero evidence that Raystorm did anything wrong or was even aware of any of this before T&S banned Fram. One might argue that it is possible that certain people who work for Raystorm did certain things because they assumed without asking that she would have wanted them to do those things, but that isn't evidence.

EllenCT, you are way out of line calling for Raystorm's resignation without providing a shred of evidence that Raystorm did anything wrong. You should either apologize and retract or post some actual evidence.

Jimbo, have we reached to point where EllenCT should be asked to stay off of your talk page? Would it be helpful if I were to put together an annotated list of diffs showing EllenCT's contibutions to this page? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:26, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

[Randy from Boise]

Guy Macon cosplaying as Grima Wormtongue on JimboStalk

I see zero evidence that Raystorm did anything wrong or was even aware of any of this before T&S banned Fram. One might argue that it is possible that certain people who work for Raystorm did certain things because they assumed without asking that she would have wanted them to do those things, but that isn't evidence.

That's pretty much my take, at least with respect to the Fram affair. As for the grants-and-junkets process, more research remains to be done before I'd be convinced that hands were clean...

RfB

[Midsize Jake]

That's pretty much my take, at least with respect to the Fram affair. As for the grants-and-junkets process, more research remains to be done before I'd be convinced that hands were clean...

So you figure the Wikipedia folks aren't worried about the appearance of impropriety, then? They'll only act if there's a smoking gun, or maybe an article in the New York Times?

I doubt we'll see a smoking gun, so basically that means someone's going to have a big incentive to get an article in the New York Times.

[eagle]

That's pretty much my take, at least with respect to the Fram affair. As for the grants-and-junkets process, more research remains to be done before I'd be convinced that hands were clean...

So you figure the Wikipedia folks aren't worried about the appearance of impropriety, then? They'll only act if there's a smoking gun, or maybe an article in the New York Times?

I doubt we'll see a smoking gun, so basically that means someone's going to have a big incentive to get an article in the New York Times.

I thought the confirmation of their marriage was the smoking gun. Perhaps we should change the election rules to require candidates to disclose their own COIs as well as those of their spouse.

[Midsize Jake]

I thought the confirmation of their marriage was the smoking gun. Perhaps we should change the election rules to require candidates to disclose their own COIs as well as those of their spouse.

IMO it's enough for almost anyone outside the Wikipedia orbit, and a few within it too, I suppose. It won't be enough for the True Believers or the die-hards, and apparently it also isn't enough for people who see the WMF as their only means of getting revenge on the admins they hate the most. And while I don't really blame them, it won't be enough for a fair number of radical feminists either.

What I'm talking about would be more like an e-mail or voice-mail from Maria Sefidari to Katherine Maher (or Jan Eissfelt) saying "this Fram character has to go" or "either Fram goes or I do," something along those lines. It's not something we're likely to see, even if it ever existed.

I guess I would just remind folks that these are many of the same people who treat WP:DUCK, WP:PAID, amateurish "sock-puppet investigations" and the CheckUser tool as if they're nearly-infallible rationales for berating and banning people, but they're perfectly happy to look the other way when one of their own appears almost dead-to-rights to have their hands in the ol' cookie-jar.

[The Adversary]

To put it very diplomatically: Sefidari has been rather "economical with the truth".

All the times she intervened to protect Laura Hale, she never once made any reference to their personal relationship.
Not. Once.
People reading those exchanges (where Sefidari offers to help with LH's Spanish, where she asks Fram to back down, even when she protects the Gibraltarpedia people)...."outsiders" (like me!) reading those exchanges would get the impression that here was a noninvolved outsider voicing her opinion.

Nothing could be further from the truth.
She has deceived people, by not divulging her COI.


(OK, I can see there are cases where you don't want to reveal you are in a same sex marriage/relationship.......especially when the WMF places meetings in countries where same sex is illegal......like Tunis.
BUT: if you don't reveal it, then you don't get (very) publicly involved with your SO's affairs!! (I thought this was damn obvious; I feel like I'm saying that 2 + 2 =4, here)

I recall one of our politicians in the, oh, 1980s or 1990s. Clever guy, leader of the finance committee, (later finance minister,) also part of the conservative party (who were definitely not positive to gays, back in the day). His boyfriend at the time was a well known local (big) business leader. The thing is: half the country knew he was gay, and the opposition would have loved to "take him down" on COI issue.
Alas; they never got the chance. He walked on a tightrope, AFAIK always managing to avoid decisions involving his boyfriends business.
Around year 2000 the "mood" had changed, also in the conservative party, and he and his boyfriend got married, and everybody feigned big surprise.
He is still a highly respected politician.

Sefidari got publicly involved with Laura Hales editing problems; defending her again, and again and again,.
Never informing her audience about their relationship.

This is not honest (or "honourable") behaviour, in my book.
I have 0% trust in her.
(And I am female, a feminist, and I have supported LBGT rights since long before Sefidari was born)

[Carcharoth]

I've been wondering how common this is within the wider Wikimedia movement? Namely that Wikimedians get together and then go one of three routes: (a) full disclosure about their relationship with full COI disclosure; or (b) say nothing and keep their Wikimedia affairs separated; or (c) say nothing and pretend there is no COI.

Well, there are probably other more convoluted ways to handle things, including where a relationship is platonic (maybe including business interests or varying levels of friendship). There is a spectrum here, and it does depend very much on how 'connected' the people are and what positions of authority or what elected positions they hold.

So (really for a separate thread), how common might this sort of thing be?

[Vigilant]

That's pretty much my take, at least with respect to the Fram affair. As for the grants-and-junkets process, more research remains to be done before I'd be convinced that hands were clean...

So you figure the Wikipedia folks aren't worried about the appearance of impropriety, then? They'll only act if there's a smoking gun, or maybe an article in the New York Times?

I doubt we'll see a smoking gun, so basically that means someone's going to have a big incentive to get an article in the New York Times.

I thought the confirmation of their marriage was the smoking gun. Perhaps we should change the election rules to require candidates to disclose their own COIs as well as those of their spouse.

This smells like Trump's tax returns...

Would Maria Sefidari Huici have been elected to the Board of Trustees if her marriage to Laura Hale were public knowledge?
What about her intervention with Fram without this information?
What about the grants without this information?
What about Laura Hale's 'mentorship' in Spanish?

Just imagine if The Maria Sefidari Huici/Laura Hale relationship had been known when Laura Hale posted her anti-Fram screed on her talk page...

[The Adversary]

I've been wondering how common this is within the wider Wikimedia movement? Namely that Wikimedians get together and then go one of three routes: (a) full disclosure about their relationship with full COI disclosure; or (b) say nothing and keep their Wikimedia affairs separated; or (c) say nothing and pretend there is no COI.

Well, there are probably other more convoluted ways to handle things, including where a relationship is platonic (maybe including business interests or varying levels of friendship). There is a spectrum here, and it does depend very much on how 'connected' the people are and what positions of authority or what elected positions they hold.

So (really for a separate thread), how common might this sort of thing be?

Well, looking at all the wikimeets: there are lots of Wikipedians who have met one another; I guess we all know of several couples who have met and gotten married through their Wikipedia work.

One absolute line is: is any one of the couple in a position where they can influence the economy (giving grants, etc), and/or any one of the couple is in a position where they receive money due to their Wikipedia work. When money is involved, you really have to have version a). Anything else is unacceptable.

If money isn't involved it is more tricky; I think b) is a perfectly acceptable choice; alas, I guess when people meet it is often because the are interested in the same areas —> edit the same areas.

As for c) ...there are versions of that, too, but when you jump into the fray (the way Sefidari did for Hale) ...I would expect disclosure, at least from an elected official.

(Btw, It is rather funny: how arb.commers say that admins should be held to higher account than mere editors (hence they have removed Frams's admin rights). Alas, by that thinking arb.commers should be held to even higher accounts, and Maria Sefidari the highest of all. Then how can GorrillaWarfare (with her past history with Fram) not recluse, and how come that they do not see Sefidari's deceit as a problem?)

It looks to me as if there are two sets of Wikipedians:
1. people who go to Wikimeetings, and "build relationships". Sefidari, and most arb.commers are solidly in this group.
2. people who just edit Wikipedia, and who don't build a support group. Fram is definitely in this group.

[Moral Hazard]

Then how can GorrillaWarfare (with her past history with Fram) not rec[CENSORED]use[CENSORED] [...]?)

I did not know that Fram and GW had a history.[CENSORED]

This explains a lot.[CENSORED]

[Osborne]

I did not know that Fram and GW had a history.

August of last year, Fram's block of GorillaWarfare was criticized and then immediately reversed

Gorillawarfare (1.2): blocked for a personal attack, but it was too harsh to block for this kind of comment which happens all the time all over the place. No prior or later negative interactions with Gorillawarfare as far as I know, and no hard feelings remain from either side (see [32]

No hard feelings on my end, I wasn't under the impression that the case was filed or seeking sanction against me. I was mostly linking to my comments for the benefit of others who might be curious if/how I voted in the unblock discussion. GorillaWarfare (talk) 07:53, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

[Osborne]

(Btw, It is rather funny: how arb.commers say that admins should be held to higher account than mere editors (hence they have removed Frams's admin rights). Alas, by that thinking arb.commers should be held to even higher accounts, and Maria Sefidari the highest of all. Then how can GorrillaWarfare (with her past history with Fram) not recluse, and how come that they do not see Sefidari's deceit as a problem?)

These are unrelated metrics though, that can't be compared, but both important. Fram failed the civility metric, ArbCom and Wmf has no such issues. Sefidari has a coi controversy, and GW came to good terms with Fram, I don't know if fram is against her voting.
Which one is in the focus, changes from time to time.

It looks to me as if there are two sets of Wikipedians:
1. people who go to Wikimeetings, and "build relationships". Sefidari, and most arb.commers are solidly in this group.
2. people who just edit Wikipedia, and who don't build a support group. Fram is definitely in this group.

Yep, there is a great divide between WP and WMF, and accordingly wikiPedia and wikiMedia.
1. In-person relationships tend to work better (in terms of honesty, positivity, civility), than online. I see that the wikiMedians actions are more productive and solution-oriented as a result.
2. The online-only wikiPedia community is quite stagnant, guards its doors to newcomers. The roles and power structures are built up, with a common interest to prevent change. This is most likely the reason that the user interface is on a decade-old technological level, and the default answer to any progress proposals is NO. There's no future in stagnant waters, and the constant infighting and bickering slowly suffocates the community and the pedia with it. The problem is not the editors, who contribute, but the "so-called editors", who just tell what should be in an encyclopedia (i.e. guard pages). The latter group is the most vocal and toxic, and has the power to abuse the hard working editors.

[Randy from Boise]

That's pretty much my take, at least with respect to the Fram affair. As for the grants-and-junkets process, more research remains to be done before I'd be convinced that hands were clean...

So you figure the Wikipedia folks aren't worried about the appearance of impropriety, then? They'll only act if there's a smoking gun, or maybe an article in the New York Times?

I doubt we'll see a smoking gun, so basically that means someone's going to have a big incentive to get an article in the New York Times.

I thought the confirmation of their marriage was the smoking gun. Perhaps we should change the election rules to require candidates to disclose their own COIs as well as those of their spouse.

There's not the slightest doubt that LH is a well-connected insider who has traveled the world on the WMF's dime from time to time. But the fact of that ultimate connection to the head of the WMF Board doesn't provide a scintilla of evidence that Sefidari herself participated in the Fram affair. She has denied it and no such evidence or anecdotes indicating that this is the case have subsequently appeared.

We can safely say, however, that LH was part of the anti-Fram campaign in some capacity — there are multiple solid indicators that this is the case.

RfB

[Vigilant]

But the fact of that ultimate connection to the head of the WMF Board doesn't provide a scintilla of evidence that Sefidari herself participated in the Fram affair. She has denied it and no such evidence or anecdotes indicating that this is the case have subsequently appeared.

We can safely say, however, that LH was part of the anti-Fram campaign in some capacity — there are multiple solid indicators that this is the case.

That's just not the case.
Read her denials carefully as a lawyer would
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =901503053

I have had nothing to do with this decision to ban an enwiki admin at all. Office actions do not go through the Board, but even if they did, WMF is aware of any COIs I might have since it is something all trustees proactively disclose. I filed no case against this user and I wasn’t given any prior notification that this was going to happen either, neither did the Board. The bad faith scenario that certain individuals are conjuring up is designed to get people riled up, but it has no basis in truth.

When you add in the deflection to 'it must be misogynists!', it doesn't add up to someone with no culpability.

I want to say something else. This community, when confronted with the ban of an admin on the grounds of problematic behavior, instead of examining said behavior immediately turned to find another individual to blame, finally settling on Laura. She has since then been under relentless public examination, with a deep look at her past, the quality of her edits, her being a WiR (in 2013!), her personal relationships, and even people going through Commons and elsewhere to find pictures of her and pictures of me and posting them externally. Her ban (and mine) have been called for – this has no effect for me since this is not my community, but it is de facto what will happen to Laura, since I don’t see how she will be able to continue contributing with say 20+ people following her edits waiting for some kind of error. But even further - this pattern of trying to prove, in order to absolve a banned admin, that there must be either something in her past, or that she must have done something wrong or used undue influence for her own personal gain, is sadly familiar to most women in the internet, and has strong textbook reminiscences of for instance Gamergate. This is not safe. It’s not healthy for this community either. I urge this community to go back to reasonable discussion – one in which there is an honest conversation about the health of this project and how to promote a thriving community, and the role community and WMF can share to ensure this happens.

There is no mention of Laura Hale's $110KUSD paid gig that was at the heart of Fram's contentions with Laura Hale.

There is no mention of Maria Sefidari's vociferous defense of Laura Hale against Fram.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =742746808

There is no long-standing issue. There is someone consistently going through another users' edits trying to find the smallest mistake to immediately blast her with them. The example above is both ridiculous and extremely telling. Demanding perfection in all edits is unreasonable, this is a wiki. And the way you address her - do you honestly expect anyone to engage with you when faced with such obvious hostility? I'm going to repeat what the users above have said: just leave Laura alone - other people do not mind at all helping her work in a very underrepresented topic on all language Wikipedias. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 13:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

That's not someone who is uninvolved.
The 'demanding perfection' quote is extremely ironic since these articles were BLPs, requiring more scrutiny, not less, and they were work for hire for her PAID editing gig, demanding more perfection in my eyes.

Saying there is no problem with Fram's appalling behavior is not helpful either. Do not conflate separate issues. The example above was ridiculous as an attempt to prove a pattern. It has proven someone else's pattern if anything -and it is being rightly called out in this thread by different editors. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 14:56, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

No mention that the person Raystorm aka Maria Sefidari Huici is defending here is her wife.
That seems like a conflict of interest to me and a flat out lie by omission into the bargain.

(ec) You need to stop this behavior at once. That you are now going through her userspace and deleting drafts without any sort of due process, debate or even second opinions from people who are not as obviously biased against her as you are is unacceptable. That you even think you have a right to continually harass a user is even worse. You have lost all perspective in this obsession of yours with her edits, and you need to step away now. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 14:56, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

That's unambiguous language right there.


Add into the mix things like this
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =593078049

Spanish translations
Laura, I hope to close the AN discussion about you. In that discussion, you indicated a willingness to keep your translated-from-Spanish drafts in a sandbox area until they are vetted by someone competent in Spanish. Have you found a corps of willing translation helpers (either in the Wikipedia community or in your real life in Spain)? --Orlady (talk) 05:06, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I can do it. It's one of the most impressive efforts I have ever seen in Wikipedia, and it deserves full cooperation. Laura, just ping me when you need me to check something. Cheers. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 06:34, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Laura Hale is already living full time in Madrid at this point and is dating/engaged to Maria Sefidari Huici.
Laura Hale can be conclusively shown to have been IN SPAIN ON THAT DATE.
She was in Spain from at least June 24th, 2013 to February 14th, 2014.
The timeline has them married in 2016, from Laura Hale's PhD dissertation, after three years of dating.
That's also a conflict of interest and another lie by omission.

There's editing of the same articles...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =540229630
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538892029
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538450227
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538448864
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538448606

There's defending Laura Hale at DYK around Gibraltarpedia fallout
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538565328


Then the questions arise:
* did Trust and Safety dig up the same things without EXPLICITLY being told by Laura Hale and Maria Sefidari Huici?
* were none written forms of communications used? A word in the ear of Katherine Maher at wikimania perhaps?
* how would a defendant be able to defend themselves without this information?
* would Laura Hale have been indeffed if she weren't the wife of the Chair?
* how much more skulduggery will be found when the funding/grants stuff is dug into?


Maria Sefidari Huici has a pattern of acting on her conflict of interest with her wife, Laura Hale.
The fact that WO had to dig this out and that it took a while to unearth it points to how hard it was buried and why it shouldn't have been.

What legal ethics attorney would have advised that any of these actions were acceptable?

[Osborne]

Good to know about these comments, but COI does not matter when commenting. I would make similar comments, if someone was rude to somebody I know, especially if they are important to me, or a friend. Just like I did. Nothing wrong with that.
WP:INVOLVED would be to block the rude person, but that did not happen in LH's case.

[The Adversary]

(Btw, It is rather funny: how arb.commers say that admins should be held to higher account than mere editors (hence they have removed Frams's admin rights). Alas, by that thinking arb.commers should be held to even higher accounts, and Maria Sefidari the highest of all. Then how can GorrillaWarfare (with her past history with Fram) not recluse, and how come that they do not see Sefidari's deceit as a problem?)

These are unrelated metrics though, that can't be compared, but both important. Fram failed the civility metric, ArbCom and Wmf has no such issues. Sefidari has a coi controversy, and GW came to good terms with Fram, I don't know if fram is against her voting.
Which one is in the focus, changes from time to time..

Both come under what I would call "decorum".
And no, I don't think incivility is worse than COI.

As for GW "coming to good terms with Fram"; of course she would say that. BUT: the case was still brought as evidence against Fram! Now, if a person has been assaulted: do you put the victim on the jury that will judge the assaulter, (if only they said they held no hard feeling?)
That would be a new one, at least in the Western World.

As for going to wiki meetings: I know at least 3 wikimedians (all male) who has been to wiki meetings, and have done time (or are doing time) for violence (or threats of it), against women. 2 of them are still in jail (both in the US), one is out (in my country, after serving time for murder.)

Add to that that some of us do wiki work in highly contested areas, where hundreds, if not thousands of death threats are to be expected.
I have met people I do wiki work with; but there is absolutely no chance that I would ever go to a wiki meeting open to all. The same goes for most (all?) of my colleges, doing work in "difficult" areas.

And Sefidari looks like a great "networker"...here she is with Sue Gardner (T-H-L) way back in in 2012:

[Randy from Boise]

[
As for GW "coming to good terms with Fram"; of course she would say that. BUT: the case was still brought as evidence against Fram! Now, if a person has been assaulted: do you put the victim on the jury that will judge the assaulter, (if only they said they held no hard feeling?)
That would be a new one, at least in the Western World.

Point taken, but we really should note that GW has distinguished herself through the lucidity and thoughtfulness of her comments. Okay, maybe not so lucid with all the double-negatives, but you take my meaning. Her greenish-light to overturning the WMF ban is powerful stuff, and I would have hated to have lost it.

Whether she should have commented at all, yeah, maybe you have a point. But she did do a remarkably nice job of commenting.

RfB

[Moral Hazard]

But the fact of that ultimate connection to the head of the WMF Board doesn't provide a scintilla of evidence that Sefidari herself participated in the Fram affair. She has denied it and no such evidence or anecdotes indicating that this is the case have subsequently appeared.

We can safely say, however, that LH was part of the anti-Fram campaign in some capacity — there are multiple solid indicators that this is the case.

That's just not the case.
Read her denials carefully as a lawyer would
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =901503053

I have had nothing to do with this decision to ban an enwiki admin at all. Office actions do not go through the Board, but even if they did, WMF is aware of any COIs I might have since it is something all trustees proactively disclose. I filed no case against this user and I wasn’t given any prior notification that this was going to happen either, neither did the Board. The bad faith scenario that certain individuals are conjuring up is designed to get people riled up, but it has no basis in truth.

When you add in the deflection to 'it must be misogynists!', it doesn't add up to someone with no culpability.

I want to say something else. This community, when confronted with the ban of an admin on the grounds of problematic behavior, instead of examining said behavior immediately turned to find another individual to blame, finally settling on Laura. She has since then been under relentless public examination, with a deep look at her past, the quality of her edits, her being a WiR (in 2013!), her personal relationships, and even people going through Commons and elsewhere to find pictures of her and pictures of me and posting them externally. Her ban (and mine) have been called for – this has no effect for me since this is not my community, but it is de facto what will happen to Laura, since I don’t see how she will be able to continue contributing with say 20+ people following her edits waiting for some kind of error. But even further - this pattern of trying to prove, in order to absolve a banned admin, that there must be either something in her past, or that she must have done something wrong or used undue influence for her own personal gain, is sadly familiar to most women in the internet, and has strong textbook reminiscences of for instance Gamergate. This is not safe. It’s not healthy for this community either. I urge this community to go back to reasonable discussion – one in which there is an honest conversation about the health of this project and how to promote a thriving community, and the role community and WMF can share to ensure this happens.

There is no mention of Laura Hale's $110KUSD paid gig that was at the heart of Fram's contentions with Laura Hale.

There is no mention of Maria Sefidari's vociferous defense of Laura Hale against Fram.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =742746808

There is no long-standing issue. There is someone consistently going through another users' edits trying to find the smallest mistake to immediately blast her with them. The example above is both ridiculous and extremely telling. Demanding perfection in all edits is unreasonable, this is a wiki. And the way you address her - do you honestly expect anyone to engage with you when faced with such obvious hostility? I'm going to repeat what the users above have said: just leave Laura alone - other people do not mind at all helping her work in a very underrepresented topic on all language Wikipedias. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 13:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

That's not someone who is uninvolved.
The 'demanding perfection' quote is extremely ironic since these articles were BLPs, requiring more scrutiny, not less, and they were work for hire for her PAID editing gig, demanding more perfection in my eyes.

Saying there is no problem with Fram's appalling behavior is not helpful either. Do not conflate separate issues. The example above was ridiculous as an attempt to prove a pattern. It has proven someone else's pattern if anything -and it is being rightly called out in this thread by different editors. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 14:56, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

No mention that the person Raystorm aka Maria Sefidari Huici is defending here is her wife.
That seems like a conflict of interest to me and a flat out lie by omission into the bargain.

(ec) You need to stop this behavior at once. That you are now going through her userspace and deleting drafts without any sort of due process, debate or even second opinions from people who are not as obviously biased against her as you are is unacceptable. That you even think you have a right to continually harass a user is even worse. You have lost all perspective in this obsession of yours with her edits, and you need to step away now. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 14:56, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

That's unambiguous language right there.


Add into the mix things like this
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =593078049

Spanish translations
Laura, I hope to close the AN discussion about you. In that discussion, you indicated a willingness to keep your translated-from-Spanish drafts in a sandbox area until they are vetted by someone competent in Spanish. Have you found a corps of willing translation helpers (either in the Wikipedia community or in your real life in Spain)? --Orlady (talk) 05:06, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I can do it. It's one of the most impressive efforts I have ever seen in Wikipedia, and it deserves full cooperation. Laura, just ping me when you need me to check something. Cheers. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 06:34, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Laura Hale is already living full time in Madrid at this point and is dating/engaged to Maria Sefidari Huici.
Laura Hale can be conclusively shown to have been IN SPAIN ON THAT DATE.
She was in Spain from at least June 24th, 2013 to February 14th, 2014.
The timeline has them married in 2016, from Laura Hale's PhD dissertation, after three years of dating.
That's also a conflict of interest and another lie by omission.

There's editing of the same articles...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =540229630
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538892029
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538450227
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538448864
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538448606

There's defending Laura Hale at DYK around Gibraltarpedia fallout
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538565328

Then the questions arise:
* did Trust and Safety dig up the same things without EXPLICITLY being told by Laura Hale and Maria Sefidari Huici?
* were none written forms of communications used? A word in the ear of Katherine Maher at wikimania perhaps?
* how would a defendant be able to defend themselves without this information?
* would Laura Hale have been indeffed if she weren't the wife of the Chair?
* how much more skulduggery will be found when the funding/grants stuff is dug into?


Maria Sefidari Huici has a pattern of acting on her conflict of interest with her wife, Laura Hale.
The fact that WO had to dig this out and that it took a while to unearth it points to how hard it was buried and why it shouldn't have been.

What legal ethics attorney would have advised that any of these actions were acceptable?

A dinner conversation:

JW: Well, Laura, I must say that as the founder of BOMIS I have been very impressed by your Open Source Boobs project.
KM: I agree. Thanks for your support of women, Jimmy.
MS: Thankth, Jimmy and thank you, Katherine. It'th great to get confirmation from eh-thuch an independent eh-thtrong woman. I really love your Twitter feed.
[Awkward silence]

MS: Unfortunately, Laura doeth not feel like talking.
JW & KM: Why, what's wrong?
LH: *Whimpers*.

MS: Cariña, Laura, ith being harathed on Wikipedia.
JW & KM: No! Tell me! [KM giggles nervously and with pleasure.]
LH: *hysterical babbles for 30 minutes about Fram and how he is endangering other women and disabled people on Wikipedia, and depriving disabled girls in Africa from having role models.
KM: I shall talk to Trust and Safety tomorrow morning about this, which is much more important than working with authorities to get rid of child grooming.
KM: In fact, given how long this is going on, I shall talk to the grant-making committee-chairs about your work and how we should help you, given that we did not stop the harassment earlier.

[eagle]

But the fact of that ultimate connection to the head of the WMF Board doesn't provide a scintilla of evidence that Sefidari herself participated in the Fram affair. She has denied it and no such evidence or anecdotes indicating that this is the case have subsequently appeared.

We can safely say, however, that LH was part of the anti-Fram campaign in some capacity — there are multiple solid indicators that this is the case.

That's just not the case.
Read her denials carefully as a lawyer would
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =901503053

I have had nothing to do with this decision to ban an enwiki admin at all. Office actions do not go through the Board, but even if they did, WMF is aware of any COIs I might have since it is something all trustees proactively disclose. I filed no case against this user and I wasn’t given any prior notification that this was going to happen either, neither did the Board. The bad faith scenario that certain individuals are conjuring up is designed to get people riled up, but it has no basis in truth.

When you add in the deflection to 'it must be misogynists!', it doesn't add up to someone with no culpability.

I want to say something else. This community, when confronted with the ban of an admin on the grounds of problematic behavior, instead of examining said behavior immediately turned to find another individual to blame, finally settling on Laura. She has since then been under relentless public examination, with a deep look at her past, the quality of her edits, her being a WiR (in 2013!), her personal relationships, and even people going through Commons and elsewhere to find pictures of her and pictures of me and posting them externally. Her ban (and mine) have been called for – this has no effect for me since this is not my community, but it is de facto what will happen to Laura, since I don’t see how she will be able to continue contributing with say 20+ people following her edits waiting for some kind of error. But even further - this pattern of trying to prove, in order to absolve a banned admin, that there must be either something in her past, or that she must have done something wrong or used undue influence for her own personal gain, is sadly familiar to most women in the internet, and has strong textbook reminiscences of for instance Gamergate. This is not safe. It’s not healthy for this community either. I urge this community to go back to reasonable discussion – one in which there is an honest conversation about the health of this project and how to promote a thriving community, and the role community and WMF can share to ensure this happens.

There is no mention of Laura Hale's $110KUSD paid gig that was at the heart of Fram's contentions with Laura Hale.

There is no mention of Maria Sefidari's vociferous defense of Laura Hale against Fram.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =742746808

There is no long-standing issue. There is someone consistently going through another users' edits trying to find the smallest mistake to immediately blast her with them. The example above is both ridiculous and extremely telling. Demanding perfection in all edits is unreasonable, this is a wiki. And the way you address her - do you honestly expect anyone to engage with you when faced with such obvious hostility? I'm going to repeat what the users above have said: just leave Laura alone - other people do not mind at all helping her work in a very underrepresented topic on all language Wikipedias. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 13:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

That's not someone who is uninvolved.
The 'demanding perfection' quote is extremely ironic since these articles were BLPs, requiring more scrutiny, not less, and they were work for hire for her PAID editing gig, demanding more perfection in my eyes.

Saying there is no problem with Fram's appalling behavior is not helpful either. Do not conflate separate issues. The example above was ridiculous as an attempt to prove a pattern. It has proven someone else's pattern if anything -and it is being rightly called out in this thread by different editors. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 14:56, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

No mention that the person Raystorm aka Maria Sefidari Huici is defending here is her wife.
That seems like a conflict of interest to me and a flat out lie by omission into the bargain.

(ec) You need to stop this behavior at once. That you are now going through her userspace and deleting drafts without any sort of due process, debate or even second opinions from people who are not as obviously biased against her as you are is unacceptable. That you even think you have a right to continually harass a user is even worse. You have lost all perspective in this obsession of yours with her edits, and you need to step away now. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 14:56, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

That's unambiguous language right there.


Add into the mix things like this
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =593078049

Spanish translations
Laura, I hope to close the AN discussion about you. In that discussion, you indicated a willingness to keep your translated-from-Spanish drafts in a sandbox area until they are vetted by someone competent in Spanish. Have you found a corps of willing translation helpers (either in the Wikipedia community or in your real life in Spain)? --Orlady (talk) 05:06, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I can do it. It's one of the most impressive efforts I have ever seen in Wikipedia, and it deserves full cooperation. Laura, just ping me when you need me to check something. Cheers. Raystorm (¿Sí?) 06:34, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Laura Hale is already living full time in Madrid at this point and is dating/engaged to Maria Sefidari Huici.
Laura Hale can be conclusively shown to have been IN SPAIN ON THAT DATE.
She was in Spain from at least June 24th, 2013 to February 14th, 2014.
The timeline has them married in 2016, from Laura Hale's PhD dissertation, after three years of dating.
That's also a conflict of interest and another lie by omission.

There's editing of the same articles...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =540229630
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538892029
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538450227
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538448864
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538448606

There's defending Laura Hale at DYK around Gibraltarpedia fallout
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =538565328

Then the questions arise:
* did Trust and Safety dig up the same things without EXPLICITLY being told by Laura Hale and Maria Sefidari Huici?
* were none written forms of communications used? A word in the ear of Katherine Maher at wikimania perhaps?
* how would a defendant be able to defend themselves without this information?
* would Laura Hale have been indeffed if she weren't the wife of the Chair?
* how much more skulduggery will be found when the funding/grants stuff is dug into?


Maria Sefidari Huici has a pattern of acting on her conflict of interest with her wife, Laura Hale.
The fact that WO had to dig this out and that it took a while to unearth it points to how hard it was buried and why it shouldn't have been.

What legal ethics attorney would have advised that any of these actions were acceptable?

ACT I: A dinner conversation:

JW: Well, Laura, I must say that as the founder of BOMIS I have been very impressed by your Open Source Boobs project.
KM: I agree. Thanks for your support of women, Jimmy.
MS: Thankth, Jimmy and thank you, Katherine. It'th great to get confirmation from eh-thuch an independent eh-thtrong woman. I really love your Twitter feed.
[Awkward silence]

MS: Unfortunately, Laura doeth not feel like talking.
JW & KM: Why, what's wrong?
LH: *Whimpers*.

MS: Cariña, Laura, ith being harathed on Wikipedia.
JW & KM: No! Tell me! [KM giggles nervously and with pleasure.]
LH: *hysterical babbles for 30 minutes about Fram and how he is endangering other women and disabled people on Wikipedia, and depriving disabled girls in Africa from having role models.
KM: I shall talk to Trust and Safety tomorrow morning about this, which is much more important than working with authorities to get rid of child grooming.
KM: In fact, given how long this is going on, I shall talk to the grant-making committee-chairs about your work and how we should help you, given that we did not stop the harassment earlier.

ACT II: Months later in the bedroom
MS: Has Fram stopped harassing you?
LH: Yes, but I fear that if I edit, he may pounce again.
MS: Well, just put a big scary noticebox on the top of your talk page warning him off.
LH: Can I tell him that he has to answer to you if he tries anything?
MS: No, don't do that. Remember our marriage is an off-wiki secret. People would never understand, and the voters would not forgive me if they found out that I fell in love with such a cute little troublemaker. Why don't you specifically name the members of the T&S staff instead?
LH: Do you think that if I posted that publicly on my talk page, that wikilawyers would come by later and claim that it was a waiver of my confidentiality rights?
MS: My sweet little pumpkin, you over-think such problems. Just write something firm that reflects your strong feminist inner-self, and that will scare him off. But to ensure that nothing can be traced back to you, I will have my usual group also file T&S complaints against Fram so that nobody will blame you for messing with that little male GamerGater. I will also call Cariña and tell her to make sure that how-you-Americans-say "that Fram goes up the river for a long time."
LH: Oh thank you. I am lucky that I married a woman who does so much for me and makes my life so meaningful. Perhaps someday I will learn enough Spanish to tell you of my love in your native tung.

[Moral Hazard]

Hahahaha.