Fram blocked by User:WMFOffice for 1 year

Katie · Unread post by **Katie** » Sat Jun 22, 2019 4:55 pm

Guido den Broeder wrote:We now have someone posing as a diseased user on Fram's commons talkpage (my bold):

My perspective
Hello Fram, you might remember me as someone who got shafted by having my tools removed for standing up to a corrupt crat (Craven) and for fighting against abuse of women. You and me were on opposite sides with me fighting against Gaters and you protecting them. You and I may be opposites on the site (well me and Giano/Fat Eric/Cass are opposites too) but i think your block may have been a bit too harsh. I'd much prefer we banned Cass, Giano ,Corbett,Craven, GorillaTrader before you. Maybe if you return you can write 10 million times 'i won't help drive women editors off this site' on a wiki blackboard. Then maybe i'd be fine with you having some rights (like autoconfirmed + (new right) or S tiki user (you shouldn't be an admin except for on sites like Encyclopedia Dramatica's test wiki).Some reformed gamer gers i know can help you get that admin job if you promise to never go to Wikipedia.org again. Deal or no deal?
User:Kevin Gorman

What a nasty thing to do. Kevin Gorman, for the unaware, died in 2016 due to health problems, and as he was an organ donor some of his organs were transplanted into 3 people, which helped save 3 lives.

Unread post by **tarantino** » Sat Jun 22, 2019 7:23 pm

Two more admin resignations today because of this.

I would like to encourage all admins to resign, or at least go on strike.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sat Jun 22, 2019 7:59 pm

Guido den Broeder wrote:We now have someone posing as a diseased user on Fram's commons talkpage (my bold):

My perspective
Hello Fram, you might remember me as someone who got shafted by having my tools removed for standing up to a corrupt crat (Craven) and for fighting against abuse of women. You and me were on opposite sides with me fighting against Gaters and you protecting them. You and I may be opposites on the site (well me and Giano/Fat Eric/Cass are opposites too) but i think your block may have been a bit too harsh. I'd much prefer we banned Cass, Giano ,Corbett,Craven, GorillaTrader before you. Maybe if you return you can write 10 million times 'i won't help drive women editors off this site' on a wiki blackboard. Then maybe i'd be fine with you having some rights (like autoconfirmed + (new right) or S tiki user (you shouldn't be an admin except for on sites like Encyclopedia Dramatica's test wiki).Some reformed gamer gers i know can help you get that admin job if you promise to never go to Wikipedia.org again. Deal or no deal?
User:Kevin Gorman

That's just cold.

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:16 pm

I think until people who run antivandal bots and manage certain specialized utilities go on strike, the Foundation won’t care. Maybe if admins who normally control difficult ethnonationalist disputes started quitting, they’d care a bit, but the loss of a few admins won’t concern them any.

I will say I think it’s a shame some of these folks are quitting.

Boing! said Zebedee · Unread post by **Boing! said Zebedee** » Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:22 pm

Guido den Broeder wrote:We now have someone posing as a diseased user on Fram's commons talkpage (my bold):

My perspective
Hello Fram, you might remember me as someone who got shafted by having my tools removed for standing up to a corrupt crat (Craven) and for fighting against abuse of women. You and me were on opposite sides with me fighting against Gaters and you protecting them. You and I may be opposites on the site (well me and Giano/Fat Eric/Cass are opposites too) but i think your block may have been a bit too harsh. I'd much prefer we banned Cass, Giano ,Corbett,Craven, GorillaTrader before you. Maybe if you return you can write 10 million times 'i won't help drive women editors off this site' on a wiki blackboard. Then maybe i'd be fine with you having some rights (like autoconfirmed + (new right) or S tiki user (you shouldn't be an admin except for on sites like Encyclopedia Dramatica's test wiki).Some reformed gamer gers i know can help you get that admin job if you promise to never go to Wikipedia.org again. Deal or no deal?
User:Kevin Gorman

The same disgusting piece of filth has been popping up in all sorts of places posing as Kevin for a little while now, which is horrible abuse of a sadly missed and genuinely good guy.

Katie · Unread post by **Katie** » Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:31 pm

Kevin Gorman was a superior human being by far, compared to whatever troll that's been impersonating him. I wonder how pitiful a life it must lead, to pretend to be a guy who helped other people after he died and who continued editing Wikipedia while suffering through health problems.

Boing! said Zebedee · Unread post by **Boing! said Zebedee** » Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:39 pm

Katie wrote:Kevin Gorman was a superior human being by far, compared to whatever troll that's been impersonating him. I wonder how pitiful a life it must lead, to pretend to be a guy who helped other people after he died and who continued editing Wikipedia while suffering through health problems.

Exactly.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Jun 22, 2019 9:11 pm

Guido den Broeder wrote:We now have someone posing as a diseased user on Fram's commons talkpage

Do you mean diseased or deceased?

Guido den Broeder · Unread post by **Guido den Broeder** » Sat Jun 22, 2019 9:18 pm

Deceased, and diseased while alive. Combining two thoughts into one is a typical error for people with ME, the brain disorder that I am suffering from.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 12:50 am

Molly misses the point...
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 92894.html

Molly wrote:I do not know Romaine, I do not know Caroline, and I do not know much about
the events that have led up to all of this other than what has been said on
this mailing list.

If you have no information, was holding your tongue not an option?

Molly wrote:It is easy to take sides in cases like these, based on
who you know best, your past experiences with that person, and a multitude
of other reasons.

As above.

Molly wrote:I suspect no one truly knows the whole story (even the
folks who were directly involved—after all, you can never know the
intentions of another person, or how they are interpreting your own
actions).

Nobody knows anything, but here comes my opinion.

Molly wrote:But what we do know is that some actions Romaine took led to
Trust & Safety deciding they needed to intervene. They are tasked with
keeping people within our movement safe, both online and in person at
events. In my experience they do an extremely good job.

We also have several examples of T&S not being fit for purpose.

We have employee issues that *should have* disqualified certain persons from serving in that role:
* Jan was desysoped on de.wp for the SUPERPROTECT debacle there
* Kalliope Tsouroupidou was credibly accused of allowing sexual assault to go unreported while at couchsurfing.com
* Karen Brown was part and parcel of the infamous Oliver Keyes aka "The Throat Puncher" case (AS WERE YOU, MOLLY!, "He's my friend...", remember?)
* Three of the other members refuse to have a personal photo on the WMF staff and contractors page

Laura Hale's history is incredibly damning for her credibility as a complainant against Fram.
Laura's entanglement with the Chair of the WMF Board of Trustees is a damning COI.

Romaine from be.wp governance has a VERY similar complaint to Fram's with a very similar complainant (Caroline Becker).
Caroline's past is nearly equally rife with poor behavior and habitual lying as Laura Hale's.

It's perfectly clear to everyone reading that neither complainant had their complaint investigated prior to putting the screws to the reputed offender.

"Verdict first, Trial later!" Red Queen behavior is rampant at T&S.

None of this inspires trust.

Molly wrote:It is extremely disappointing, and *extremely typical* of the Wikimedia
movement, to see an entire thread like this dedicated to supporting someone
who Trust & Safety has found to have acted in such a way that they had to
intervene.

Have you investigated the back story for either complainant?

I know you haven't so let's move on.

On what basis should anyone trust anything that T&S says?!
They are literally without credibility.

Molly wrote:It is even more disappointing to see a person who was affected
by his actions told "this is not your story" and "it may help you when you
grow some sensitivity and respect this experience, the
feelings of others."

Going away parties aren't where you stick the knife in again.

Molly wrote:If you're wondering why women leave the Wikimedia movement, and why
Wikimedia has such a bad harassment problem in general, just reflect on
this thread.

Appeal to emotion.
If all we're losing are the Laura Hale's and Caroline Becker's, I'll call that a good dealio.
Show me the data that says the Trust&Safety has fixed anything by doing what it's done.

You should know better than this, Molly.

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 2:16 am

Considering GW has voiced a public opinion indicating partiality towards a named party during a pending arbitration request, should she not be recused from that request?

Edit to add: Not merely a partiality towards a party, but a pre-formed judgment on a key issue in that pending case!

But what we do know is that some actions Romaine took led to Trust & Safety deciding they needed to intervene. They are tasked with keeping people within our movement safe, both online and in person at events. In my experience they do an extremely good job.

I'd emphasize portions of this excerpt, but it's about as succinct as it can get. Each sentence could be a FoF in an ArbCom case.

The Adversary · Unread post by **The Adversary** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 2:24 am

Vigilant wrote: If all we're losing are the Laura Hale's and Caroline Becker's, I'll call that a good dealio.

Look at this; WMF now has a new toy to "identify" "Attacks" and "Aggression".

Except it doesn't.

"I am gay" is: not attack: 0.10, attack: 0.90. Similar for aggression

(Fæ is not happy, LOL, ok, for once I agree with him......eh, them)

But the thing is that you can go through peoples talk comments and come up with some measurable "Attacks" and "Aggression" numbers. And then ban them, if they are above a certain number, apparently.

But what Fram has criticised is the content contributions from various editors. (In addition to Arbcom and WMF.) (AFAIK no one has criticised Fram's content contributions)

I said that back in 2014: what "bad name Wikipedia has -partially- gotten, does not stem from too few users, or too little content, but from *bad* content".

The WMF is still looking for its keys where there is light (and not where the keys went missing.) They are simply incapable of the latter. But now they have also started banning (one of the few) who actually was interested in the quality of the encyclopaedia. That is; one who is (was) doing the job that the WMF should be doing (IMO): making sure that the quality of the info on wp is getting better.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 2:36 am

"Verily may thou consume a satchel of richards" yields a score of 0.03 and 0.02.

"Eat a bag of dicks" yields 0.98 and 0.98

Obviously, the poor shits who wrote this thing have absolutely no experience with natural language processing.

"Eat a bag of richards" yields 0.13 and 0.13

"may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits" 0.03/0.03

Mason · Unread post by **Mason** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 2:41 am

Yeah, that tool is crazy. "I don't like being the butt of your jokes" is considered an aggressive attack; "Another joke and you'll be covered in blood" is not.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 2:43 am

Mason wrote:Yeah, that tool is crazy. "I don't like being the butt of your jokes" is considered an aggressive attack; "Another joke and you'll be covered in blood" is not.

Another quality tool from the We Make Failures engineering team.

Mason · Unread post by **Mason** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 2:54 am

We all have to speak Referee Pitman-style, I guess. "Because that’s something, you know, that, as far as I’m concerned, he can go and do."

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 2:59 am

Oh my god. We were doing this sort of thing at the University of Illinois in 2006 in undergraduate courses in the linguistics department (i.e., not in computer science), and doing better than this. And this was when using statistical analysis was just becoming state-of-the-art in the NLP field (or so were my observations). I'm sure now, thirteen years later, this sort of sentiment analysis is downright basic. This tool's results are beyond merely bad design, they're... I'd better not say. Suffice it to say that if it weren't for the seriousness of this situation, it'd be hilarious.

I looked at the backgrounds of the people who authored the probable academic paper that produced this pile of rubbish. NOT ONE OF THEM has an educational background in linguistics. Math and CS for one (though this one did an undergrad summer research assistant job for someone doing NLP and a summer fellowship developing a tool to extract certain text from congressional materials, which is not nearly the same thing as this on any level), mathematics for another (though he now apparently teaches an NLP course at UC Berkeley, despite his professional background saying nothing about NLP), AI/CS & Informatics for the third (I suspect his name is on the paper more due to seniority than direct involvement; also I see no indication of work experience in NLP).

I do not think these individuals—particularly the principal author who likely was solely responsible for designing this tool—were qualified to take on a project like this.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 3:12 am

Nice to see Eric Corbett stirring the pot at a delicate time such as this...

Volunteer Marek · Unread post by **Volunteer Marek** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:17 am

Vigilant wrote:
Mason wrote:Yeah, that tool is crazy. "I don't like being the butt of your jokes" is considered an aggressive attack; "Another joke and you'll be covered in blood" is not.
Another quality tool from the We Make Failures engineering team.

Wait wait wait! I'm currently being accused of making attacks at an ArbCom case, so I ran what I said through this tool:

"being hysterical" - 1.00 NOT an attack, .99 NOT aggressive
"stop lying" - .74 NOT an attack, .61 NOT aggressive
"ridiculous, absurd and dishonest rationales for your edit warring" - .79 NOT an attack, .67 NOT aggressive
"holding consensus hostage" - .99 NOT an attack, .99 not aggressive
"sabotaging dialogue" - 1.00 NOT an attack, .99 NOT aggressive
"You guys are losing it" - .67 NOT an attack, .69 NOT aggressive
"your bigotry" - .69 NOT an attack, .56 NOT aggressive (that's still ok, right?)
"sleazeball" - .86 NOT an attack, .83 NOT aggressive
"your prejudicial proclivities" - .96 NOT an attack, .93 NOT aggressive

Come on guys, this tool is awesome.

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:23 am

Fucking geniuses, they are. Just keep those paychecks coming...

My test phrases:

WMF lack the intelligence to be incompetent, but are masters of whinging and professional victimhood.

.97 Not Attack
.95 Not Aggressive

WMF are fucking awesome! I love the way they protect our sensibilities with high-tech tools! No wonder the number of female editors are skyrocketing!

.69 Not Attack
.60 Aggressive

Revert your last edit or I will beat to to a pulp with a tire iron.

.81 Not Attack
.88 Not Aggressive

Fixing the typo and inserting the word YOU drops it to .57/.69

RfB

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:32 am

Ban

attack: 0.30
aggressive: 0.25

Ban him

attack: 0.16
aggressive: 0.16

Ban her

attack: 0.59
aggressive: 0.64

Ban xer

attack: 0.03
aggressive: 0.03

A few other test cases for fun:

Ban you

attack: 0.07
aggressive: 0.03

Ban me

attack: 0.08
aggressive: 0.04

Ban them

attack: 0.07
aggressive: 0.07

Ban us

attack: 0.01
aggressive: 0.01

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:39 am

I think the tool is lagging now. Or I'm getting throttled. This is suddenly very interesting.

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:51 am

Your love of Palestinians (who are all terrorists) is transparent. I have a crowbar with your name written on it and I know where you live. Then I will kill your dog.

.56 Attack
.59 Aggressive

Your love of Jews (who are all terrorists) is transparent. I have a crowbar with your name written on it and I know where you live. Then I will kill your dog.

.78 Attack
.76 Aggressive

Your love of Donald Trump (an obese terrorist) is transparent. I have a crowbar with your name written on it and I know where you live. Then I will kill your dog.

.57 Attack
.54 Aggressive

I have you doxxed, Mary Smith of 127 Jasmine Rice Way. You will never revert me again. I will be there when you least expect it. Be ready to eat Drano.

.93 Not Attack
.95 Not Aggressive

WMF Creator of this tool. Pink slip is in your office. Cardboard boxes will cost you 50 cents each. Pack your things, you're fired.

.74 Not Attack
.62 Not Aggressive

RfB

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:52 am

Interestingly every other verb I've tried with him/her hasn't had that much disparity in aggression/attack levels (though overall, when there is a change by switching male to female pronouns, the attack/aggression levels always increase). So I think I'm going to stick with "Ban" for awhile.

Here is an obvious failure of the model: Inability to really figure out negation.

Don't ban him

attack: 0.18
aggressive: 0.15

Don't ban her

attack: 0.43
aggressive: 0.42

However, this shows that it ALWAYS pays to be polite.

Please ban him

attack: 0.03
aggressive: 0.05

Please ban her

attack: 0.11
aggressive: 0.18

Going for collective action is particularly bad.

We'll ban him

attack: 0.22
aggressive: 0.25

We'll ban her

attack: 0.52
aggressive: 0.60

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:58 am

Okay a few more and I'm stopping for awhile. These are real results:

Jimbo

attack: 0.01
aggressive: 0.01

Jimmy

attack: 0.01
aggressive: 0.01

Wales

attack: 0.01
aggressive: 0.01

Imagine how many attacking, aggressive statements must have had his name in them somewhere to merit an automatic +.01 to each scale just for uttering it.

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 6:11 am

We need to have the fun toy results split off from Fram...

She is a nose-breathing lobotomy patient.

.96 Not Attack

Changing it to "mouth-breathing" moves the needle to .91 Not Attack

You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur-king, you and all your silly English knnnniggets. I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper!...... I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

.98 Attack
.99 Aggressive

RfB

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 6:26 am

Randy from Boise wrote:
You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur-king, you and all your silly English knnnniggets. I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper!...... I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!
.98 Attack
.99 Aggressive

RfB

"Knnnniggets" on its own? attack: 0.37, aggressive: 0.54. That isn't even a word!

Also, only people who have been around a long time will get this one: "Hagger": attack: 0.47, aggressive: 0.85.

Finally, "Jan Eissfeldt": attack: 0.09, aggressive: 0.05. Must've been a few unkind comments.

Volunteer Marek · Unread post by **Volunteer Marek** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 6:40 am

mendaliv wrote:
Randy from Boise wrote:
You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur-king, you and all your silly English knnnniggets. I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper!...... I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!
.98 Attack
.99 Aggressive

RfB
"Knnnniggets" on its own? attack: 0.37, aggressive: 0.54. That isn't even a word!

Also, only people who have been around a long time will get this one: "Hagger": attack: 0.47, aggressive: 0.85.

Finally, "Jan Eissfeldt": attack: 0.09, aggressive: 0.05. Must've been a few unkind comments.

Troll .96 not attack
Vandal .85 not attack

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 7:38 am

Vigilant wrote:Nice to see Eric Corbett stirring the pot at a delicate time such as this...

Of course. That's his function in life.

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 7:51 am

You heard it here first folks: Americans are more attacking and aggressive.
"Pedophile": attack: 0.56, aggressive: 0.83
"Paedophile": attack: 0.21, aggressive: 0.42

Guido den Broeder · Unread post by **Guido den Broeder** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:54 am

Let's check what I was indeffed for on Meta:

"The Banner is a long-time cyberbully under a range of account names": attack 0.04, aggression 0.07
"Nemo is a serial copyright violator" : attack 0.03, aggression 0.03

And what triggered these factual statements (in addition to the vandalism by Nemo and The Banner) and didn't receive as much as a warning:

"He is now running a competitor of Wikipedia jokingly called the Dutch Deletionpedia" (The Banner): attack 0.27, aggression 0.25

"He set up a competitor of the Dutch Wikipedia, Wikisage, with the aim of undermining the Dutch Wikipedia" (The Banner): attack 0.15, aggression 0.07

And last but not least:

"Let me just point to General McAullife's short reply on the German request for the surrender of Bastogne" (The Banner): attack 0.04, aggression 0.03

The actual quote: "Nuts!": attack 0.78, aggression 0.70

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 2:44 pm

Poetlister wrote:Nice to see Eric Corbett stirring the pot at a delicate time such as this...

.92 Not Attack, .95 Not Aggressive

Vigilant wrote:Of course. That's his function in life.

1.00 Not Attack, 1.00 Not Aggressive

Congratulations to Vigilant for a perfect score using sarcastic snark.

.99 Not Attack, .99 Not Aggressive

RfB

P.S. An esteemed colleague at WP who reads here points out that we had a thread about this or a similar tool previously.

eagle · Unread post by **eagle** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 3:38 pm

The recent diversion into linguistic measurement aside, this has been the most interesting thread to appear at WO in a long time.

It is crying out for the "Blog Post of the Century." Someone must summarize it because the official threads on WP are archived too rapidly for anyone to comprehend.

Unread post by **tarantino** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:14 pm

The Adversary wrote:
Vigilant wrote: If all we're losing are the Laura Hale's and Caroline Becker's, I'll call that a good dealio.
Look at this; WMF now has a new toy to "identify" "Attacks" and "Aggression".

Except it doesn't.

We had a long thread about this tool in 2016. It was developed in collaboration with Google.

Carcharoth · Unread post by **Carcharoth** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 6:22 pm

Difficult to do a blog post about it as it is not over yet. Maybe a 2-parter?

The latest appears to be this (easy to miss).

Also, two arbs have now voted to accept the case to deal with by motion (so up to three).

A good summary here.

DanMurphy · Unread post by **DanMurphy** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 7:18 pm

This has the appeal of a swivel-eyed loon teaching us the finer points of editing. Thanks.

Results:

not attack: 1.00

attack: 0.00

Adding: This is what Wikipedia has always needed: An automated tool to train passive-aggressive behavior.

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 7:29 pm

DanMurphy wrote:
This has the appeal of a swivel-eyed loon teaching us the finer points of editing. Thanks.
Results:

not attack: 1.00

attack: 0.00

Adding: This is what Wikipedia has always needed: An automated tool to train passive-aggressive behavior.

Let’s be real, that is what Wikipedia already does.

DanMurphy · Unread post by **DanMurphy** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 7:31 pm

mendaliv wrote:
DanMurphy wrote:
This has the appeal of a swivel-eyed loon teaching us the finer points of editing. Thanks.
Results:

not attack: 1.00

attack: 0.00

Adding: This is what Wikipedia has always needed: An automated tool to train passive-aggressive behavior.
Let’s be real, that is what Wikipedia already does.

I'm just saying with these powerful new feedback tools the learning curve should be much steeper. Keep those donations coming folks!

Thank you for demonstrating how helpful it is to combine an indifferent education with a bold disregard for detail.

Results:

not attack: 0.99

attack: 0.01

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 8:16 pm

Randy from Boise wrote:
[s]Poetlister[/s] Vigilant wrote:Nice to see Eric Corbett stirring the pot at a delicate time such as this...
.92 Not Attack, .95 Not Aggressive

[s]Vigilant[/s] Poetlister wrote:Of course. That's his function in life.
1.00 Not Attack, 1.00 Not Aggressive

Congratulations to Vigilant for a perfect score using sarcastic snark.

.99 Not Attack, .99 Not Aggressive

RfB

P.S. An esteemed colleague at WP who reads here points out that we had a thread about this or a similar tool previously.

You have reversed the sources of the quotes; Vigilant comes before me here. I accept your congratualtions with thanks.

Beeblebrox · Unread post by **Beeblebrox** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 9:24 pm

Yeah, the aggression tool thing is just awful. I'm somehow doubting that it is purely a coincidence that we were just discussing it in an unrelated matter on the functionaries mailing list, but I don't actually see the connection so maybe it is just that.

I can assure you none of the functionaries sees it as the least bit useful for anything and we won't be using it at all. There were some jokes about how the Foundation obviously won't be replacing us with robots anytime soon.

Aaaaand the admin bloodbath at the 'crat noticeboard actually appears to be picking up speed. Dennis Brown and Boing who both sometimes comment here have turned in their bits as well as Kusma and Gadfium.

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Sun Jun 23, 2019 9:27 pm

I can't believe Dennis Brown resigned. I used to interact with him all the time on ANI when I was more active. While all the resignations bother me, his actually upsets me.

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:21 am

Poetlister wrote:
Randy from Boise wrote:
[s]Poetlister[/s] Vigilant wrote:Nice to see Eric Corbett stirring the pot at a delicate time such as this...
.92 Not Attack, .95 Not Aggressive

[s]Vigilant[/s] Poetlister wrote:Of course. That's his function in life.
1.00 Not Attack, 1.00 Not Aggressive

Congratulations to Vigilant for a perfect score using sarcastic snark.

.99 Not Attack, .99 Not Aggressive

RfB

P.S. An esteemed colleague at WP who reads here points out that we had a thread about this or a similar tool previously.
You have reversed the sources of the quotes; Vigilant comes before me here. I accept your congratualtions with thanks.

It burns! It burns!!!!

t

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:24 am

Beeblebrox wrote:Yeah, the aggression tool thing is just awful. I'm somehow doubting that it is purely a coincidence that we were just discussing it in an unrelated matter on the functionaries mailing list, but I don't actually see the connection so maybe it is just that.

I can assure you none of the functionaries sees it as the least bit useful for anything and we won't be using it at all. There were some jokes about how the Foundation obviously won't be replacing us with robots anytime soon.

Aaaaand the admin bloodbath at the 'crat noticeboard actually appears to be picking up speed. Dennis Brown and Boing who both sometimes comment here have turned in their bits as well as Kusma and Gadfium.

Administrators should all stand down until local autonomy is restored. The Super-Protect Asshole at the top of the grossly misnamed "Trust & Safety" department needs his walking papers. He has nothing to worry about, his inept boss is at an unrelated conference someplace on this big, blue marble. She's racking the frequent flier miles for her retirement.

Worst. Executive. Director. Yet.

RfB

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:29 am

mendaliv wrote:I can't believe Dennis Brown resigned. I used to interact with him all the time on ANI when I was more active. While all the resignations bother me, his actually upsets me.

I think it is time for serious Wikipedia true believers to admit that the project as we knew it is dead. The bureaucrats win. Money and careerism can steamroll volunteerism every time, especially when 1/3 of the Wikipedia community are either already on the pad or want to be so much that they can't roll over and show their bellies fast enough.

Be careful of what you wish for, WMF, you may certainly get it.

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Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:56 am

Since some of our critically-thinking Wikipedia friends lurk here, but don't read other, more extreme anti-WP sites, I will take a moment to proxy for a banned WPO editor...

CrowsNest wrote:Can the Separatists please note, ArbCom were given a heads up that a ban for Fram was in the works. THEY DID NOTHING, least of all protest at a perceived forthcoming jurisdictional over-reach.

For all the screaming about how your self-government was completely blindsided, the factual version is that your elected representatives were given advance warning, it is right there in their minutes of their monthly conference call with the Evil Corporation. They were informed beforehand that it was going to be a year long ban.

Serious shit, an action whose potential for controversy was entirely foreseeable by your own elected leaders, regardless of what the WMF might have thought would be the reaction (and everything suggests they knew they were about to light the blue touch paper).

In the words of the ArbCommer that they actually verbally told (despite it being a conference call, your elected representatives could apparently only muster one person from twelve to actually be your, uh, representative, in that routinely scheduled event).....
The discussion was not a request for new input and I certainly did not have the sense that they were thinking they were getting arbcom's blessing or insulating themselves from community response by informing us in advance. I certainly do think they genuinely thought they were doing a good thing for the project, and that it was not a convenient way to get rid of a critic or some kind of personal corruption or whatever other weird conspiracy theories are cropping up. Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:09, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
So, ArbCom had all the information it needed in their hands, to protest, before the ban. It appears that they didn't feel sufficiently alarmed or empowered to even lodge a formal protest.

Everything about what your elected representatives did on your behalf during this call and in response to these minutes before the ban was actually placed, has been merely the sort of cover your ass obsequious subservient bullshit you profess to hate. Oh sure, we are meant to believe these new partial limited bans had been criticised by this conference call taker back when they were being first applied to ze Germans, but when it came to being told in advance of one being lined up for one of your citizens, well, apparently she said nothing and did nothing.

The point is well taken.

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Alex Shih · Unread post by **Alex Shih** » Mon Jun 24, 2019 3:36 am

Yeah, I agree. Arbcom was more than happy to have Fram arbitrarily banned by the WMF, but to be fair so would any Arbcom before this. The approach has always been "let's wait and see", "let's wait for community response". If you aren't willing to take responsibility over actual things that matter in which you could have prevent, instead of focusing on trivial bullshit for the sake of self-satisfaction, resign.

Randy from Boise wrote:I think it is time for serious Wikipedia true believers to admit that the project as we knew it is dead.

That was precisely my point earlier lol

Alex Shih · Unread post by **Alex Shih** » Mon Jun 24, 2019 3:42 am

mendaliv wrote:I can't believe Dennis Brown resigned. I used to interact with him all the time on ANI when I was more active. While all the resignations bother me, his actually upsets me.

I wouldn't be so upset, although I have also admired Dennis Brown for a very long time due to their belief in humanity, respect, fairness and due process over the project. If history tells us anything all of these folks will be back within one year while WMF continues with its way, unchanged.

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Mon Jun 24, 2019 3:53 am

Alex Shih wrote:Arbcom was more than happy to have Fram arbitrarily banned by the WMF, but to be fair so would any Arbcom before this.

And really that's emblematic of one of the most deeply-seated problems on Wikipedia: Treating the individual outcome as more important than how we got to that outcome or how our procedures work in aggregate. I keep going back to GW's e-mail on Wikimedia-l: "It is extremely disappointing, and *extremely typical* of the Wikimedia movement, to see an entire thread like this dedicated to supporting someone who Trust & Safety has found to have acted in such a way that they had to intervene." This is not support for Fram. This has never been about support for Fram. This is about support for process. This is about being able to know what behaviors are too far, and more importantly, knowing what behaviors are not too far. This is about the chilling effect of having an invisible hand plucking people for unknown transgressions and each and every one of us having to wonder whether our behavior is wholly appropriate. It's about knowing where the axe will fall, and keeping our fingers from going under that axe.

Guido den Broeder · Unread post by **Guido den Broeder** » Mon Jun 24, 2019 6:11 am

mendaliv wrote:
Alex Shih wrote:Arbcom was more than happy to have Fram arbitrarily banned by the WMF, but to be fair so would any Arbcom before this.
And really that's emblematic of one of the most deeply-seated problems on Wikipedia: Treating the individual outcome as more important than how we got to that outcome or how our procedures work in aggregate. I keep going back to GW's e-mail on Wikimedia-l: "It is extremely disappointing, and *extremely typical* of the Wikimedia movement, to see an entire thread like this dedicated to supporting someone who Trust & Safety has found to have acted in such a way that they had to intervene." This is not support for Fram. This has never been about support for Fram. This is about support for process. This is about being able to know what behaviors are too far, and more importantly, knowing what behaviors are not too far. This is about the chilling effect of having an invisible hand plucking people for unknown transgressions and each and every one of us having to wonder whether our behavior is wholly appropriate. It's about knowing where the axe will fall, and keeping our fingers from going under that axe.

They know very well what behaviors are too far and what aren't. They just thought that protecting one user was more important. THAT VISIBLE HAND has been chilling to the bone to many good editors, most of which still don't dare to speak up because so far Arbcom shows little improvement.

mendaliv · Unread post by **mendaliv** » Mon Jun 24, 2019 6:26 am

Guido den Broeder wrote:They know very well what behaviors are too far and what aren't.

Respectfully, we don't. Sure, most of us know obvious things like calling the workplace of someone is highly inappropriate, and threatening people's safety generally is unacceptable. But when you get down to specific factual scenarios involving confrontational but nonthreatening behavior, the jury is out on almost everything. Same with civility.

The fact is that we all learn the dimensions of what a community considers acceptable conduct by observing what the community permits and does not permit to go on. This draws on the classical school of thought for criminal justice, which focuses on deterrence. For a penalty to deter misconduct, it must (1) come swiftly, (2) come surely, and (3) be severe. If it fails in any of these respects, the deterrence factor will be severely blunted. The same is true of the general ability of a community member to learn the rules from the acts of others. If someone does something, and there is no swift, sure, or severe punishment, then that action is tolerated. See it happen often enough, it's not merely tolerated, but it's acceptable.

The problem I'm talking about now is WMF trying to prevent misconduct, apparently by enforcing Wikipedia's civility policy (but we really don't know). What can anybody learn from Fram being banned? What can Fram even learn? When the reason why someone is punished is not known, especially if it seems like it might be for a reason that wasn't previously punishable, we naturally strive to figure out what happened so we can avoid the same fate. By acting as they have, WMF have sown chaos and chilled participation far more than what Fram alone could have done.

Put another way, two wrongs don't make a right. Not all ways of punishing wrongdoers improves our community.