Fram blocked by User:WMFOffice for 1 year

[Poetlister]

An alternative view, from Fram's user talk page on Commons (it is also worth reading what Fram has posted there as well)

Ironically, that person was muzzled by Bishonen on enwiki last year.

And before that by Yamla. It's supposed to be an open proxy.

[Midsize Jake]

I see two problems though. 1) This is apparently not all about Laura Hale, and 2) If it is all about Laura, then why did it have to happen to someone with a direct personal link to the WMF?

This is sort of the point I was trying to make (rather glibly) before - the WMF has a sexist-harassment problem, we all know that, but they also have a "Laura Hale problem" specifically, as in "specific to Laura Hale and her personal situation." Normally, a WP user operating at her talent level would eventually run into this kind of push-back from someone, not necessarily an admin, and that would be enough to get the person to go away. But Laura Hale isn't going to go away, she's got Wiki experience from way back, she's practically the world's only recognized "fan historian," she has enormous self-confidence from... somewhere, and oh-by-the-way she's hangin' with the Chairman of the Board of Trustees. She's not going away; the people who are hassling her because of her poor writing, they have to go away. She didn't get this far just to be bunged off by some jerk/nobody admin.

Again, and let me just put this in boldface, none of this applies to anyone else. There's just no Wikiland analogue, at least that I know of - Ms. Hale seems to be unique in this regard.

Now, this person at UK-based IP 62.255.118.6 is basically right about Mr. Fram's treatment of Laura Hale - he makes it sound worse than it probably was, but that's mostly because Mr. Fram is an admin and there should always have been some doubt in Ms. Hale's mind as to the degree to which his actions were motivated by sexism, as opposed to simply demanding better quality control. He probably should have gotten a series of escalating blocks, starting with 48 hours and on up to 30 days before they hit him with a full year. But they - and by "they" I mostly mean the ArbCom - didn't do that because in their heart of hearts, they knew he was right in this particular, unique case. They didn't know how to handle it any better than he did. And the WMF certainly didn't know how to handle it - they couldn't get their heads out of their asses if they were lubed up with all the KY Jelly in the world.

People who know me might wonder why someone like me, who detests sexism in general, would point the finger in Ms. Hale's direction in this case. I don't like doing it, but I'm afraid it's warranted, because I've also been a professional proofreader/editor and I know the effect a person like her can have, over time, on quality-focused people. And even if the WMF didn't opportunistically step in on her behalf because of her putative relationship with Maria Sefidari, they had to know what it would look like, and how the Faithful would react. Only a bunch of idiots would have failed in that regard, but either that's exactly what they are, or they just didn't care. And if I were someone who liked and cared about Wikipedia, I don't know which would I would think was worse.

[Ming]

Hahahaha, he was who he is long before he started editing Wikipedia, and was already harassing me, to name just one example, in 2007. Fram is who he is. You all enabled him, or happily took part in the harassment like Anroth (Only in death). That is the bigger problem.

I told you two years ago, but like everybody that could have done something, you ignored me and did nothing. That is why the WMF took charge.

No, not really. When the Community had an RFC on the incivility of "f_ off" and came up with an answer that wasn't "hell yeah, it's uncivil", and the foundation stood by, they all but acquiesced to rudeness as acceptable behavior. Or rather, they walked right into an embrace of WP's de facto "rudeness is OK if your admin buddies have your back."

Fram has always been hell on wheels on competence, and a functional foundation would, eventually, have something of the same attitude, if not so rudely expressed. In a functional project, SimonTrew wouldn't have been collateral damage of the Neelix debacle, because someone like Neelix would have been shown the door pretty quickly, along with the guy with the Gettysburg obsession and the nut with all the wacky hang glider stuff. Oh, and P. B. and a bunch of other people who drove everyone crazy with their crappy content and obsessions.

And, of course, Laura Hale. In a functional project with any real management, she would have been told to lay off right away, or at least assigned someone to try to get her to clean up her act. It would not have fallen upon someone like Fram to complain, and then have their patience tried because, for whatever reason, things would not improve. Look, stalking her edits really needed to be obligatory, not a sin, at least until she shaped up or shipped out. But it only happened because it drove Fram up the wall, just like any number of other things, and the fact that she was being monitored was made into a problem instead of an obligation that the project as a whole (and thus the foundation, Ming would like to think) needed to own.

[Midsize Jake]

Hahahaha, he was who he is long before he started editing Wikipedia, and was already harassing me, to name just one example, in 2007. Fram is who he is. You all enabled him, or happily took part in the harassment like Anroth (Only in death). That is the bigger problem.

I told you two years ago, but like everybody that could have done something, you ignored me and did nothing. That is why the WMF took charge.

Can you prove that WhoReallyCares is Fram? We couldn't. In fact, we pretty much know who WhoReallyCares is/was, and the notion that he was Fram was completely non-credible.

More to the point, I don't think Fram was unique in his disdain for you, particularly over your involvement in the Kristina Pimenova (T-H-L) article. As you know, the attacks on you started well before the IMdB page for The Russian Bride appeared. And as you may recall, when that page did appear I sort-of suggested that you were owed something of an apology, or at least an easing-up on the attacks, because it showed that the movie was very real and that your interest in Ms. Pimenova was much more likely to be based on your wanting to promote the movie (i.e., commercial interests) than something "prurient." But instead, he kept doing it - and for that he probably should have been blocked. That's also why we removed those posts by WhoReallyCares, all of which tried to insist otherwise.

That said, it's not uncommon at all for people who have been unfairly treated on (and subsequently banned from) Wikipedia to insist, often quite loudly and over a period of years, that they were railroaded and banned by just one person, and that therefore everyone who appears in order to defend the actions of that person must therefore be that person. And who knows, it may be true - but that doesn't change the fact that what you were doing (at least before the IMDB page came along) did look bad, and Fram couldn't have been the only person who thought so. So you just don't know.

[Auggie]

People who know me might wonder why someone like me, who detests sexism in general, would point the finger in Ms. Hale's direction in this case. I don't like doing it, but I'm afraid it's warranted, because I've also been a professional proofreader/editor and I know the effect a person like her can have, over time, on quality-focused people. And even if the WMF didn't opportunistically step in on her behalf because of her putative relationship with Maria Sefidari, they had to know what it would look like, and how the Faithful would react. Only a bunch of idiots would have failed in that regard, but either that's exactly what they are, or they just didn't care. And if I were someone who liked and cared about Wikipedia, I don't know which would I would think was worse.

It's smoke and mirrors. These quality enforcers are just looking for an excuse to badger someone. They go after noobs and after women. They're not sober adults doing what it takes to write a perfect encyclopedia. They're insecure jackasses chasing that dopamine rush and the feeling that they matter.

[mendaliv]

What a goddamn mess.

There needs to be transparency and process. And yes, even transparency where people are allegedly victims of harassment. That doesn't mean publishing their names or the writings they submitted as evidence, nor does it even necessarily mean a trial-like proceeding involving cross-examination of the accuser. But my god, this star chamber crap is beyond the pale.

As to Fram being a bad person...

It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.

United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 68, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

It's an unfortunate fact of Wikipedia life that we've never been able to look at a situation and see the principles underlying the response to it. Everything is ad hoc. This needs to change. We need to recognize that process can be more important than individual outcomes. That people need to be able to look at past events and accurately predict what the probable outcome of particular behavior will be.

Probably the worst and most short-sighted comments I've seen coming out of this are that the website is Wikimedia's and that we need to follow their rules. Fact is, when we're generating their content, and doing their administrative tasks, they need us more than we need them. That they control the ToS and privacy policy is not the end of the discussion, but the beginning.

[rhindle]

So. Much. Discussion.

However, someone made a nice little chart organizing where everything is...

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

This thread should be added to that list.

[BURob13]

A 48 hours ban on TRM about 3-4 years ago would have caused him not to become the way he is. We've taught him there are no boundaries.

Ahahahaha oh wait you are serious?

TRM was never a nice person, but he wasn't egregiously horrible until a few years ago. He is very good at identifying the line, walking up to it, and playing the "I'm not touching it!" game most familiar from car rides with siblings. The problem is that we keep moving the line back every time he gets up to it, and he just keeps walking forward.

[Guido den Broeder]

Hahahaha, he was who he is long before he started editing Wikipedia, and was already harassing me, to name just one example, in 2007. Fram is who he is. You all enabled him, or happily took part in the harassment like Anroth (Only in death). That is the bigger problem.

I told you two years ago, but like everybody that could have done something, you ignored me and did nothing. That is why the WMF took charge.

Can you prove that WhoReallyCares is Fram? We couldn't. In fact, we pretty much know who WhoReallyCares is/was, and the notion that he was Fram was completely non-credible.

He passed the duck-test with flying colors and didn't deny it, but since you deleted the posts the point is moot. It is either Fram or someone with the same mentality, reasoning flaws and choice of words, popping up from nowhere the moment Fram is mentioned, who knows his most intimate thoughts, and has read chapters of my book, in Dutch.

More to the point, I don't think Fram was unique in his disdain for you, particularly over your involvement in the Kristina Pimenova (T-H-L) article. As you know, the attacks on you started well before the IMdB page for The Russian Bride appeared.

The IMDb entry was there all along. You just never bothered to check until I mentioned it, and most of these other people still haven't because they would rather believe Fram's 'fan fiction' comments.

And as you may recall, when that page did appear I sort-of suggested that you were owed something of an apology, or at least an easing-up on the attacks, because it showed that the movie was very real and that your interest in Ms. Pimenova was much more likely to be based on your wanting to promote the movie (i.e., commercial interests) than something "prurient." But instead, he kept doing it - and for that he probably should have been blocked. That's also why we removed those posts by WhoReallyCares, all of which tried to insist otherwise.

Exactly. Fram used the p-word on the very talk page of Opabinia Regalis and nobody cared, so now they have the WMF to deal with.

That said, it's not uncommon at all for people who have been unfairly treated on (and subsequently banned from) Wikipedia to insist, often quite loudly and over a period of years, that they were railroaded and banned by just one person, and that therefore everyone who appears in order to defend the actions of that person must therefore be that person. And who knows, it may be true - but that doesn't change the fact that what you were doing (at least before the IMDB page came along) did look bad, and Fram couldn't have been the only person who thought so. So you just don't know.

I am not one of such people. Firstly, Fram has openly admitted that he insitigated every single one of my bans. Secondly, reality is that it did not start with Fram, nor has it ended with him, nor was he ever alone. For instance, I got word that The Banner (Eddy Landzaat) has sent e-mails to everyone he could think of, portraying me as a child molester and encouraging them to attack me in any way they see fit. The Devil's Advocate (T.D. Adler) wrote a blog about me, filled with lies.

I made some improvements to the article of someone that I've worked with and befriended. If you think that looks bad because that person is a minor, then there is something wrong with your mind. This is what modern society does to people, Wikipedia is just a reflection of that. Major changes are necessary.

[Carcharoth]

Some comments that may have been missed, but which are directly relevant:

*SPoore (WMF) on the video and proposed code of conduct
*Update from JEissfeldt (WMF) dated 06/17/2019
*Claim by Headbomb to have worked out identity of complainant
*Concern expressed at relationship between WMF T&S and ArbCom
*Section highlighting Jimmy's responses

The latter helpfully shows how adequate Jimmy's response has been... (though to be fair, no more effective than Doc James).

[Kumioko]

Some comments that may have been missed, but which are directly relevant:

*SPoore (WMF) on the video and proposed code of conduct
*Update from JEissfeldt (WMF) dated 06/17/2019
*Claim by Headbomb to have worked out identity of complainant
*Section highlighting Jimmy's responses

The latter helpfully shows how adequate his response has been... (though to be fair, no more effective than Doc James).

Those are interesting but the WMF has shown us before that they'll say anything, their actions routinely show they can't be trusted to keep their word; fairly implement or enforce policy or to engage the community.

I have also complained about Fram in emails to the WMF as well as commented here for his desysop and ban. So although I don't for a second believe I am responsible for it, I do believe it was based on multiple people going to the WMF and not just one or two. Probably due to a lack of trust or faith in the Arbcom, and if people trust the WMF T&S more than arbcom, that's saying a lot. What I do believe is that it wasnt due to some random editor but from someone or multiple people with close ties to staffers.

[No Ledge]

Meanwhile, what is the Foundation's highly-paid CEO saying about all this on her favorite communication channel?

The polar ice caps will melt, life on land will cease, the pyramids will crumble, and Mubarak will endure.

It’s nearly 11pm and Twitter is excited about garlic.

It’s incredible. They get absolutely rolled and bounce back up. If this were the dudes there would be stoppage and ten people on the pitch attending to their fragility.

Glad I’m not a pro athlete. My hair never looks this good while I’m sweating.

The women hug! They’re so joyful and affectionate and supportive and there’s zero machismo bullshit. Its how sportsball should be.

Sitting at the bar next to an older gentleman who is speaking with an older woman, talking about how girls didn’t get to play sports when they were in high school. Thank you

Why doesn’t @twitter have the fun flags for the #WWC19 like it did for the men’s World Cup? That’s so obviously lame.

Bad news: flight delayed and connection blown.

Bye #TruCon19, it’s been real! Got to DCA early to watch the #USWNT vs Chile. It’s hard to put into words how moving it is to watch these exuberant and excellent women play at the top of their sport

Makes me wonder what plan @ewarren has up her sleeves for personnel in civil service — diversity, hiring and performance management practices, and career progression.

Elected official/political rhetoric is damaging employer brand. Denigration of civil service, who wants to work in a place subject to denigration and verbal abuse?

We need information and education more than ever. That's my commitment.

It's all about branding ... branding ... branding... and travelling around the world to watch women's soccer.

I don't get the impression that she thinks about building a better encyclopedia very often. Her "commitment" seems more like an afterthought.

[C&B]

A 48 hours ban on TRM about 3-4 years ago would have caused him not to become the way he is.

You mean, before you even had an account on Wikipedia? Well, this one anyway?

[Vigilant]

Interesting tidbits from the past.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/g ... 00845.html

http://archive.is/unbe

Just to put in perspective what Laura Hale and Maria Sefidari are coming from.

Calling everyone who's looked into Laura Hale's history and contributions a sexist and GamerGate supporter is just the newest incarnation in a long running game of "blame the person who found out I was a shithead".

[Vigilant]

Laura Hale seems to have a hypocrisy problem...

She says she hates outing ... and yet ...
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Laura_Hale_(fan)#Outing


She says she hates plagiarism ...
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Laura_Hale_(fa ... dra_Claire

and yet, Fram was trying to fix Laura's plagiarism on en.wp.


Laura says she hates pettiness and insults ... and yet ...
http://web.archive.org/web/201007152140 ... 2/208.html

Date Posted: 05:00:55 10/22/02 Tue
Author: Laura
Author Host/IP: dialup-65.59.8.164.Dial1.Chicago1.Level3.net / 65.59.8.164
Subject: Laura, Moi, jealous? (sarcasm alert)(offensive material with in)
In reply to: Ivy Blossom 's message, "Re: Cassandra Claire" on 10:47:26 10/13/02 Sun

Me? Jealous?

Perish tht thought from your cdute little head Obviously, you don't know me well enough to make that accusation because if you did, you'd know it was nothing but well, it was a good laugh. In fact, I read your note, shared it with my aquaintences, laughed some more, laughed again, chuckled. Oh, how sad and pathetic I am. Truely. But that's OKAY. I can have your note as my form of daily entertainment. (It was just as entertaining as some FA.Orger accusing me of anti-semitism. That like wise was funny. That is digressing though.)

Hello. My name is Laura Hale and there is one thing I pride myself above all other things: I am boring. With out a doubt, truely boring. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. I don't have casual sex. I rarely drink and never to excess. I'm highly moralistic and ethical in my own way. I'm comfortable with all this. It makes me who I am and it makes me happy. (But if I was mean, or heck, if I wasn't so sure based on the accusation of jealous, I'd say that you're not comfortable with yourself that you feel a need to make that accusation. But you know, I'm not quite that mean or quite that petty to take shots at you like that. Really I'm not.)

Where was I? I'm a writer. I sit down at the keyboard and crank out reams and reams of material, mostly non-fiction. What I write is my own material; what I don't write is quoted and properly cited because to do so would violate my own personal standards of ethics. Ethics in writing are important to me. They very much are Hence, my web site http://www.fandomination.net/ has a "Statement of Ethics" built into it that I uphold.

(I'm not saying that FictionAlley.Org doesn't but I mean, after all, I did write 75% of their Terms of Service so they must have similar ethics to me no? Oh my, if I was petty and rude, I might say with some malice that they are nothing but plagiarist through and through ;-) but see, I'm not that petty. Stealing almost word for word from FanFiction.Net's Terms of Service and ha ha ha! having plagiarized material on their Terms of Service... well, that isn't an ethical issue for me to play with. It just amuses my own personal set of ethics. Really, it does. Amusement. And anyway, I'm not saying they don't have ethics. They do. Really they do. They just don't mesh with my own which is good because we're different.)

But anyway, back to the really important issue... me. Right. From what I understand from other people, Cassie is fat and ugly. This is what I've been told. I have no proof of this. I heard that some of her friends (oh this is petty but this is what I've been told) that she hangs out and writes with are fat and ugly too. I'm... well, call me good lucking and cute and happy and boucy and egotistical as all get out. As such, well you might say I don't have any ugly friends. I just can't. My ego gets in the way of that. If you're good looking and attractive like me, you only want good looking and attractive friends. My two best female friends are gorgeous and neither one is fat. They are skinny and normally proportioned and well, if I swung that way, I'd date them. I have one friend who would qualify as fat. It doesn't matter there either though (because see! I don't discriminate against fat people, really I don't) because she like wise is a babe. Most of my aquaintence are good looking to. I chat with them and have discussions and I can tell they are good looking people. When I see pictures of them later I smirk to myself, so full of my own ego, knowing they are good looking people. It's nice to have things validated like that. I also have mostly guy friends too. (There is something about women. Most of the women I've discussed this with agree too. Women are mostly like to do nasty things behind your back, send e-mails to innocent people complaining or slamming the other through a third party rather than slam them up front. That's okay. We all do that, your friends and my friends. But we're women so that's between women.) I'd say 75% of my closests friends were male. All good looking too. Did I mention that I heard Cassandra Claire was ugly? Phew. Well, good for you that you're a far better person that me! I certainly couldn't have an ugly friend but if you can, I only wish I was that way. (No really, I don't but it does seemingly make you the better, more tolerant person.)

I also generally have problems attacking others on turf that isn't there own. I mean, you don't see me wandering over to FictionAlley.Org with me and my posse (who generally don't give two shits about any of this and bop me on the head and go "Hale you moron!" and then I smile and shake my head and otherwise confirm that.) and say "Do you know that CASSANDRA CLAIRE IS A RAGING PLAGIARIST!?!?!?!" No, that would be rude. (But ethically, that must be okay with FictionAlley.Org members as some of them have done that to FanDomination.Net. I didn't realize OMG I AM GOING TO MAKE THAT NASTY ALLEGATION that you guys were that threatened by LITTLE OLD ME? all by my lonesone me? Just cute little highly intelligent egotistical Laura who generally goes out of her way to avoid you? Wow. I'm thrilled. I'm honored. My god, I could cry from the joy!)

Anyway, if you really knew me, you'd realize I was a raging introvert who HATES HATES HATES feedback. Fame would confuse the hell out of me. It would also scare me shitless. If you think I want the attention that CC has, well missed your mark I shudder and quake in fear and annoyance when I get positive feedback on anything I've written. I shudder and quake in fear when I get constructive feedback. Hell, I might in my more morose moments CRY! When I get flames, I sit and I hit the delete button and pretend it never happened. Can't take it. And you think I am jealous of CC? God, I'm the least likely feedback slut you're ever to see. Recognition is okay but only if I think I deserve it and my standards are so high, that isn't likely to happen. Being a plagiarist seeking recongition is so far from who I am that well...

... that you intimate I'm jealous at all leaves me rolling on the ground.

Thanks for that though. IT was worth it.

Later, this post will be deleted after I acknowledge my own lack of grevious stupidity and my social introversion and embarrassment smack at me.

... and yet ... she exhibits raw misogyny, body shaming, and a sideways acknowledgement of homophobia.


This ... this is the person you're protecting WMF?!

You've got your collective heads up your collective asses, guys.
You've been conned.

[Vigilant]

It looks like the folks at Wikimedia Belgium aren't happy with the WMF either...

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 92826.html

Long, but important.
Please read.

Hello all,

On Saturday 15 June 2019 Wikimedia Belgium had its annual General Assembly
in Brussels.

*New board*
Two board members have indicated to step down:
* Afernand74
* SPQRobin

We thank them for their work and valuable input in the past years!
They remain available for advice to the board.

Two board members were up for re-election after their previous terms ended.
Both board members have been re-elected without any votes against them, and
they will keep serving Wikimedia Belgium in their roles.
* Geertivp - president
* Romaine - treasurer

One new board member has been elected without any votes against.
* Taketa - long term Wikipedia editor and organiser of various activities

Welcome Taketa!

The rest of the board remains the same and the board continues the work and
development of our chapter.


*Evaluation behaviour WMF*
As board we have the obligation to inform the General Assembly and other
stakeholders about the developments with our chapter, both the good
developments as well as the bad developments.

A year ago, with our previous General Assembly, we were hopeful to resolve
the issues we then had with on other organisation in the movement, the
Wikimedia Foundation. Sadly we had to inform the General Assembly that
instead of improvements, the behaviour of multiple individuals from the
Wikimedia Foundation is below any standard. This concerns one member of the
grants team and multiple members of the Trust and Safety team, as well as
their supervisors.

On request of the Trust & Safety team no names are mentioned. Below is a
summary of what happened.


*Case 1*
In April 2017 the treasurer of Wikimedia Belgium (Romaine) spoke with our
new grants staff member from the Wikimedia Foundation as WMBE was scheduled
to change from successful project grants in 2017 and earlier years to
Simple Annual Plan grants. During this meeting the plan for WMBE in 2018
was proposed and was fine for the grants staff member. In the Summer of
2017 this had been worked out, and with an online call our annual plan was
considered fine. With the final submission in October 2017, our annual
grants proposal was reviewed by the grants staff member from WMF, had some
minor remarks we fixed, and was considered to be excellent.

In December 2017 we were informed that our grant request (suddenly) was, to
summarise, complete wrong. It contained factual errors (like facts do not
matter), inconsistencies, the comment that Wikimedia France and Wikimedia
Netherlands could take everything over in Belgium, suggesting that Belgium
has no culture (this is a serious insult to us), and much more.
(For your reference: Wikimedia Belgium had over 90 events and activities in
2017, including a photo contest, education program, GLAM program with
content donations, workshops and edit-a-thons, and more.)

It raised us a lot of questions, which we asked, but our grants member of
WMF refused to seriously answer them.

Even with our lack of information and received insults, we tried to be
constructive and before Christmas we proposed to the grants staff member
that we would re-write during the Christmas holidays our annual plan (as
the staff member had said many times we could improve it). With the e-mail
following from the grants member of WMF this proposal was not rejected. So
during the two weeks of the Christmas holidays we spent many days, together
with the help from another experienced chapter representative, re-writing
our annual plan. After the Christmas holidays, we were ready, and the
response from the grants member from WMF was then that the re-written
version could not be taken into account...

After some further e-mails with this staff member we concluded as WMBE mid
January 2018 that a collaboration with this individual from WMF is
impossible and we banned this individual from ever contacting us again and
we never communicated ever with this person again.

The supervisor of this staff member has been informed by us about what
happened, and refused to even investigate the situation.

A colleague from the staff member took over and we received our budget for
2018. Later during 2018 and 2019 this WMF staff member helped us very well
with questions, provided useful feedback and the annual plan for 2019 which
was approved. We are now happy with this collaboration.


*Case 2*
During the Wikimedia Conference in April 2018 we still had many questions
and our treasurer spoke with various other affiliates if they had advice,
good practices, etc etc, so that we could improve our future annual plans.
Instead of that good advice was given, they shared their similar bad
experiences they had in the past years with our former grants person from
WMF. Many of them indicated that they do not want the feedback/criticism to
be public as they feel that their budget would be cut by WMF as result of
it.

With multiple chapter representatives we started to collect the feedback so
that we could come up with some recommendations for improvements for both
the WMF processes regarding grants as well as recommendations for
affiliates for how to write better annual plans.

Our former grants person from WMF heard about the initiative and started to
tell bad (untrue) stories about WMBE's treasurer to bring him in discredit.
Multiple people have testified that our former grants person was doing
this, gossip like that WMBE's treasurer was planning to attack that grants
person. The Trust & Safety team heard about it and drew immediately the
conclusion that the gossip was true, without checking the facts, without
even talking to any of the involved individuals, and asked WMBE's treasurer
not to approach or contact the former grants person. (To be crystal clear:
there was never ever a plan to contact the grants person from WMF at all.)

Even after the Trust & Safety team spoke with WMBE's treasure, the gossip
continued, causing a very unsafe conference space. A member of the Trust &
Safety team was later informed about the ongoing gossip and refused to take
any action to stop it, indicating not to take it seriously.


*Case 3*
During Wikimania 2018, WMBE's treasurer was asked to help the organisers of
Wikimania in Cape Town to help and assist wherever needed. One of the tasks
was to bring stuff from A to B on request. Everything seemed to go fine.

Halfway the conference, WMBE's treasurer was casually approached by a
member of the Trust and Safety team with a question to have a chat. A
second team member came and they took an elevator together. In the elevator
the team members made jokes and were laughing. As soon as they were in the
room, it was made clear that the Trust & Safety team had received
complaints about WMBE's treasurer.

The main complaint was: being in the same (large) room as the grants member
of WMF. The complainant was the grants member of WMF, and this person
claimed that WMBE's treasurer had said something and that the grants member
from WMF had been highly distressed resulting in not being able to do the
presentation (later in that session) well.

The situation was that WMBE's treasurer was asked to bring something to a
room where a session just started (such requests happen many times during
the conference, the grants person who complained was not presenting at that
time), the materials were handed to someone in the back of the room and he
left the room silently as quickly as possible. Multiple people present in
that session have testified that he did not speak while bringing materials
to the room, and they also testified that the presentation by the grants
person from WMF went reasonable well.
Also, during lunch WMBE's treasurer was sitting somewhere very visible to
everyone, where the grants person from WMF came standing next to the
treasurer, approached from the front. If the grants person from WMF really
gets highly distressed by his presence, this person would not have done
that.

The Trust & Safety team blindly believed the statements made by their WMF
colleague, the team did not ask witnesses in the room about what happened,
all the information here above was provided to the Trust & Safety team, but
the Trust & Safety team fully ignored this information and the witnesses
who say otherwise.

Three additional anonymous complaints were:
* speaking to loud
* standing to close
* having touched someone's hand/arm

It must be noted that *none* of the people that complained to the Trust &
Safety team had indicated to WMBE's treasurer to experience anything as
problem.
Also, WMBE's treasurer has as disability that he hears less, does not hear
well what the height of his volume is (but still trying to not to speak too
loud), and with bad acoustics has to stand closer to people to hear them
well. The Trust & Safety team was informed about this during the meeting.
Also in the local culture where he comes from touching is a normal thing.
Also many people that have been frequently with WMBE's treasurer at the
conference have indicated that he did not speak too loud.

During the meeting the Trust & Safety team told that they already had
informed everyone in the organising team that they demanded WMBE's
treasurer must stop helping in organising Wikimania 2018, meaning that they
already had drawn the conclusion even before speaking with him.

They also indicated that they "had to do something" so they could show
the complainants
that they do something when complaints are received, even while their
decision did not solve/improve the complaints at all. The Trust & Safety
team refused to think about real solutions, they refused to organise a
dialogue to solve the complaints, they refused to mediate, they promised to
organise a meeting with a supervisor, but that they never did. It also
became clear they have zero feeling with people with autism. The Trust &
Safety said they could not share any more information about what happened
because of the privacy of the complainants.

During the conference WMBE's treasurer made it public, to prevent having to
tell emotionally what happened, as well as for transparency reasons. This
did not take away that he felt ever since that chat highly unsafe as result
by the behaviour of the Trust & Safety team, and still continues up to
today, as well as he also had been five weeks ill after the conference
because of this.

Many people at the conference indicated to disagree with the decision of
the Trust & Safety team, including WMF staff members and Wikimania's
organising team. During the conference many of them approached the Trust &
Safety team about it, various of them also proposing other solutions that.
In these talks the Trust & Safety team shared a lot more details which they
refused to share with WMBE's treasurer. Also the Trust & Safety team told
that he had been warned before (which is not true), as well as exaggerating
and framing what supposedly had happened.


*Afterwards*
After Wikimania the Trust & Safety team received an e-mail from WMBE's
treasurer with a more detailed overview of what happened, including the
many witnesses who claim differently. But all of this was fully ignored by
the Trust & Safety team. After the conference nothing had been heard from
the Trust & Safety team, until mid December 2018.

In the first two weeks of December 2018 WMBE's treasurer received multiple
e-mails from WMF staff members, including strangely in what was written a
farewell and thank you for all the work. Apparently the Trust & Safety team
had shared their new decision with other departments, while actual
stakeholders were not informed.

About a week later both the treasurer of WMBE as the president of WMBE (but
none of the other organisations he is active for) received an e-mail in
what the Trust & Safety team indicates to have received further complaints:
- First they refer to the situation in December 2017-January 2018
concerning the interaction with the former grants person from WMF.
Apparently the Trust & Safety team fully has ignored all the insults at the
address of our chapter and country. Also the e-mail reads largely like the
grants person itself had written the e-mail.
- Because of this they forbid WMBE's treasurer to ever contact WMBE's
former grants person at WMF (one way only!) (Even while WMBE had banned
every contact with this person already in January 2018.)
- And they forbid to have contact with WMF grants grants team for about two
years. (Even while the contact with all the other members of the grants
team was going fine, even receiving various compliments. )

Still it was decided by Wikimedia Belgium to keep WMBE's treasurer as
treasurer of WMBE.

- Someone at the conference saw WMBE's treasurer with a mascot and asked
the name of the mascot. Answer: "Wendy the Weasel", clearly indicating a
female name. The question that followed was what the gender was of the
mascot. WMBE's treasurer was thinking that this was just said, and replied
that as there are no outer organs the mascot must be female. (Having asked
around, in the part of the world where WMBE's treasurer lives this is not
considered a problem, but maybe this is differently elsewhere and is there
a taboo.)
- Someone had indicated that WMBE's treasurer has been standing in the way
of that person and blocking the complainants path at Wikimania. It was a
space of about 1.5 to 2 metres, where also multiple other people where
standing, and people passing by were asked question, but everyone who
wanted to pass by could do so.
- Someone has told that WMBE's treasurer would have said that he would
visit conferences "to pick up girls". Everybody who knows WMBE's treasurer
knows this is nonsense. Some contest: WMBE's treasurer has someone he loves
in his home country with zero interest of that kind in anyone else, and
falls in the category of LGBT+ and does not fall on the women at the
conferences. It must be noticed extremely suggestive interpretations of
other people (that do not have the regular impressions, like due being
LGBT+), have far reaching effects as conclusions. Such is an insult.
- Because of this they forbid WMBE's treasurer to be present at events
funded directly/indirectly by WMF for two years.


Again it must be noticed that the Trust & Safety team for the third time on
a row refuses to talk with the individual who it concerns first, before
drawing any conclusions. The Trust & Safety team comes in their e-mail with
a lot of assumptions based on loose sand. They also claim that WMBE's
treasurer fails to assume good faith.
In an e-mail to the presidents of two chapters they said that "they know
how he thinks", followed by a lot of nonsense and false claims. The Trust &
Safety team does not assume good faith themselves if they write that.


The Trust & Safety team provided in their communication zero examples of
where the Friendly Space Policy has been breached.



The situation of WMBE's treasurer and the Trust & Safety team has been
reviewed by an independent professional with expertise in complaints
handling. The conclusion of this expert: almost everything that the Trust &
Safety team could have done wrong in handling complaints, they did do
wrong. Many basic principles in complaint handling and conflict resolution
have been ignored by the Trust & Safety team. In addition to this, they
communicate very intimidating as well as with treats.

The way how they work/communicate gives the impression like a staff member
of WMF is more worth than a volunteer from the community.


Two chapters have reached out to the Wikimedia Foundation, indicating that
the way how the Trust & Safety team was operating is not appropriate, but
WMF refuses to take these concerns seriously and has ignored this fully.
Again the Trust & Safety team refuses to work together on actual solutions.


To summarise, feedback/information from WMBE's treasurer has been ignored
by WMF, feedback from the president of WMBE has been ignored by WMF,
feedback from the president and director of WMNL have been ignored by WMF,
feedback from other staff members in WMF have been ignored by WMF, feedback
from many community members from the movement have been ignored.

Because of the behaviour of the trust & Safety team that causes for
everyone in the movement an unsafe place, WMBE's treasurer has decided
to indefinitely
stop attending WMF funded events.


At the General Assembly it was requested to request an internal audit in
WMF to bring all the problems there to the light.

Anyone see any parallels to the Fram/LauraHale situation?

[mendaliv]

It looks like the folks at Wikimedia Belgium aren't happy with the WMF either...

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 92826.html

Long, but important.
Please read.

Hello all,

On Saturday 15 June 2019 Wikimedia Belgium had its annual General Assembly
in Brussels.

*New board*
Two board members have indicated to step down:
* Afernand74
* SPQRobin

We thank them for their work and valuable input in the past years!
They remain available for advice to the board.

Two board members were up for re-election after their previous terms ended.
Both board members have been re-elected without any votes against them, and
they will keep serving Wikimedia Belgium in their roles.
* Geertivp - president
* Romaine - treasurer

One new board member has been elected without any votes against.
* Taketa - long term Wikipedia editor and organiser of various activities

Welcome Taketa!

The rest of the board remains the same and the board continues the work and
development of our chapter.


*Evaluation behaviour WMF*
As board we have the obligation to inform the General Assembly and other
stakeholders about the developments with our chapter, both the good
developments as well as the bad developments.

A year ago, with our previous General Assembly, we were hopeful to resolve
the issues we then had with on other organisation in the movement, the
Wikimedia Foundation. Sadly we had to inform the General Assembly that
instead of improvements, the behaviour of multiple individuals from the
Wikimedia Foundation is below any standard. This concerns one member of the
grants team and multiple members of the Trust and Safety team, as well as
their supervisors.

On request of the Trust & Safety team no names are mentioned. Below is a
summary of what happened.


*Case 1*
In April 2017 the treasurer of Wikimedia Belgium (Romaine) spoke with our
new grants staff member from the Wikimedia Foundation as WMBE was scheduled
to change from successful project grants in 2017 and earlier years to
Simple Annual Plan grants. During this meeting the plan for WMBE in 2018
was proposed and was fine for the grants staff member. In the Summer of
2017 this had been worked out, and with an online call our annual plan was
considered fine. With the final submission in October 2017, our annual
grants proposal was reviewed by the grants staff member from WMF, had some
minor remarks we fixed, and was considered to be excellent.

In December 2017 we were informed that our grant request (suddenly) was, to
summarise, complete wrong. It contained factual errors (like facts do not
matter), inconsistencies, the comment that Wikimedia France and Wikimedia
Netherlands could take everything over in Belgium, suggesting that Belgium
has no culture (this is a serious insult to us), and much more.
(For your reference: Wikimedia Belgium had over 90 events and activities in
2017, including a photo contest, education program, GLAM program with
content donations, workshops and edit-a-thons, and more.)

It raised us a lot of questions, which we asked, but our grants member of
WMF refused to seriously answer them.

Even with our lack of information and received insults, we tried to be
constructive and before Christmas we proposed to the grants staff member
that we would re-write during the Christmas holidays our annual plan (as
the staff member had said many times we could improve it). With the e-mail
following from the grants member of WMF this proposal was not rejected. So
during the two weeks of the Christmas holidays we spent many days, together
with the help from another experienced chapter representative, re-writing
our annual plan. After the Christmas holidays, we were ready, and the
response from the grants member from WMF was then that the re-written
version could not be taken into account...

After some further e-mails with this staff member we concluded as WMBE mid
January 2018 that a collaboration with this individual from WMF is
impossible and we banned this individual from ever contacting us again and
we never communicated ever with this person again.

The supervisor of this staff member has been informed by us about what
happened, and refused to even investigate the situation.

A colleague from the staff member took over and we received our budget for
2018. Later during 2018 and 2019 this WMF staff member helped us very well
with questions, provided useful feedback and the annual plan for 2019 which
was approved. We are now happy with this collaboration.


*Case 2*
During the Wikimedia Conference in April 2018 we still had many questions
and our treasurer spoke with various other affiliates if they had advice,
good practices, etc etc, so that we could improve our future annual plans.
Instead of that good advice was given, they shared their similar bad
experiences they had in the past years with our former grants person from
WMF. Many of them indicated that they do not want the feedback/criticism to
be public as they feel that their budget would be cut by WMF as result of
it.

With multiple chapter representatives we started to collect the feedback so
that we could come up with some recommendations for improvements for both
the WMF processes regarding grants as well as recommendations for
affiliates for how to write better annual plans.

Our former grants person from WMF heard about the initiative and started to
tell bad (untrue) stories about WMBE's treasurer to bring him in discredit.
Multiple people have testified that our former grants person was doing
this, gossip like that WMBE's treasurer was planning to attack that grants
person. The Trust & Safety team heard about it and drew immediately the
conclusion that the gossip was true, without checking the facts, without
even talking to any of the involved individuals, and asked WMBE's treasurer
not to approach or contact the former grants person. (To be crystal clear:
there was never ever a plan to contact the grants person from WMF at all.)

Even after the Trust & Safety team spoke with WMBE's treasure, the gossip
continued, causing a very unsafe conference space. A member of the Trust &
Safety team was later informed about the ongoing gossip and refused to take
any action to stop it, indicating not to take it seriously.


*Case 3*
During Wikimania 2018, WMBE's treasurer was asked to help the organisers of
Wikimania in Cape Town to help and assist wherever needed. One of the tasks
was to bring stuff from A to B on request. Everything seemed to go fine.

Halfway the conference, WMBE's treasurer was casually approached by a
member of the Trust and Safety team with a question to have a chat. A
second team member came and they took an elevator together. In the elevator
the team members made jokes and were laughing. As soon as they were in the
room, it was made clear that the Trust & Safety team had received
complaints about WMBE's treasurer.

The main complaint was: being in the same (large) room as the grants member
of WMF. The complainant was the grants member of WMF, and this person
claimed that WMBE's treasurer had said something and that the grants member
from WMF had been highly distressed resulting in not being able to do the
presentation (later in that session) well.

The situation was that WMBE's treasurer was asked to bring something to a
room where a session just started (such requests happen many times during
the conference, the grants person who complained was not presenting at that
time), the materials were handed to someone in the back of the room and he
left the room silently as quickly as possible. Multiple people present in
that session have testified that he did not speak while bringing materials
to the room, and they also testified that the presentation by the grants
person from WMF went reasonable well.
Also, during lunch WMBE's treasurer was sitting somewhere very visible to
everyone, where the grants person from WMF came standing next to the
treasurer, approached from the front. If the grants person from WMF really
gets highly distressed by his presence, this person would not have done
that.

The Trust & Safety team blindly believed the statements made by their WMF
colleague, the team did not ask witnesses in the room about what happened,
all the information here above was provided to the Trust & Safety team, but
the Trust & Safety team fully ignored this information and the witnesses
who say otherwise.

Three additional anonymous complaints were:
* speaking to loud
* standing to close
* having touched someone's hand/arm

It must be noted that *none* of the people that complained to the Trust &
Safety team had indicated to WMBE's treasurer to experience anything as
problem.
Also, WMBE's treasurer has as disability that he hears less, does not hear
well what the height of his volume is (but still trying to not to speak too
loud), and with bad acoustics has to stand closer to people to hear them
well. The Trust & Safety team was informed about this during the meeting.
Also in the local culture where he comes from touching is a normal thing.
Also many people that have been frequently with WMBE's treasurer at the
conference have indicated that he did not speak too loud.

During the meeting the Trust & Safety team told that they already had
informed everyone in the organising team that they demanded WMBE's
treasurer must stop helping in organising Wikimania 2018, meaning that they
already had drawn the conclusion even before speaking with him.

They also indicated that they "had to do something" so they could show
the complainants
that they do something when complaints are received, even while their
decision did not solve/improve the complaints at all. The Trust & Safety
team refused to think about real solutions, they refused to organise a
dialogue to solve the complaints, they refused to mediate, they promised to
organise a meeting with a supervisor, but that they never did. It also
became clear they have zero feeling with people with autism. The Trust &
Safety said they could not share any more information about what happened
because of the privacy of the complainants.

During the conference WMBE's treasurer made it public, to prevent having to
tell emotionally what happened, as well as for transparency reasons. This
did not take away that he felt ever since that chat highly unsafe as result
by the behaviour of the Trust & Safety team, and still continues up to
today, as well as he also had been five weeks ill after the conference
because of this.

Many people at the conference indicated to disagree with the decision of
the Trust & Safety team, including WMF staff members and Wikimania's
organising team. During the conference many of them approached the Trust &
Safety team about it, various of them also proposing other solutions that.
In these talks the Trust & Safety team shared a lot more details which they
refused to share with WMBE's treasurer. Also the Trust & Safety team told
that he had been warned before (which is not true), as well as exaggerating
and framing what supposedly had happened.


*Afterwards*
After Wikimania the Trust & Safety team received an e-mail from WMBE's
treasurer with a more detailed overview of what happened, including the
many witnesses who claim differently. But all of this was fully ignored by
the Trust & Safety team. After the conference nothing had been heard from
the Trust & Safety team, until mid December 2018.

In the first two weeks of December 2018 WMBE's treasurer received multiple
e-mails from WMF staff members, including strangely in what was written a
farewell and thank you for all the work. Apparently the Trust & Safety team
had shared their new decision with other departments, while actual
stakeholders were not informed.

About a week later both the treasurer of WMBE as the president of WMBE (but
none of the other organisations he is active for) received an e-mail in
what the Trust & Safety team indicates to have received further complaints:
- First they refer to the situation in December 2017-January 2018
concerning the interaction with the former grants person from WMF.
Apparently the Trust & Safety team fully has ignored all the insults at the
address of our chapter and country. Also the e-mail reads largely like the
grants person itself had written the e-mail.
- Because of this they forbid WMBE's treasurer to ever contact WMBE's
former grants person at WMF (one way only!) (Even while WMBE had banned
every contact with this person already in January 2018.)
- And they forbid to have contact with WMF grants grants team for about two
years. (Even while the contact with all the other members of the grants
team was going fine, even receiving various compliments. )

Still it was decided by Wikimedia Belgium to keep WMBE's treasurer as
treasurer of WMBE.

- Someone at the conference saw WMBE's treasurer with a mascot and asked
the name of the mascot. Answer: "Wendy the Weasel", clearly indicating a
female name. The question that followed was what the gender was of the
mascot. WMBE's treasurer was thinking that this was just said, and replied
that as there are no outer organs the mascot must be female. (Having asked
around, in the part of the world where WMBE's treasurer lives this is not
considered a problem, but maybe this is differently elsewhere and is there
a taboo.)
- Someone had indicated that WMBE's treasurer has been standing in the way
of that person and blocking the complainants path at Wikimania. It was a
space of about 1.5 to 2 metres, where also multiple other people where
standing, and people passing by were asked question, but everyone who
wanted to pass by could do so.
- Someone has told that WMBE's treasurer would have said that he would
visit conferences "to pick up girls". Everybody who knows WMBE's treasurer
knows this is nonsense. Some contest: WMBE's treasurer has someone he loves
in his home country with zero interest of that kind in anyone else, and
falls in the category of LGBT+ and does not fall on the women at the
conferences. It must be noticed extremely suggestive interpretations of
other people (that do not have the regular impressions, like due being
LGBT+), have far reaching effects as conclusions. Such is an insult.
- Because of this they forbid WMBE's treasurer to be present at events
funded directly/indirectly by WMF for two years.


Again it must be noticed that the Trust & Safety team for the third time on
a row refuses to talk with the individual who it concerns first, before
drawing any conclusions. The Trust & Safety team comes in their e-mail with
a lot of assumptions based on loose sand. They also claim that WMBE's
treasurer fails to assume good faith.
In an e-mail to the presidents of two chapters they said that "they know
how he thinks", followed by a lot of nonsense and false claims. The Trust &
Safety team does not assume good faith themselves if they write that.


The Trust & Safety team provided in their communication zero examples of
where the Friendly Space Policy has been breached.



The situation of WMBE's treasurer and the Trust & Safety team has been
reviewed by an independent professional with expertise in complaints
handling. The conclusion of this expert: almost everything that the Trust &
Safety team could have done wrong in handling complaints, they did do
wrong. Many basic principles in complaint handling and conflict resolution
have been ignored by the Trust & Safety team. In addition to this, they
communicate very intimidating as well as with treats.

The way how they work/communicate gives the impression like a staff member
of WMF is more worth than a volunteer from the community.


Two chapters have reached out to the Wikimedia Foundation, indicating that
the way how the Trust & Safety team was operating is not appropriate, but
WMF refuses to take these concerns seriously and has ignored this fully.
Again the Trust & Safety team refuses to work together on actual solutions.


To summarise, feedback/information from WMBE's treasurer has been ignored
by WMF, feedback from the president of WMBE has been ignored by WMF,
feedback from the president and director of WMNL have been ignored by WMF,
feedback from other staff members in WMF have been ignored by WMF, feedback
from many community members from the movement have been ignored.

Because of the behaviour of the trust & Safety team that causes for
everyone in the movement an unsafe place, WMBE's treasurer has decided
to indefinitely
stop attending WMF funded events.


At the General Assembly it was requested to request an internal audit in
WMF to bring all the problems there to the light.

Anyone see any parallels to the Fram/LauraHale situation?

I gather that we're getting one side's interpretation of facts and events, and that the other side probably characterized it quite differently—e.g., not merely poor volume control, but shouting angrily at someone; not merely normal conversational physical contact but awkward, prolonged, contextually inappropriate touching.

Even so, WMF are begging—just begging—for a defamation lawsuit. Yeah, I know, the flip-side is that if they didn't do anything, or removed the staffer from the conference, they'd be asking for their staffer to sue, which is probably a substantially bigger risk. Hell, the staffer could probably sue anyway, and may do so as soon as their employment ends.

[Salvidrim]

"Bad WMF Grants person" vs. "WMBE Treasurer" - the e-mail above seems like to went to almost superhumans lengths to avoid names.

[mendaliv]

"Bad WMF Grants person" vs. "WMBE Treasurer" - the e-mail above seems like to went to almost superhumans lengths to avoid names.

Probably smart. Given T&E is a black box at the moment, people have no idea where the axe will fall.

[Randy from Boise]

Bureaucrats fighting over a $100,000,000 stack of chips will behave wolvishly. And that goes equally for both of these petty fucking useless sides.

And these are the purported "defenders" of Wikipedia as a "safe space."

HA!!!

RfB

[mendaliv]

Bureaucrats fighting over a $100,000,000 stack of chips will behave wolvishly. And that goes equally for both of these petty fucking useless sides.

This is a very good point. At some level this more sensibly boils down to a dispute over funding, rather than someone's feelings or a cultural misunderstanding.

At least lawyers can fight each other in court in the morning and share a drink in the evening. I'm not sure I've ever seen that level of dispassion from anybody connected to Wikipedia, least of all in the Foundation.

That doesn't make T&E any less abhorrent.

[The Garbage Scow]

the comment that Wikimedia France and Wikimedia
Netherlands could take everything over in Belgium, suggesting that Belgium
has no culture (this is a serious insult to us)

WTF??

Even after the Trust & Safety team spoke with WMBE's treasure, the gossip
continued, causing a very unsafe conference space. A member of the Trust &
Safety team was later informed about the ongoing gossip and refused to take
any action to stop it, indicating not to take it seriously.

"Don't worry snowflake, that's just locker room talk."

If this is even partly true the WMF has some unbelievable douchebags on staff.

[tarantino]

Romaine is the treasurer. There's a thread about James Alexander banning him from wikimania
here, Friendly Spacers Eat One of Their Own.

Caroline Becker is the unnamed wmf grants person. She responded to the email. She's a wmf France board member. I can imagine Belgians would find a French person telling them they have no culture extremely offensive.

[Vigilant]

The Giraffe Stapler still deserves his sanfranban.

Pick a time and place.

[mendaliv]

She's a wmf France board member. I can imagine Belgians would find a French person telling them they have no culture extremely offensive.

That puts things in a slightly different light for me, her being French. Not so much the claim that they were told they had no culture, but the claim that there was a cultural misunderstanding re: touching. While I'm sure there are differences in that regard between the French and the Belgians, it's not one a French person is going to be blithely unaware of or incapable of expecting. That makes me suspect either the touching was more an issue of pilling on than the core of the complaint.

And yes, I understand that many people have a serious aversion to being socially touched. I'm not saying a French person can't. Rather, my point is the claim that the complaint about touching concerns some touching that she might not have expected as a non-Belgian doesn't ring true in light of her being French. I've known people who can't handle being touched. They tend to deliberately avoid being put in touchy situations, and are keenly aware when their personal space is being narrowed. So my take-away is one of two things: Either the touching was more than was culturally appropriate (and therefore not simply excusable because the toucher might not have known about this particular person's aversion) or the touching was more tacked onto the other complaints which formed the meat of the T&E decision. Which is the truth, I have no idea, and as long as T&E runs the show behind closed doors, neither will we.

Going back to the grant fiasco, I would believe it if someone told me that the statement about Belgian culture was part of a ham-handed attempt to propose a joint WM France/WMBE project as an alternative to a grant that she wasn't prepared to green-light. Imagine someone saying "Listen, I can't authorize this as written, but you might consider reaching out to WM France. Our cultures are practically the same after all!" That said, doing that feels a lot like self-dealing, so I'm hopeful that's actually not the case.

Edit to add: I just dug through the e-mail chain linked above. She clarified that he had snatched something from her hands (seems a bad idea to me). It also seems the comment was about WM France and WM Netherlands taking over for WMBE for some reason. I think that plays into my hypothetical above, that it may have been a ham-handed suggestion, perhaps at consolidating certain European chapters, perhaps at a joint operation.

As someone wise once taught me, when you have to evaluate something like an application or a request, and give a narrative in the approval or denial, don't editorialize.

[Vigilant]

Giraffe Stapler made a challenge.

I accept.

I don’t care about your qualifications or training.

Pick a time and a place.

[Anroth]

I can imagine Belgians would find a French person telling them they have no culture extremely offensive.

TBH they get touchy about 'French fries'...

(Visit the Fry museum in Bruges if you are ever there)

[Poetlister]

Giraffe Stapler made a challenge.

I accept.

I don’t care about your qualifications or training.

Pick a time and a place.

Gentlemen, You Can't Fight In Here! This is the War Room!

[The Garbage Scow]

Giraffe Stapler made a challenge.

I accept.

I don’t care about your qualifications or training.

Pick a time and a place.

Is he sending you PMs or is this up on Crow's site?

[Anroth]

Giraffe Stapler made a challenge.

I accept.

I don’t care about your qualifications or training.

Pick a time and a place.

Is he sending you PMs or is this up on Crow's site?

I think vigilant watches crow's site in real-time.

Like one looks at animals in a zoo.....

[Katie]

It's not exactly CrowNest's website, although it may as well be now.

[Catnip the Dwarf]

That email about Cassandra Claire, yikes. (Claire isn't a great person either, from what I've heard, but still.) So she's not attracted to women? If that's the case, I hope for Maria's sake that they're nothing more than friends or acquaintances.

But that was from 2002. Maybe she's changed since then. She's responsible for this study I ran across a while back, which sounded like a good idea but struck me as disappointingly watery.

Sometimes the word cunt co-presents alongside –isms. A 2008 comment by an IP says, “And before you make any more edits, kindly fuck off and die you homophobic cunt.” Another is a 2011 comment that says, “Please do not leave derogatory messages on talk pages. Save it for hell, you sad, pathetic racist bitch of a bastard with cunt on the side and poofs up your bum.” In both cases, the person was not blocked.

What are "-isms"? Why is it noteworthy that these comments included accusations of homophobia and racism? What is this even trying to say?

There is also a body of research discussed by Azar (2000, July/August) that discusses how male and female responses to stress differ. The male model to stress is flight-or-fight, while the female model is tend-and-befriend. Women create alliances to protect themselves and their offspring, with their responses more biologically programmed to respond in the part of the brain for attachment and caregiving. The flight response is inhibited because of the desire to protect.

Women are naturally more social and nurturing, and this has something to do with why they edit Wikipedia less... how about no.

Characterizing Laura as a victim of misogynistic internet harassment is a disservice to those who actually are. I've been through it (on a small scale), and I can tell you this thread and Fram's behavior aren't it. At worst they're gossip and heavy-handedness.

[Midsize Jake]

It's not exactly CrowNest's website, although it may as well be now.

Well, he's always been a high-energy guy. You have to give him that...

I should probably take this opportunity to say, btw, that his insistence that the Jess Wade situation is analogous to the WMF's Laura Hale problem (at least as I described it here and later here) suggests an extremely myopic view of things. Firstly, there's never been any suggestion that Dr. Wade is in any sort of special personal relationship with any WMF staffer, much less a board member. Secondly, for nearly the entire time she's been writing WP articles, Dr. Wade (Jesswade88 (T-C-L)) has been doing exactly what the WMF has been telling the world they want people to do by writing articles about women on Wikipedia - almost exclusively, in fact. And she's done it while being almost unfailingly polite and - amazingly - accepting of the Wikipedians' "helpful suggestions" on how to improve her writing. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, her writing has never really needed much improvement, if any. Apparently there were some issues early on with her quoting sources too liberally or uploading copyright photos of people, but nothing (to my knowledge) that would have ever required someone to go in and rearrange the whole article or do a full rewrite. The closest thing I found during the last 5 years was an article she originally entitled "Young Woman Engineer," later retitled as Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award (T-H-L), where she apparently included some copyrighted content that's since been oversighted. There were also notability objections, but it wasn't anything directly related to her writing ability, and the article did survive a "speedy delete" attempt. (There may have been other articles that were deleted, and therefore aren't in her contributions list(s), but someone who's a WP admin will have to check that if they're so inclined.)

All this leads to another key point, which is that - like it or not - on Wikipedia there are dozens, and maybe now hundreds, of people who are perfectly happy to follow along after women who are writing biographies of other women, either as a private pastime, as a well-publicized personal campaign, or as the result of edit-a-thons, and proofread them or otherwise fix them. There are not a lot of people on WP who are perfectly happy to clean up dozens of repetitive/redundant stubs about obscure regional sporting events that might not even exist anymore, especially if they're not well-written to begin with. There's a big difference not only in what these two women have been doing, but in the perception of their activities among other WP users.

So, what I'm saying here is that if you were a male admin on Wikipedia, pursuing some sort of Fram-like "hounding" of Dr. Jess Wade over her WP contributions, you'd not only be ignoring the WMF's PR strategy, you'd be ignoring WP policy, and frankly you'd almost have to be motivated by sexism over quality-control concerns. That isn't to say Mr. Fram doesn't have sexist motivations; he almost certainly does. But in Ms. Hale's case, he clearly did have quality-control concerns too, which should have been obvious to everyone but seem to have been seriously misconstrued in Ms. Hale's favor by the WMF T&S staff.

[Auggie]

Somey you really should try editing Wikipedia for at least a few weeks. Because you just don't get it. Try writing anything new, or even making simple changes to improve an existing article, and these quality control fuckers come out of the woodwork to attack you. Not your writing, you personally. They are deranged wiki addicts trolling for attention, not editors/proofreaders as you are imagining. Most of them can barely communicate.

[The Adversary]

That isn't to say Mr. Fram doesn't have sexist motivations; he almost certainly does.

Huh?
I have a pretty sharp nose for sexist behaviour; but I just don't sense any sexist motivations wrt Fram.
He (and I assume Fram is a "he") goes after those he thinks edit sub par equally harsh, irregardless of sex.

And it is unfair to compare Jesswade88 (T-C-L) with LauraHale (T-C-L); they don't have anything in common except their sex, and that they both of the edit "women's issues": Jesswade88 is a competent editor, while LauraHale...not so much.

Somey you really should try editing Wikipedia at least for at least a few weeks. Because you just don't get it. Try writing anything new, or even making simple changes to improve an existing article, and these quality control fuckers come out of the woodwork to attack you. Not your writing, you personally. They are deranged wiki addicts trolling for attention, not editors/proofreaders as you are imagining. Most of them can barely communicate.

Huh?
Again, not my experience. I guess it depends on what part of Wikipedia you edit.

[Vigilant]

So, it’s official.

Giraffe Stapler is going to be a giant pussy.

Place and time, old man. Place and time.

[Midsize Jake]

That isn't to say Mr. Fram doesn't have sexist motivations; he almost certainly does.

Huh?
I have a pretty sharp nose for sexist behaviour; but I just don't sense any sexist motivations wrt Fram.
He (and I assume Fram is a "he") goes after those he thinks edit sub par equally harsh, irregardless of sex.

Well, I hope you're right - I obviously haven't interacted with him personally, not that my doing so would be any indication either way. It's fair to say I mostly observe Wikipedians when they're at their worst. Maybe I've been paying too much attention to Ms. GenderDesk too, and I could also be putting too much emphasis on his actions during the Kudpung vs. GorillaWarfare brouhaha (for example, and a couple of other incidents I vaguely recall).

[The Adversary]

That isn't to say Mr. Fram doesn't have sexist motivations; he almost certainly does.

Huh?
I have a pretty sharp nose for sexist behaviour; but I just don't sense any sexist motivations wrt Fram.
He (and I assume Fram is a "he") goes after those he thinks edit sub par equally harsh, irregardless of sex.

Well, I hope you're right - I obviously haven't interacted with him personally, not that my doing so would be any indication either way. It's fair to say I mostly observe Wikipedians when they're at their worst. Maybe I've been paying too much attention to Ms. GenderDesk too, and I could also be putting too much emphasis on his actions during the Kudpung vs. GorillaWarfare brouhaha (for example, and a couple of other incidents I vaguely recall).

The GorillaWarfare block was horrible; I wouldn't have minded seeing him desysopped over that (Seeing the very uneven treatment of Kudpung vs. GorillaWarfare).

However, I see that more as a one off.

The people he have had the longest and most, eh, adversarial relationship with is, however, no doubt the WMF.
Who now have conveniently banned him.

[Randy from Boise]

Giraffe Stapler made a challenge.

I accept.

I don’t care about your qualifications or training.

Pick a time and a place.

Is he sending you PMs or is this up on Crow's site?

I think vigilant watches crow's site in real-time.

Like one looks at animals in a zoo.....

It would be convenient for all if they would start putting it up on a web cam — then we could watch the Extreeem Spellere every time he dropped a dookie.

RfB

[Moral Hazard]

Somey you really should try editing Wikipedia at least for at least a few weeks. Because you just don't get it. Try writing anything new, or even making simple changes to improve an existing article, and these quality control fuckers come out of the woodwork to attack you. Not your writing, you personally. They are deranged wiki addicts trolling for attention, not editors/proofreaders as you are imagining. Most of them can barely communicate.

Huh?
Again, not my experience. I guess it depends on what part of Wikipedia you edit.

It depends on one's competence.

I received a lot of positive feedback.

Even when I made mistakes about process, experienced editors would state that I should change a specific behavior and they would link a policy, which was reasonable.

[mendaliv]

Somey you really should try editing Wikipedia at least for at least a few weeks. Because you just don't get it. Try writing anything new, or even making simple changes to improve an existing article, and these quality control fuckers come out of the woodwork to attack you. Not your writing, you personally. They are deranged wiki addicts trolling for attention, not editors/proofreaders as you are imagining. Most of them can barely communicate.

Huh?
Again, not my experience. I guess it depends on what part of Wikipedia you edit.

It depends on one's competence.

I received a lot of positive feedback.

Even when I made mistakes about process, experienced editors would state that I should change a specific behavior and they would link a policy, which was reasonable.

I can echo this. I still remember one of my first disputes on-wiki. I think I called the other editor a troll. I got slapped in the face with WP:AGF and actually read it. The idea that we presume the other person isn't being obstructionist on purpose seemed really novel! Almost revolutionary!

That was about 13 years ago. Yikes.

[Guido den Broeder]

I have a pretty sharp nose for sexist behaviour; but I just don't sense any sexist motivations wrt Fram.
He (and I assume Fram is a "he") goes after those he thinks edit sub par equally harsh, irregardless of sex.

Please point out how my edits are subpar. Fram has reverted me on several occasions, mind you, but they were few and far between (and he did so against consensus and found himself corrected).

[Midsize Jake]

Please point out how my edits are subpar.

Do we have to?

I think she was saying that he "goes after those he thinks edit sub par," so it's quite possible that in any given case he was completely wrong and your edits were so par they'd make people's heads spin.

And let's not forget that in golf, where the term is most commonly used, "subpar" actually means you're doing really, really well.

[Guido den Broeder]

You'd be the first in all these years.

The point is, that he goes after people for who he thinks they are. Some will be poor editors, making it easier to find support, but that's not what gives him a kick.

[Vigilant]

WMF Trust and Safety has driven away a long time contributor.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 92878.html

That letter is poignant in it's innocence and authenticity.

Everyone on T&S needs to be fired and the group should be started over with a manager who has relevant experience in this field.

[Guido den Broeder]

WMF Trust and Safety has driven away a long time contributor.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 92878.html

That letter is poignant in it's innocence and authenticity.

Everyone on T&S needs to be fired and the group should be started over with a manager who has relevant experience in this field.

Not that authentic. Romaine was always rude to me, and I know others with the same experience.

[mendaliv]

WMF Trust and Safety has driven away a long time contributor.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 92878.html

That letter is poignant in it's innocence and authenticity.

Everyone on T&S needs to be fired and the group should be started over with a manager who has relevant experience in this field.

And then the gravedancing/finger-wagging begins:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 92887.html

[Vigilant]

How is it that Caroline Becker, former board member of WMF France, can say shit like this?

This is such a lost. Not only did you waisted an opportunity to learn and
grow from your mistakes the first time, you reiterate here, showing no
willingness to grow and learn.

But why would you take the difficult path, when by just claiming your right
to "weirdness" (which I guess only apply to you and none to the people you
hurt), you're rewarding with public support ?

Caroline

Names to faces...

More
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cate ... ine_Becker

She appears with several nasty looking stuffed animals in several of the pictures.

This isn't normal. This woman is not mentally well. To allow her a forum to denigrate a disabled person who is saying goodbye seems unconscionable, even by WMF standards.

mod note: removed email address. - t

[Vigilant]

Anyone want to bet that this post
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 92829.html

Hi all,

I have no opinion whatsoever about all the things going on in this mail,
except for this part :

Three additional anonymous complaints were:
* speaking to loud
* standing to close
* having touched someone's hand/arm

It must be noted that *none* of the people that complained to the Trust &
Safety team had indicated to WMBE's treasurer to experience anything as
problem.


You did not just "touched my hand/arm", you took MY stuff from my hands,
and for both medical and personnal reasons which I do not wish to share on
a public list, it was a bad experience for me, and maybe I didn't *say*
anything, but I was visibly distressed. I assumed good faith from you and
accepted your apologizes later in private, but I really do not appreciate
having this particular incident discussed here and being forced to step up
like that.

Caroline

implies that Romaine might have touched one of her scabby stuffed animals wherein she had some sort of freakout?

[Vigilant]

Her github

https://github.com/Krho

Notice a theme here, folks?