I restored the admin permissions of Floquenbeam (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), which were not removed through a community process or as a result of a ruling by ArbCom. My reasons for doing so are stated in this post. I refer this action to ArbCom for review and scrutiny. I will of course accept any sanction that ArbCom judges appropriate.

@SilkTork: Doesn't it depend on what the call is about? ArbCom may well want to explore with the WMF the circumstances of the ban of Fram (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) and the later decision to desysop Floquenbeam (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) instead of referring either matter to ArbCom. In the case of the former at least (I stand by my view that there could be no justification for the latter), it may that sensitive non-public information played a part - although I think everyone increasingly doubts it - so that it might be legitimate for that discussion to be had off-wiki. If the conversation were to move towards the general subject of WMF v Community relations, and the extent of the self-governance WMF is willing to permit us, then I agree that discussion is best held in a more open forum. However, ArbCom members may be best placed to make the argument for why a more open forum is needed for that conversation. I think that you for one would make that case well, so I would encourage you to participate. WJBscribe (talk) 10:47, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@AGK: You're the only active Arb who (other than making some "clerking" edits, including changing the case title to make this case squarely about me, and creating bizarre redirects (see WP:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 June 18#Wikipedia:TRUSA)) hasn't opined yet, even though the request has now been open for a week. I realise this case presents tough issues, but tough issues are what you're elected to deal with. Would you like to let us know your position...? WJBscribe (talk) 23:31, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

When I restored Floquenbeam (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)'s permissions, I did not do the same for Fram (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). I have thought about that a long time. I guess I wanted to give WMF a chance to explain themselves, to engage with the Community (or ArbCom) and justify their actions. They have not done so. More than two weeks on, the community has been met with obfuscation and delay, and ArbCom has not been placed in a position to endorse WMF's actions against Fram. That isn't OK. I have therefore taken further steps are returned admin right to Fram. See my further statement at the bureaucrat's noticeboard [1]. The local status of Wikipedia:Office actions is now in doubt, but I nevertheless once again refer my actions to ArbCom for review. WJBscribe (talk) 23:57, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JEissfeldt (WMF) on behalf of WMFOffice

My name is Jan Eissfeldt and I’m commenting in my role as Lead Manager of the Wikimedia Foundation Trust & Safety team.

The Trust & Safety team apologizes for the disruption caused by our implementation of an Office Action. While the application of Office Actions is at times unavoidable, in this case it caused disruption to the community, which was not our intention. By default, we always aim to follow the principle of least intrusion possible for Office Actions. In the future we will improve our coordination with community-elected bodies like ArbCom across the movement when carrying out our duties.

The recent change to Office Action policy that allowed for the introduction of time-limited and partial (project-specific) bans is not a change of the team’s scope of cases taken. However, it does alter the way that sanctions are enforced by introducing more gradual steps intended to fill the gap between conduct warning office actions and indefinite global bans. We acknowledge that there has been confusion about how these changes apply to the English Wikipedia community.

Though my team followed precedent for a Foundation desysop of those who attempt to interfere in Office Actions, in deference to the confusion of this case, the Foundation will not be issuing further sanctions against or desysopping those who edited the block or the sysop rights of those who edited the Fram block to date. We defer to Arbcom’s judgment on how to proceed with regard to such behavior issues in this case.

The Trust & Safety team wants to stress that we do not want to impede or damage local processes on this project. We want to work with the English Wikipedia community and ArbCom on improvements to processes. We are closely following the discussions, including the ones on the ArbCom Noticeboard discussion page. about ideas for improvements and might comments on several of them in response to community questions there or on the other page as part of the issues we are currently exploring.

A more detailed post on the current situation is here and I will publish a first follow-up to non-ArbCom questions there shortly.--Jan (WMF) (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@@Nick: ArbCom traditionally partners with T&S Operations, which partners not just with this committee but also other community self-governance bodies like the Ombuds Commission or the stewards. James Alexander, during his time here, led the T&S Operations team itself, which was why he was present on ArbCom calls. I am in the role that Maggie Dennis previously filled, which means that while I oversee Operations, among other teams, I do not participate in the day-to-day tasks of Operations such as regular calls with community groups. Best, --Jan (WMF) (talk) 14:53, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tryptofish

I like, overall, the first draft of the motion by WTT.

It would be helpful, however, to add something about all communications between ArbCom and WMF about the case. The community is very much eager to understand to what degree those communications have been productive or not. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:39, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Short version: What Casliber said.

More: By chance, I was the first uninvolved editor to make a statement here. I deleted my earlier statement in order to make room for commenting on the motion, but what I first said then has suddenly become apt again: Don't inflame the already fraught situation any further.

I have a feeling that a full case will be a nightmare. The events of the past 24 hours took place largely because something needed to fill the vacuum left by the silence from ArbCom and the Board. Before you even consider accepting a full case, you need to issue a public statement about where we are at, in terms of what T&S are doing after ArbCom's discussion with them. Does WMF really understand the discussions at en-wiki about Fram? Or are they stonewalling us? Without resolving that, the community abhors a vacuum, and things are spinning out of control. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:17, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If a full case were to be opened to examine the use of admin and crat tools, there is absolutely no evidence that would come forth that isn't already known by everyone, including Arbs. A motion remains reasonable, but a full case would just be everyone repeating the opinions you already have here. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:41, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Floq

WJBscribe didn't add me as a party, but I probably am. I, too, will happily accept any sanction the en.wiki ArbCom feels is justified for unblocking Fram yesterday. However, in my (completely unbiased!) opinion, no sanction is due either one of us. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:11, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@BD2412 and GorillaWarfare: BD's confusion is my fault. I said at VPP I wasn't going to ask for a resysop after my 30 day temporary desysop was up, as long as Fram was blocked. I did, however, ask for the bit back now at WP:BN. That's not quite as hypocritical as it might look at first blush, because (a) Fram isn't blocked (tho he apparently, I guess wisely, still isn't editing), and (b) since this was a request to basically overturn the desysop, I viewed that differently than asking for a resysop after serving my time. (plus, I didn't actually expect to be resysopped....) If, as I expect, I'm eventually desysopped by WMF again, I do not plan to ask for the bit back if Fram's still WMF-blocked. I'm using up my precious 500 word allotment to address minutiae, I know. --Floquenbeam (talk) 12:21, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If en.wiki ArbCom - Hell, if any one ArbCom member wants me to stop using the tools, just tell me. No need for a motion. I'm under no illusion that I'm going to be a sysop here when the dust settles anyway. But God damn it, it's going to be en.wiki ArbCom that tells me to hang them up. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:03, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe that my unblock of Fram was within local policy, as some are trying to frame it. If there is some loophole I could wiggle through if you parse the words one way or another, I'm not interested in wiggling through it. I thought at the time that it was clearly a violation of local policy, and I knowingly did that per IAR; in extremis, I knowingly broke a rule to improve the encyclopedia. Reversing the WMF's block Fram - with overwhelming consensus to do so - was clearly in the best interests of the English Wikipedia. The contempt WMF is showing our local processes and "self rule" needed to be addressed somehow, and I firmly believed - and still believe - that they would have replied with 1/4th the current (insufficient) effort if all I'd done is join the long, long, long list of people objecting on WP:FRAM. They can break local policy and ignore overwhelming local consensus with impunity; I felt that breaking local policy with ... punity? ... was my only recourse. It was not a result of my "confusion", as Jan implied in one of his posts, even if it might be easier to make it all go away if we pretended it was. So if things are leaning towards "don't desysop Floq, but issue a clarifying motion that such action in the future will result in a desysop", then please don't. That's a cop-out. Either support the unblock (which would make me proud), or say you disapprove of the unblock (which I would completely understand) and chose from the spectrum of possible responses (no action, reprimand, temp desysop, permanent desysop, block, 1 year ban with no appeal). But let's not pretend I didn't know what I was doing in order to make the decision easier for you, or the consequences easier on me. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:36, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: I don't think there is a crisis of confidence in ArbCom; certainly not widespread, at least. If there was, I agree an election would be the solution. I think the crisis in confidence is regarding the community and WMF T&S, which neither an election, nor an ArbCom statement, can solve. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:09, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@El C: The short version: I don't think there is anything ArbCom can do. Long version: available on your talk page if you want, but I'm using up my precious word allotment, I'm risking getting the dreaded word counter added here... Anyway, we seem to have edit conflicted, I was mostly telling WTT that I think he misunderstood your comment about "crisis of confidence", but you said the same thing 2 minutes earlier and I didn't see it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:26, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mz7

The facts of the matter aren't really in dispute: WJBscribe, Floquenbeam, and Bishonen have all knowingly modified clearly designated Wikimedia Foundation office actions, which is something that has been sanctioned in the past by the Arbitration Committee (e.g. [2]). The Arbitration Committee has jurisdiction to review administrator and bureaucrat conduct with respect to office actions, but no jurisdiction to review the actual office action itself (c.f. WP:ARBPOL#Jurisdiction). The question now is whether it would be prudent for the committee to intervene at this stage in this case – honestly, I don't have a view here yet, but given the complexity of the case I'm thinking the answer will eventually be "yes", though right now may not be the best time to do so to avoid needless inflammation. Mz7 (talk) 00:20, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Xaosflux

It may be a bit premature, but I suggest that the committee take up a single case, and expand it to all of the wheel warring that has occurred since Fram has been banned by the foundation. Suggest this is held for at least a few days as there may be more parties. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:23, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: I'd agree there is not standing about the actions performed by the office, but I do think there is standing about the actions performed by our admins and bureaucrats. Related to office actions, there is room to determine if our functionaries are expected to abide by policies such as OFFICE, or if the policy should be completely void as it has no community force. To a somewhat lesser extent there is also the issue of one 'crat overturning an explicit "deny" by another 'crat in a rapid fashion. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:04, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the suggestions to "resolve by motion" from @Joe Roe, KrakatoaKatie, Worm That Turned, and GorillaWarfare: - if doing so please clearly define what was, and as importantly - what was not considered as in scope of the case request that was resolved by such motioning, so we can tell if additional case requests or other deliberations are still needed. Topics I'd want to see include: Any activities of Fram; the administrative actions of Bishonen and Floquenbeam; the bureaucratic action of WJBscribe; if the Wikipedia:Office actions policy is deemed to be a community enforced policy at all (perhaps it is just a summary of things the WMF has declared they may exercise?); how or if the involuntary nature of office desysopings interacts with the restoration of adminship section of the administrators policy. Thank you (and the other committee members) for your work on this trying matter. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 03:06, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: (or anyone working on the motion, pinged you as you began the motion component), please advise if the new action by WJBscribe is "in scope" as well and can be settled together, or if potentially complaining parties will require a unique case request. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 00:21, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hell in a Bucket

There needs to be a great meeting that is open and transparent and Arbcom needs to represent the communities interests in this. I think opening a case with respect to this is needed as I think this is a crisis in the making in how this place functions. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 00:28, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ST47

This situation remains too "hot" for a case to start at this time - with daily wheel-warring, there would be a dozen new parties before the evidence phase even ended. I would encourage ArbCom to consider ways to help cool the situation down by motion - possibly including removing tools from some of the parties pending resolution of the eventual case. Since at least some of the admins involved have stated that they don't believe their actions constitute wheel warring, a clarification from the committee on that point (and a statement that future participants will lose the relevant tools) may be helpful.

A full case will eventually be necessary to determine the outcome with respect to Floquenbeam's and Bishonen's sysop bits (who should be added as parties to a consolidated case), WJBscribe's crat bit, any future wheel warriors, and (if the committee feels there's anything to rule on) Fram's own sysop bit, once their office ban ends. ST47 (talk) 00:35, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by StudiesWorld

I agree with xaosflux on this. While I believe that it is, at this time, premature to accept a case, I also think that this will inevitable come to the Committee and allowing it to expand would make sense. I would add that I think that the case should be more expansive than any concerns regarding wheel-warring to include an investigation of the off-wiki harassment of contributors and any other conduct issues that may arise from this incident. As stated by ST47, I also think that the actions of Floq and Bish should be reviewed with an eye towards possible violations of WP:OFFICE and loss of community trust. StudiesWorld (talk) 00:37, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I want to add that contrary to others' claims, office actions are not subject to local policies and therefore, it is impossible for WMFOffice to wheel-war. I would also say that I agree with Rob with respect to desysoping and decratting. StudiesWorld (talk) 10:27, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

With regards to proposals to let Floquenbeam, Bishonen, and WJBscribe off without any action, I think that is an option that ArbCom should consider only if they get binding assurances from these users that they will not use any advanced permissions they have to reverse office actions or ArbCom decisions at any point in the future. If they are not willing to make such an agreement, then they should all be desysoped because we can not trust them to act in this area, as a result of their behavior in this instance. StudiesWorld (talk) 21:40, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Building on what BU Rob13 said, I think that the fact that they describe their action as civil disobedience should be telling. When one engages in civil disobedience, one knows that they are breaking the rules and expects and is prepared for punishment. Given this acknowledgment, it would seem that they would not contest a finding that they broke policy. StudiesWorld (talk) 21:51, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by EllenCT

Please use this opportunity to review the propriety of the Office actions, starting with the unilateral expansion of their remit to local non-legally necessary imposition of sanctions within the purview of established conduct policy and community processes and removal of advanced permissions; imposition of civility standards without community involvement, review, or approval, with secret trials by secret and unaccountable judges without the right of representation, defense or appeal, on secret evidence submitted by secret accusers; including the issues of "appropriate principles and our established constitutional order" cited by Jimbo;[3] and whether and which such actions are appealable to him.[4] EllenCT (talk) 00:51, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In connection with the likely scope of this case given arbitrator comments so far, I would like to make sure they are aware of this offer from Fram, inviting "the WMF to provide their evidence to a number of trusted WMF people who have no real reason to defend me, but whom I still trust to be impartial. People like Newyorkbrad, Drmies, Ymblanter, GorillaWarfare, Giant Snowman, ... Let them judge the evidence in private, without sharing it with me; if they agree that a) the evidence is compelling, and b) it couldn't have been handled in public, then so be it." EllenCT (talk) 01:27, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Wbm1058: (link) "For multiple self-unblocks, wheel-warring, and abuse of rollback." WP:IAR is policy, and it means that community consensus pertaining to what does and does not improve the encyclopedia takes precedence over rules. EllenCT (talk) 04:18, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Wbm1058: Fram's stern and often gruff corrections have been repeatedly evaluated, over the decades now, with at least dozens of complaints similar to Laura's -- and while there is unquestionably plenty of room for improvement, which I believe Fram was sincerely trying to make since the initial T&S warning -- in the vast majority of cases I've been able to review, the community has concluded that Fram's efforts were improving the encyclopedia. In Fred's case, he was clearly trying to hide debate about his candidacy, which is very wrong. EllenCT (talk) 19:54, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Drmies

I think there is no way for ArbCom to avoid taking this, and it will be a good opportunity for the committee to affirm its commitment to our collaborative system of editing and our community-driven governance. The resysopping of Floq was, at worst, an excellent use of WP:IAR (with the caveat that there were no rules for this situation, I read IAR as Do the Right Thing), and in my opinion a pretty clear expression of the community's desire to not be ruled by unelected officials who have very important jobs, which sometimes require secrecy, of course--but in this case they completely failed to explicate anything at all to the community. Drmies (talk) 00:50, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sir Joseph

While I appreciate some aspects of IAR, I also appreciate that WMF ultimately has the defacto authority here and we have to weigh IAR against anarchy. We can't have admins and bureaucrats going around making changes. So ARBCOM does need to discuss this. Whatever the reasons for the WMF ban, there needs to be a clear line of authority on who/what/when anything can happen. Also, I hereby rescind my topic ban, and ask that one of the admins modify the log so I can edit the full Wikipedia, in keeping with IAR. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 00:56, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Awilley

An argument could be made that a good application of WP:IAR is to enforce the clear and explicit will of the community over the actions of a "random stressed underpaid employee" who tried to pull stunts that Jimbo himself couldn't get away with. I hope that Arbcom will side with the community should a case become necessary. (I suspect that in this case the cooler heads at the WMF will decide that it is in everybody's best interest for them to back down, at least from the Floquenbeam desysop.) ~Awilley (talk) 01:31, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by 28bytes

ArbCom does not have the remit to overturn Office actions, even ill-considered and badly communicated ones. It does have the option to offer leniency to any editors who, in good faith, have stood up against Office actions they felt were illegitimate and damaging to the community. I hope the committee will offer that leniency. 28bytes (talk) 01:52, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Adding: I think the #Statement by Sandstein below gets it right. 28bytes (talk) 16:34, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Softlavender: That tweet has been deleted. Granted, it shouldn't have been posted in the first place, and it's symptomatic of the new environment we're in where it's fair game to call people "abuser" and "harasser" (and even a criminal, apparently) without consequence, but let's give proper credit when these types of attacks are withdrawn. 28bytes (talk) 01:56, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Adding, contra BU Rob13 and others: nothing in our policies requires the committee to desysop the editors who felt compelled to take these "bright line" actions. The committee will use its best judgment as to whether doing so would benefit the encyclopedia. I submit that sanctioning these editors for their "civil disobedience" would be more harmful than helpful, although I'm sure the committee understands they'll get complaints and angry reactions no matter what they decide. 28bytes (talk) 22:00, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Javert2113

I shall be brief: the situation remains unresolved. If, however, the Committee does choose to take this up, I ask they examine the totality of the circumstances; and ultimately reach a just conclusion. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 01:57, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

An update: given the serious losses in the admin corps, along with the questions raised regarding the propriety of actions performed by WJBScribe (given recent actions), it would be best for the Arbitration Committee to step in at this time. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 22:27, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by BD2412

There has already been some discussion of the fact that WMF's statement with respect to the desysop of Floquenbeam is somewhat ambiguous. It is arguable that it does not specifically forbid a 'crat here from restoring that bit, so long as Floquenbeam did not request this (which they did not). It says with respect to the period of the removal that the community "may decide on the request at that time", but it doesn't say what should happen ~~if there is no request, or~~ if the community (or a 'crat) decides to enforce Wikipedia policies by restoring rights previous to that time. bd2412 T 03:57, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Per GorillaWarfare's comment, I had not realized that this was requested (I suppose due to Floquenbeam's talk page post indicating that they did not want the bit back). I agree with their rationale for making the request. There is still no express language prohibiting a 'crat here from restoring the bit, so any case against WJBscribe should be moot. bd2412 T 04:19, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by BU Rob13

Current word length: 545; diff count: 0.

Let's see what the Office does in response to this egregious abuse of the bureaucrat toolkit, but I urge the Committee to accept this request. First, and most importantly, WJBscribe's action to revert an office action is egregious abuse of tools. It violates the Terms of Use. It should come with not only de-crat but also de-admin, as this is conduct severely unbecoming. Further, ArbCom should evaluate whether the desysops of Floq, Bishonen (pending, but sure to come), and WJBscribe (if you address that question) are under a cloud and require an additional RfA under existing policy. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:08, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to post-policy Wikipedia. Should we just delete WP:WHEEL now, or...? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:37, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- I want to elaborate on this, because it's a continuation of an extraordinarily dangerous attitude from the Committee that permeated my entire term. The Arbitration Committee is hesitant to take decisive action, especially where unpopular with the community. This is true even when our policies clearly favor a particular action. The hope is that, by avoiding conflict and de-escalating, the Committee can cause a problem to vanish. The reality is that this rarely happens. Instead, people learn that they can walk all over the Arbitration Committee without any consequences. They learn that there aren't limits, so long as you can drum up sufficiently loud supporters to make action difficult.
  The Committee is on the verge of making an extraordinary mistake by failing to address the administrative conduct issues here. You are teaching the admin corps that they can cross bright-line desysopping offenses, and if they can get a large enough number of supporters to show up, nothing will happen. Please look at the posts of Floq and Bishonen before they reversed the office action. They knew what they were doing was against policy and the Terms of Use. In fact, Bishonen even said "desysop incoming" at BN. They took an action of "civil disobedience", as they call it, or "abuse of tools", as our policies call it, with full recognition that they were crossing the line. The message is about to be sent that no such line exists if you can find some loud supporters of an admin action, because the Committee is unwilling to do unpopular things that will draw criticism.
  This will lead to more controversial admin actions in the future, including the reversal of any future office actions implemented locally. It will lead to long-term editors acting more brazenly in controversial topic areas. It will lead to editors failing to bring intractable disputes to ArbCom, because they do not trust you to resolve them with any helpful, decisive action. This pattern if avoiding conflict to the point of being walked all over needs to stop. It is fatal to ArbCom as an institution. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:34, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - And the prophecy has been fulfilled. As a direct result of ArbCom inaction in this case, WJBscribe has reverted another office action by restoring Fram's sysop flag. The Arbitration Committee must fulfill its mandate, or resign to make way for those who will. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:05, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by KTC

It doesn't matter how much they disagree with the Office action over Fram. Knowingly and deliberately reversing an Office action is a flagrant abuse of the bureaucrat toolkit by WJBscribe and administrator toolkit by Floquenbeam and Bishonen. Being popular, or making a popular decision doesn't make it right or okay. Everyone involved knew their actions is a violation of policy / against Foundation enforcement of the ToU. That's why it was done. To make a public stand. Well great, you got the plaudits, now suffer the associated consequences. -- KTC (talk) 07:15, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Xover

There is no question or dispute over the actions involved in this case. There is little or no dispute over what the applicable policies are in this case. Thus the central issue is that the named editors (including Floq, who I agree should be named as a party) assert the necessity and justness of their actions despite existing policy.

The situation precipitating these actions is also hugely controversial, still emerging, still hovering between escalation annd deescalation, and with potentially massive and unpredictable long-term consequences. The discussion—despite valiant efforts by some to centralize and structure them—is also spread out over who knows how many noticeboards, project and user talk pages, and even across projects.

For these reasons I believe it is too soon for ArbCom to deal with the actual issue here; ArbCom will have to deal with one or more cases springing from this eventually, but the "fog of war" makes that impossible right now. There are also big questions about what ArbCom's effective remit will be in the locus of those cases when we get to them. I also believe that ArbCom can't simply ignore this issue (decline the case): doing so would in practical effect contribute to the chaos and risk contributing (unintentionally) to further escalation in an already fraught situation.

I would therefore urge the comittee to consider resolving this by motion, and that the motion that will best serve the community in this case is to employ, in effect, jury nullification (CGP Grey explainer video, 4:30). There is no real dispute about the actions or the applicable policy: but to implement a remedy based on that policy right now would be "unjust" (it would offend the sense of justice of the vast majority of the community), and would put ArbCom in an impossible situation. Resolve by motion that the named parties all violated policies in various ways, but that ArbCom will enact no remedies under the current circumstances.

Once this mess shakes out and it becomes possible for anyone to get any kind of perspective on it, that calculus will be entirely different. --Xover (talk) 07:42, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Banedon

@WTT & Callanecc, are case requests now venues for discussion? I don't understand. As a RFAR, the request is asking the committee to resolve a dispute, not saying "hey here's a problem, let's discuss it in this structured venue". This also seems distinct from any extra information, board meetings or anything like that; it's simply a question of whether WJB stepped out of bounds by reinstating Floq's admin tools knowing what he did at the time. Banedon (talk) 07:59, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SilkTork: Let me be clear that I firmly believe that the Foundation acted inappropriately here if you've already made up your mind against one of the named parties, shouldn't you be recusing? Banedon (talk) 09:45, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fæ

Clearly the remit here for Arbcom is not simply to make a statement about WJBscribe's actions, or to limit themselves to sanctioning WJBscribe when they are unable to sanction WMF employees acting anonymously as "WMF Office", even when blatantly wheel warring.

Arbcom is in the dock here, Arbcom has failed the Wikipedia community by failing to maintain a positive relationship with the WMF and contacts within WMF T&S. If Arbcom had not failed to fulfil its role on this project, then WMF T&S would trust Arbcom with the claims of harassment or bullying that underpin WJBscribe's actions.

More fundamentally Arbcom must restore the Wikipedia and wider Wikimedia community's trust by considering motions that:

Confirm and detail Arbcom's role in active improvement of the implementation of Wikipedia's value expressed in WP:5P4 Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with respect and civility
State in plain English exactly how the relationship between WMF T&S (esp. use of the WMF Office role account) and Arbcom must work so that the WMF Office role account only ever needs to act in extreme and exceptional cases
Take responsibility for the sanctions on Fram's account and negotiate with WMF T&S to ensure that all the evidence can be reviewed and safely held by Arbcom

Lastly much has been made of the evidence that the WMF provided this "Fuck Arbcom" diff to justify their ban of Fram's account for abusive conduct. If Arbcom accepts that such vulgar conduct, in particular by an administrator, is unacceptable for this project, then this threshold for bans and sanctions for abuse or bullying should apply equally for everyone, including Administrators, Arbcom members and WMF Trustees such as notorious potty mouth and unelected Arbcom member Jimmy Wales:

diff ... if you tell people to "fuck off" you should be blocked for it immediately, and banned if you continue
diff Utter fucking bullshit
diff ... telling them to fuck off is not nearly as satisfying as maintaining a good sense of humor while making them fuck off

--Fæ (talk) 05:47, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf

I don't think this needs a full case as the facts are not in doubt: Floquenbeam, Bishonen and WJBscribe all used advanced privileges to overturn an office action, something that is explicitly prohibited in policy. The only reasonable response to this is to remove all their advanced privileges. These not to be returned without a new RFA, to be held after the dust has settled. The merits or otherwise of the Office actions are irrelevant, and even if they weren't they are explicitly outside the remit of the committee to investigate.

The questions regarding civility and its enforcement are completely separate and should not be conflated with the necessary removal of privileges. Thryduulf (talk) 08:58, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Dank: Whatever else you might think of Jimmy's statement, it is long-established that any block/ban or almost* any ArbCom sanction/lack of sanction can be appealed to him (at least in relation to en.wp, I'm uncertain about other projects). He doesn't always accept the appeal, and in practice he has never overturned an ArbCom decision, and it's been a very long time since he overturned a block or ban, but he does have the power to do so. (*Jimmy's actions can be appealed to ArbCom, but such appeals may not then be appealed to Jimmy). Whether he holds this power regarding the office is undefined, but ultimately the board (of which is a member) has the final say over the Foundation of which the office is a part. Thryduulf (talk) 14:39, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@SmokeyJoe: WJBscribe most certainly did not act "for the community" - at most he acted for his interpretation of what a vocal sub-set of the community were demanding; he acted directly contrary to the wishes of another, equally important, part of the community (including me) and completely ignored that the vast majority of the community have not commented. You are correct that it was a political statement, but political statements are very nearly the last thing we elect 'crats to make. Thryduulf (talk) 00:27, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Oshawott 12

In my opinion, the best thing to do is just for ArbCom to accept the case and look at the WMF account’s actions along with the whole Fram drama. I’m just here to give a recommendation, and I’m probably wrong, but hey, this is a great chance to get ArbCom to review the whole incident and get a better sum-up and conclusion than the WMF’s crap responses. Oshawott 12 ==()== Talk to me! 09:27, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I take my words back. WMF gave new statements. However, it would still be a good chance to see ArbCom's take on this and what they plan to do with the sysops, the WMF and WP:WiR's tweets along with the case. It is ArbCom's job, and they've got no choice at this point anyways, so I'd say accept. Oshawott 12 ==()== Talk to me! 02:43, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by WBG

What Drmies states.
@Rob:- Did T&S inform you anything about the (supposedly pending) de-sysop of Bishonen? You seem to be quite certain .... ∯WBG^converse 09:25, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Black Kite

~~If I were ArbCom I would be staying well away from taking any action on anything here at the moment, until more clarity on the entire situation is provided.~~ As it is we have a situation akin to playing chess against an opponent which randomly moves the pieces around the board occasionally, and says "I can't tell you why I did that, but I can ensure you I had a full discussion with myself before I did it". Given the increasing stonewalling from the WMF, and the suggestions that this will happen again, I think ArbCom needs to look at this now. Otherwise we will just be here again when the next editor is disappeared. Black Kite (talk) 09:30, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Softlavender

There is no reason for this resysop action to be brought before ArbCom, especially not by the performer; if an admin or bureaucrat wants a review of their admin/crat action, the venue for that is AN or BN. I would therefore advise ArbCom to decline this case, since this is not what ArbCom is for (vanity review of admin/crat actions, submitted by the performer). If WMFOffice wants to take any action regarding the resysop, they can do so. If editors beyond the admin/crat in question have a major problem with an admin/crat action, they can file an ArbCom case, as a complainant, after review in the appropriate venue(s) (review as in polling of "Endorse" or "Overturn"). As it is, this case request seems to be out-of-process, unnecessary, and lacking any of the requisite pre-venue resolutions/reviews/polls. ArbCom doesn't do "review/scrutiny". That's what AN and BN are for. Softlavender (talk) 09:56, 13 June 2019 (UTC) [reply]

ArbCom also does not do "test cases" or "statement cases". If ArbCom wants to make a statement, it makes a statement. It does not accept cases under the pretext that doing so will allow it to make a statement. Softlavender (talk)

@28bytes: I'm well aware that the tweet was deleted two hours after it was reported at WP:FRAM and 16 hours after it went live on Twitter. That does not change or excuse the fact that an official WikiProject and Wikimedia-linked Twitter account with over 6,000 followers stated publicly on Twitter that a long-term Wikipedia administrator in good standing had committed "real crimes". Softlavender (talk) 02:46, 15 June 2019 (UTC); edited 03:27, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SN54129

Current word length: 434; diff count: 0.

I'm not sure that anything need be done at least until after the board meeting when we will know where (presumably) the WMF stands on the desysops/resysops. WJBscribe did the correct thing bringing this hear, but the biggest concern should be with de-escalation, not re-escalation, which further such actions including blocks and bans would only encourage.

If a case is still felt necessary after that, it should be brought and heard as a form of truth and reconciliation commission, coming to Xover's conclusion by motion. This is the one result that would truly de-escalate tension—a reversion to the status quo ante bellum.

Punishments may be deserved by the letter of the "law", but would actively pour fuel on the fire as far as broader community dissatisfaction goes.

@BU Rob13: pending but sure to come: wishing for it does not make it so. JW commented that further wheel warring will not be productive...I am recommending the same to WMF, so perhaps calmer heads have prevailed. We shall see, of course.
Thruuydulf's / KTC's suggestion lacks nuance, to say the least, although it would certainly be successful at the fuel + fire interface. The latter also is unnecessarily aggressive and seems indeed to preempt these proceedings.
IAR is fundamental. The encyclopedia was not improved by the office's original action; it has been improved by subsequent reversals. That is the bottom line. And I don't particularly buy the argument that the WMF is the highest authority here except in regard to extremely narrow areas of legal (and possibly political) consequence. As far as en.wp is / should be concerned, the WMF are the caretakers of the building in which the encyclopedia is written, and perhaps, keep us in paper...
——SerialNumber54129 10:07, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Re. Ivanvector' diffs regarding WP:BN: in short, no. We can hardly be seen sanctioning an admin for upholding WP:NPA in the middle of a case dealing with aspects of civility. The irony would be supreme, f not the profitability. ——SerialNumber54129 11:40, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Ivanvector, quite. I don't necessarlly disagree with your principle (and as I said in my OP, I don't want any more blocks/desysops/resignations over this, so we certainy agree on that); but I also note that—perhaps with a certain logic—the most vocal admins in this dispute—those most likely to put on the spidey suit—are also the most active layer of the administura we have. The action you propose would leave us with arbcom and a few legacy admins. ——SerialNumber54129 11:59, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent point by Alanscottwalker—viz, that one of the parties is untouchable by any sanction or recommendation that Arbcom could issue, and perhaps emphasises the degree to which any case would be a vacuous execise. ——SerialNumber54129 13:56, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Boing! said Zebedee

I'm going to go against the majority so far and suggest that ArbCom should refuse to have anything to do with this whole affair. WMF chose to exert their superior power and override ArbCom's remit in dealing with English Wikipedia behavioral issues, and I think that's the way you should leave it - they made the bed. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:09, 13 June 2019 (UTC) [reply]

@Ivanvector: Well, I for one have chosen to not take any administrator actions at all for the duration of this dispute, and I would at least urge everyone to avoid all admin or crat actions in anything directly related to it while the situation is so inflamed. There's nothing so badly wrong right now that can't wait a little while to be resolved. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To expand on my first thoughts, I would suggest ArbCom should at least wait until the board had met and has tried to sort out the mess together with WMF, before voting to start yet another process to examine it all before we're sure we have all the available facts. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:10, 13 June 2019 (UTC) (There are far too many words on this page, and mine don't really add anything. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:19, 17 June 2019 (UTC))[reply]

Statement by User:Reyk

I urge ArbCom not to get involved in the issue of de- and re-sysopping the administrators in question. In my opinion, none of them have lost the faith of the community; all of them should get their admin bit back if they've lost it automatically on request to a bureaucrat (this includes Fram); and there is need for neither an RfA nor an ArbCom ruling. Reyk _YO! 10:21, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ivanvector

I wasn't going to participate in this at all given my separate protest, but just moments ago we've had an administrator in the anti-WMF camp threaten another admin with a block over this incident ([5]). ~~I think it would be a good idea at this point for Arbcom to temporarily remove the advanced privileges of everyone involved in this dispute as a cautionary measure,~~ before someone does something incredibly stupid and tips off another war of escalation. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 11:33, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy ping Future Perfect at Sunrise, Thryduulf, Beyond My Ken. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 11:34, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, that was Boing! said Zebedee, not BMK. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 11:41, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SN54129: whether or not I agree with the basis of FP's threat or the principle they're claiming to uphold, the point I'm trying to make is that I'm certainly not going to take action against anyone that's participating in this, no matter how egregious their abuse, because I don't know who's going to be the next to decide to be the Great Defender Of The Wiki and overturn my block or decide I need to be blocked because of their unique interpretation of ignoring the rules. There's already a parade of admins turning in their bits at BN. The grandstanding is doing real damage to the project, on many fronts. The WMF has seriously fucked up here, but each threat, each block, and each rogue admin action makes matters worse, not better. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 11:53, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Partially in response to Amakuru's statement I have struck my recommendation to (paraphrasing) desysop everyone. Of course that's not helpful. Let me replace that with: "I think it would be a good idea for everyone involved to remain calm, and remember that we're not each other's enemies." To borrow Opabinia regalis' analogy, the WMF lit the match, but we're the ones dumping gasoline on this dumpster fire.

Directly to the case request: I enourage the Committee to accept, but only after we receive some kind of response following the Board meeting scheduled tomorrow, and then limited in scope to only English Wikipedia's community policies with respect to adminship and bureaucratship. To my mind, the Committee has no authority to place, nor modify, nor enforce Office actions. Let the WMF clean up their own mess and block/ban who they want to, but once that's settled, there are issues to deal with locally. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:43, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Carcharoth

Current word length: 494; diff count: 0.

My advice would be to to wait a few days and see what happens and where community discussions (and the WMF Board meeting) go. In the meantime, try and come up with a sensible collective statement from ArbCom to help people understand your role (or lack of a role) in what is happening here, maybe on the whole matter, or maybe narrowly focused on your responsibilities. Try and help the English Wikipedia community and the WMF work out a way through this. Try to limit the damage being done. Don't limit discussion (here or elsewhere), but do try to set some boundaries for civil discussion. (As a small point of order, naming and notifying a role account may not actually reach the people operating that role account i.e. has someone emailed the email address listed at User:WMFOffice, and are those posting at User talk:WMFOffice actually expecting a reply?). Has a role account ever been named in an arbitration case request before? Carcharoth (talk) 11:54, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There are signs that more information is slowly emerging, and things are becoming clearer. Unfortunately, there is a lot of reading to do to get to that point. Clear summaries and timelines may help get a handle on what is going on here. Plus reading around all the discussions in various venues. On a specific point, my question to the arbitrators is, in light of what SilkTork says here, why are you letting the WMF put you in a position where you knew ahead of time about this, but were not trusted with any information about it? Consider what that says about the relationship between ArbCom and the WMF. If anything is to come out of this, insist on a better-defined relationship and don't let yourselves get put in an awkward position like that again. Carcharoth (talk) 14:09, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Katie, please can you and other arbitrators who will be participating in that phone call with the WMF, read what Fram has said here and consider: (1) The WMF are affecting the editorial independence of their projects by this level of micromanagement and are opening themselves up to legal liability; and (2) the WMF are dealing with matters that are your jurisdiction. A sensible resolution to this would be for the WMF to pass jurisdiction back to you (ArbCom) and for you to open a case examining Fram's conduct. That would likely resolve the specific matter at hand. On the general matter going forward, the WMF approach that is most likely to build bridges and repair some of the reputational damage is for them to make the case for the need for this sort of project-specific WMF ban as part of their toolset, but to work with the communities on implementing it in a way that will gain acecptance. Carcharoth (talk) 13:24, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Statements are being withdrawn and two of the named parties have made further statements. ArbCom, you need to get a grip here and sort out what you are going to do. Carcharoth (talk) 11:33, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dave

Personally I'm with Boing on this - WMF chose to ignore all processes we have and simply do things their way ..... so as such I feel this case should be declined, That being said if a case is really desired then I would suggest waiting after the meeting,

I also thank WJB for coming here although ofcourse they didn't have to. –Davey2010^Talk 11:54, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by WaltCip

The origin point of everything that has occurred here is the messaging (or lack thereof) by WMF. The board meeting on June 14th is expected to provide to the community some clarity to an incident that badly needs clarification. Until then, ArbCom should remain in a holding pattern.--WaltCip (talk) 12:29, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WMFOffice has given a statement effectively deferring judgment to ArbCom for those who were responsible for reversing or circumventing office actions. Regardless of how I feel about what has transpired, and however much I disagree with what the WMF has done, policy is clear, as is the precedence on how we have handled cases like this in the past: This is wheel-warring. Floquenbeam and Bishonen were out of line in unblocking Fram, and WJBScribe was out of line for reversing the office de-sysop of Floquenbeam. These individuals should be respectively de-sysopped and de-cratted, eligible to regain their advanced rights only after a successful RfA/RfB.--WaltCip (talk) 20:13, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Amakuru

Current word length: 452; diff count: 0.

First of all, I am definitely in sympathy with Fram because, based on the evidence available so far, their block was an unwarranted office action in an area where it is not sensible IMHO for the office to act. Based on the evidence, of course. There may be things we do'nt know about that affected the decision, in which case perhaps it was justified after all.
That said, though, the office is God for us since they own the servers, and reversing their actions just isn't permitted. We all signed up to their basic rules when we opened our accounts and that still holds even if we disapprove of what they do. So speaking personally I would never have taken the actions that Floq, Bish or WjbScribe took. I don't think they particularly advance the situation re Fram's access and cause a lot of distraction and drama. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 13:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to SilkTork's acceptance comment below, in moving the focus away from WJBScribe's action, which would be a fairly pointless exercise, to one centred on the interplay between ArbCom and the office regarding civility and harassment cases. I think that is a great idea and I would be interested in following a case of that nature. Having Jan and the office on board exchanging views would be ideal, but even without that it would be an opportunity for the community to clearly structure its thoughts on how this *should* work and hopefully feed that back to the office, either through Jimbo and DocJames or directly. As a quick example of the sort of ideas that might be shared, I personally think that ArbCom is a much better vehicle for this process than the T&S department,despite their pronouncement to the contrary on the WP:FRAM page. Wikipedia is a diverse community of many nations, genders, races, creeds etc. and for all that they get some stick sometimes, I think ArbCom actually does have broad representation from a variety of cultural backgrounds. The WMF, on the other hand, is an organisation based in a physical location on the US West Coast, presumably with employees who reside in the area, and hence, albeit through no fault of its own, has a more limited world view. There's also the more prosaic point that we elected our ArbCom and they are accountable to us. The WMF's line is that ArbCom just isn't dealing with the things it's supposed to deal with. If that is the case, we need to sort it out. Make sure that harassment really isn't tolerated. But the solution is not to hand the keys to the kingdom to people who, with the best will in the world, don't really understand its workings. — Amakuru (talk) 22:11, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Doug Weller

I'm with Boing! said Zebedee and a few others who have asked that this case be declined. It's possible that something might come up tomorrow that makes it unnecessary or, hopefully less likely, might lead me to change my mind, but I'm not convinced that taking this case will benefit the English Wikipedia. I understand the arguments about the ToS, etc, and as an Arb I was almost always willing to accept caess of Admin misconduct. But this is different. It's an extraordinary, unprecedented situation. Although I disagree with User:Drmies about accepting this case, I agree with his comment on IAR meaning "Do the Right Thing". Not taking this case will not result in anarchy or Admins Gone Wild - I don't think that any Admin will see what's happened this week as a precedent for doing what they like. And if they do, they'd be wrong and should expect the consequences. I'm not arguing that the WMF was wrong - or right - but that I've seen some excellent editors and Admins acting as their conscience dictated, not for personal reasons but for the good of the encyclopedia. We should cherish that, not punish it. Leave this to the community (and I guess inevitably to the WMF if they continue to sanction). Doug Weller talk 13:32, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF has wisely decided not to take any further action against the participants in this case. If it is correct that they broke the ToS, then the WMF has decided to ignore that. Given that, I can see no positive gain from ArbCom deciding to discipline them and still believe that the case should be declined. At the most it might pass a motion noting that this has been a very serious clusterfuck and that the Committee expects all participants to avoid such actions in the future. Of course the Committee could also recommend various courses of action for the community to embark upon, but my 4 years on the Committee suggests that doesn't often pan out. Doug Weller talk 07:25, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SchroCat

Floq, Bish & WJB (F-B-W). Jan Eissfeldt non-apology apology says "In acknowledgement of the confusion caused by the application of this newer type of ban, we will not be issuing sanctions against or desysopping those who edited the block or the sysop rights of those who edited the block to date". If the WMF are prepared to replace some actions of ArbCom as the final 'executioner' of editors, then their remit on not punishing people involved in the same events should be equally applicable. Eissfeldt acknowledges that the mess is WMF's fault: that is notification that a case does not need to be held, or we get into a double jeopardy situation.
Excellent comment from Carrite. Eissfeldt's statement also says "the introduction of time-limited and partial (project-specific) bans is not a change of the team's scope of cases taken. Yes. It. Is. This is a naked power grab by the office into the remit of ArbCom and to usurp it. It has made you look toothless and pointless. They did it without explanation and it extinguished the much of the community's trust. This was a deliberate step, not an accident (if accidental, you have to query the competence of those involved).
John Cline, I cannot image a worse step for the community than those three individuals resigning their tools. It happened as a result of an extra-ordinary step by the Office; extra-ordinary steps generate extra-ordinary responses, and the actions of F-B-W are a reaction to such.
Future steps. Comments have been made (eg by SilkTork) on the need to hold a case "to clarify procedures moving forward". Yes, we need something to discuss a future relationship, but is this within ArbCom's remit?

Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 07:43, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Joe, "additional, private and off-wiki information": can you clarify (or ask to be clarified) whether the information is held/was filed offline, or whether it relates to action taken by Fram offline? There is a huge difference in implications between the two. - SchroCat (talk) 14:25, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Joe, Given the way it is phrased here ("additional, private and off-wiki information"), it possibly infers that there was off-Wiki activity by Fram (although this may just be your phrasing). It is not against their policy to state whether Fram's "infringing" actions were on wiki or off wiki, but T&S have misled many by refusing to clarify. There is nothing to stop them saying "There were offline actions by Fram which were involved". Fram says no off-line activity, but if T&S are trying to mislead (even by silence), this is more of an issue. – SchroCat (talk) 14:55, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Joe, 1. "off-wiki" is clearly not on WP (not offline) and that needs clearing up, as it looks like Fram is being accused of something here (although it may just be your phrasing); 2. "I think your question is directed at the WMF": Given the WMF refuse to discuss anything with us peons, and given your statement has an implication that there have been serious infringements here, I think it would be best if you obtained the clarity - ArbCom appear to be in the loop more than the rest of us. - SchroCat (talk) 15:58, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Alanscottwalker

So, this is how it goes: something happens; before seemingly even reading any policy or guideline or bothering to relate what we can read, we seemingly start yelling; we don't contact the people involved, even though such could have been found, nor say what we could easily find; we name conspiracy theories, call out claimed personal peccadilloes, and assume bad faith, and we make it abundantly clear that whatever the response is, we will not accept it. Into this you get tool wielders climbing the ramparts to throw themselves off. It is no wonder why reasonable people might say this project demonstrates incapability. (Nor is it any secret to honest pedians that from time to time, we demonstrate incapability).

For the future, Arbcom immediately issue a temporary injunction so people don't throw themselves off the ramparts. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:45, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We are here to give away writing, images, and audio in the form of an encyclopedia. That is all. We are not here to experiment in democracy, nor anarchy. It is a mystery what some people want Arbcom to do in an area in which Arbcom does not even have jurisdiction, and where WP:CONSENSUS and WP:TOU are crystal clear, and will not be thrown over by Arbcom, nor could they be, in that Arbcom relies on similar power and the similar ability to take things in private. -- Alanscottwalker (talk)

It is fundamental to Wikipedia Consensus that office actions cannot be overturned; it is also fundamental that a true WP:CONSENSUS can only exist if it respects Wikipedia policies, and there are a number of Wikipedia policies which grant the office discretion (authority) to make these decisions. It's a Central Pillar of the project that the project is not an experiment in democracy, nor anarchy. The facts are plain that the one Crat action that began this case, now two more admin actions that have been added are useless, so cannot improve anything even if the desire is to have a social order, which is not the purpose of the project. How many times do we stress to people in the administration of this project, NOTFREESPEECH, NOTSOCIALNETWORK, NOTJUSTICE. Because none of those are what the project is for. And despite the stress in our 1) Central Pillars, 2) every Arbcom case, 3) in many statements of editors, 4) and sometime actions of administrators, that WP:CIVILITY matters, no one can claim the project does not fail there from time to time. There is no case here, because we already know the policies, and Arbcom is completely without competence nor authority to overturn WP:CONSENSUS, et al., which just leaves remedy, but the remedy has already been decided, no further action on the 2 admins and 1 bureaucrat for this incident, here no matter how mistaken (if mistaken it was), or venal (if venal it was), their conduct. (On Fram, there are a few things to note: 1) this committee does not have jurisdiction; 2) in their first statement, Fram seems to say they were trying to do better since being warned, which suggests there was indeed a problem; 3) at least, one former arbitrator [6] and one current arbitrator, and perhaps some others have suggested there were conduct problems, 4) but at any rate, the remedy, is out of this committees' hands). Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:38, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The motion is fine. The recent kerfuffle, in which WJBSCRIBE resigned need not delay. As I requested weeks ago, a temporary injunction was in order -- at least that had a chance of freezing things in place while, we do what every group involving scores of people (some of whom are at least trying to be reflective) does -- take our time, and with an ingrained principle, there is no deadline. When WJBScribe overturned another Crat's tick, and resyssoped the only temporary desyssyop of Floq, I suggested to him it would have been more responsible to have shown forbearance and wait. Now, like any power, tools need to be held in abeyance from time to time, and at some point that responsibility of refraining may lead to resignation, which must be honored. WJBScirbe's resignation just further practically moots this case. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:11, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dank

Jimmy's statement here is extraordinary ... in a clear context of T & S bans, he's saying that it's long-established that he can overturn bans, and that he's willing to fall on his sword to do so. This completely undercuts arguments on this page and elsewhere that there's no point in even discussing things here (and I don't know Jimmy from Adam, but I suspect that was his goal, to enable moderate ... and moderated! ... discussion). T & S may outrank us, but Jimmy's position is that, in exceptional circumstances, he outranks them in some sense (or maybe he's just confident that he can out-persuade the Board). So, yes, until and unless Jimmy changes his mind, discussion leading to a case, and even a case itself, may be beneficial. Calm discussion would certainly be more beneficial than the likely alternatives. - Dank (push to talk) 14:21, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Thryduulf: What's extraordinary is that he made the statement immediately, and in a context where he has to mean the T & S ban, rather than bans in general ... he's clearly considering his options here. So, while Arbcom may want to decline the case because their hands are partially tied, it's demonstrably false to say (as some are saying) that a case would be "pointless". Ultimately unsuccessful, maybe, but it's not pointless to give parties on all sides the opportunity to talk rather than waving (or falling on) swords. There's a lot Arbcom can do, and Jimmy may be able and willing to do some of the things they can't do. - Dank (push to talk) 17:49, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ms Sarah Welch

I urge the committee to accept this case after the June 14 meeting and follow it through for the following reasons: the en-WP project's content creation and its maintenance is volunteer-driven. The best interest of this project can be served and sustained only if the necessary rights and responsibilities of editors and admins are maintained or revoked through a consensus process. Rob and a few others remind us of the TOU, but every person with love and bits for this project derives her or his just privileges from the consent of the volunteer community. If and when any person or unelected Office appears to act against these interests of this project, it is the right of the community to question it, protest about it, act on it, and so alter it.

The committee is our elected group. They are qualified and trusted to review difficult cases, institute procedures, and adopt appropriate motions. That includes cases of alleged hostility and harassment in wikipedia, with or without alleged egregious and disruptive editing.

A large section of the en-WP community is clearly upset with this extraordinary WMFOffice action on Fram who has been one of en-WP's gadfly, plus the actions on Floq, the resignations and the rest. The issues here: "what processes were followed, were they fair and just, are our standard processes not capable of handling such cases, was there any undue favoritism or undue cruelty shown in this case to either side because of any direct access to the members of WMFOffice, are there checks and balances against the WMFOffice to help the interests of the project, what must be done in this case, what must be done in future cases, why or why not". A review and scrutiny of the facts and decisions in this case, at an appropriate time, will help the project and heal the en-WP community. Thank you, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:42, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Opabinia regalis and Doug Weller: On "reviewing office actions is out of the scope of an arbcom case", the WP:ARBPOL states, "The Committee has no jurisdiction over: (i) official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation or its staff;..." and then it reads "The Committee may take notice of conduct outside its jurisdiction when making decisions about conduct on the English Wikipedia if such outside conduct impacts or has the potential to impact adversely upon the English Wikipedia or its editors." Doesn't the latter apply here? While ArbCom may have no jurisdiction on "official actions" (e.g. global indef block by WMFOffice), is ArbCom forbidden from reviewing non-actions such as policies, rules and procedures that directly or indirectly affect the purpose of en-WP? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:13, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by RegentsPark

I was off-wiki for a couple of days so apologies if my understanding of the situation is incorrect but here's what I've figured out. Fram was blocked, banned and desysopped for unexplained reasons by an "office action" on the part of WMF. Floq unblocked Fram and was desysopped under the same office action. WJBScribe restored Floq's admin bits with the reasoning that neither the community nor arbcom were involved in the desysopping of Floq. The nub of this situation appears to be that we, as a community, are unclear about where our own role (whether as a community or through arbcom) in managing en-wiki ends and where that of WMFoffice begins. Unfortunately, this is just another website and, like all websites, it comes along with its "Terms of Service". Regardless of what happens to Fram, Floq, or WJBScribe, whether we want to contribute to this site or not should depend on an understanding of the implications of our agreeing to these terms of service and ArbCom should accept this case only for the purpose of bring clarity to that. In particular, it would be good to get answers to the following questions. Do we accept that WMFOffice can desysop admins in cases that can be handled on-wiki (like Floq's desysopping)? Should WMFOffice consult with ArbCom or the community (sharing whatever information they can reasonably share) before taking unilateral action against an editor (as in the case of Fram)? These, I believe, are reasonable questions and, to the extent that the committee works for the community, it should take this case to seek answers to them, leaving the status quo (Floq resysopped, WJBScribe a bureaucrat, Fram unblocked but still banned pending explanation from the foundation) in place. --regentspark (comment) 14:49, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Amorymeltzer

I would like to echo and expand upon what xaosflux and others, including Arbitrators, have suggested, namely to consider the broader Sturm und Drang around tool use, but in due time. It is incredibly likely that ArbCom will have some role in the outcome — especially because doing so is likely to be more acceptable to all parties — and it would be best to do so after more of the play has unfolded, at least as far as advanced tool use is concerned. Portions of the storm seems to be calming somewhat, and while it's nigh time to process cleanup, it has not yet passed. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:56, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sandstein

ArbCom should take no action here. It exists to resolve disputes among editors. This dispute, however, is between editors and the WMF Office, which is not subject to ArbCom's authority. A case would therefore be pointless because it cannot result in (effective) sanctions against the WMF Office.

Nor should ArbCom take a case to consider sanctions against the users who have undone actions of the WMF Office. That's because the WMF Office has the ability, as events have shown, to sanction such conduct by itself. (By which, to be clear, I'm not suggesting that the WMF Office should impose any more such sanctions. Doing so would compound the apparent grave errors the WMF Office has committed so far.)

The dispute can only be effectively resolved by the body with the authority to make the WMF Office comply with this community's expectations regarding dispute resolution. That body is the WMF Board of Trustees. Users should make their expectations in this matter clear to the members of the Board, primarily the community representatives. I intend to do so. Sandstein 16:22, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by RexxS

I'm going to suggest that ArbCom postpone any decision on taking this case for a week or so. I honestly don't think that there's any urgency needed in reviewing the actions of the players so far. It may well be that some sort of compromise solution might render any such review moot.

On that point, I will ask ArbCom to consider a suggestion from me that they are going to have to be part of any long-term solution. Hopefully you've already reached that conclusion and are already engaged with T&S in looking at ways of improving procedures so that we minimise the chance for this sort of crisis to recur.

If it's any help, my view is that T&S missed the opportunity to involve you more closely when they issued warnings and an i-ban. If T&S had involved you more at that point, it may even have been possible for the warnings and i-ban to have been issued in the name of ArbCom, and given the community a sense of ownership of any sanctions. Similarly, if T&S had presented their case for a site ban to you in confidence, you may well have been able to take over that case and reached a conclusion, likely in camera, and issued a ArbCom sanction that was appealable with conditions you set. I'm not suggesting that T&S need to involve you in dealing with paedophiles and on legal issues – those "extraordinary circumstances" that we understand must remain the remit of WMF – but for something that normally would be dealt with by ArbCom, I'm sure both you and T&S appreciate the necessity and good sense in working closely together. --RexxS (talk) 18:29, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Agent00x

If we refer specifically to WP:TOOLMISUSE, it does not appear to mention the reversal of office actions as a misuse of administrative tools, however, it does say that it is a possible indication of an incipient wheel war. It's not even listed as a special situation. Pending the outcome of the meeting on 14th June, maybe it's time that the policy is updated to reflect that a reversal of office action counts as tool misuse. This way we will not have so much uncertainty about whether the actions of the administrators and bureaucrat count as a misuse of tools.

Also, based on the behavior of the office team in this investigation, maybe it's time the WP:OFFICE General Information section is reviewed too. It appears that the "Office actions are transparent when possible, but safety (and legal compliance) comes first." section did not apply in this case? There was no safety or legal compliance to worry about, so why was this not transparent? Also per WP:OFFICE, they were also requested to provide details of the internal processes followed to enforce the office action, but I am not sure we saw sight of those by the office, only via members of the ArbCom team. Agent00x (talk) 18:56, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Moe Epsilon

I've been looking at this discussion since it began without commenting to see how this would play out. Now that a lot has, it's clear that there's only one solution and I hope arbitrators seriously consider what I'm saying. The only logical choice to make here, outside of inaction, is the following:

Desysop Floquenbeam and Bishonen for thirty days, for reversing an office action minus time served for Floquenbeam (since that was the benchmark the Foundation previously used in deciding Floquenbeam's desysop)
Desysop and decrat WJBscribe for thirty days, for reversing an office action.
Reinstate the ban of Fram, minus time served, until the issue is discussed and resolved however the outcome.

Office actions have always been subject to not going through the normal community processes (it says it plainly in the nutshell at Wikipedia:Office actions) and have always been subject to no appeal option. This didn't bother anyone until it affected an unblockable user. While more transparency from the Foundation is needed, they have office hours and are not readily able to chit-chat or disclose all the information you seek right away. Multiple people are looking into it, and resolving the issue can take time. That isn't the problem. The problem is the community having no patience. And again, you can have community consensus, but the Foundation is going to act regardless and not even ArbCom is above them. This lack of patience, however, has resulted in misuses of the administrator and bureaucrat tools. The only person I think has had any tact in this situation has actually been Fram. Floquenbeam, Bishonen and WJBscribe: I want you to know I have no problems with you personally and think you do fine around Wikipedia, and my suggestions above are not reflective of that. However I feel like you all stepped beyond the line willingly, especially you WJBscribe, knowing there would be consequences. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the community (clearly not everyone) loses a little trust in your actions.

But let me make one thing perfectly clear, this whole fiasco was self-inflicted. The reason the Foundation side-stepped ArbCom is because they believed this community isn't able to reach these conclusions on their own and decided it for you. The misuse of tools only proved that, if anything. Unless you want the Foundation to continue to side-step ArbCom, then all of you need to follow the policies as written and act accordingly (and yes, I mean civility as well). If you don't, then prepare to be trampled upon. If ArbCom doesn't act here, whether in a case or a motion, then I can only think the gap of trust widens between you and the Foundation. — Moe Epsilon 20:17, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Montanabw

Current word length: 496; diff count: 0.

I concur that overriding WMF Office is outside the purview of ArbCom. WMF owns the servers; it's their house, their TOS, and if someone sued, they'd have to pay the lawyers. That said, WMF has an obligation to be as transparent as law and policy allows. So if something is opened up, I think it is an opportunity to create a crystal-clear understanding of where the line between ArbCom and the WMF is drawn.

I concur with BU Rob13 that the failure of the community to rein in Fram is one reason WMF got involved in the first place. Fram should have been subjected to disciplinary actions (and probably a few blocks) for his incivility years ago. Just because Fram might have been technically correct was not carte blanche to be a jerk; and no one seems to disagree that at times his behavior went far beyond the pale. Similarly, just because some of us are able to meet Fram head-on and slug it out in the rough-and-tumble of the WP talkpage universe doesn't mean everyone should have to.

As for Floq and Bish, they each deliberately chose to exercise civil disobedience by reversing an office action, and they knew that going in. For that reason, they don't need to be exempted from appropriate penalties, and both of them no doubt are big kids who are ready for that. But I think a bit of leniency is appropriate. A de-sysop for this single action is too much; but restrictions of some sort are needed as a reminder to all to keep cool. Once they have taken their medicine, everyone needs to move on.

Wikipedia needs to modify its consensus model—"consensus" too often reflects the views of a loud, aggressive minority who drown out all other voices. Also, people bothering the alleged victim off-wiki have crossed the line, which can carry real-life penalties.

Yes it can get frustrating to deal with certain problematic styles of editing. But incessantly hounding until people feel they have to contact the WMF is not the way to fix things. If Fram received civility warnings prior to this block, he should have taken them to heart and figured out a different way to get his point across.

en.wiki also has problem with sexism and intolerance. It is not only male-dominated, it is also infected by the "brotopia" culture. I don't think it's entirely deliberate—For some individuals, I think they are simply clueless, but others have biases they refuse to examine.

The WMF has the right to enforce their TOS, and an obligation to investigate complaints. But, it is reasonable to call them to account for that ham-handedness. They should make their actions as clear as law and policy allows, in part to educate the community about how to avoid similar sanctions in the future. Montanabw^(talk) 20:19, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ajraddatz

Since they were introduced in 2006, it has not been acceptable for a Wikipedia administrator or bureaucrat to reverse an office action. This applies to any office action, regardless of how the individual or even the community feels about it. Furthermore, one of the best practice of being an admin is to not use the tools in tense situations when action is not needed. It has always been the expectation that admins and bureaucrats maintain a level head and take reasoned responses.

We have a situation where three advanced rights holders have violated all of these policies and practices. And for absolutely no reason. The ban happened Monday, and the first unblock happened the day after. The second unblock the day after that. We're now four days out -- the board hasn't even met, and there has barely been enough time for the bureaucratic machine of the Foundation to issue a full response. Quite simply, nothing that happened here needed to happen in the timeframe that it happened.

Because of that, there needs to be some accountability for the users that made an active decision to violate these policies and practices. I don't think that it should happen right away, because like with the Fram ban, there is nothing urgent here. But I would ask that the Committee at least accept this case. This is an incredibly unfortunate event that has reflected poorly on all sides. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 21:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hurricane Noah

I do not think the arbitration committee should take this case as the WMF has clearly stated it will not be taking action against these individuals. Yes, what they did was wrong. I'm not excusing their behavior. I just don't feel there is a need to discuss this at Arb Com. In cases like this, it is the WMF that has the authority to issue sanctions. Since they have chosen not to go forward with them, I see no reason to discuss the matter. Noah^Talk 21:24, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SmokeyJoe

There is a crisis of confidence. There is a crisis of trust. There are questions of scope, ArbCom and WMF. The most trusted people at en.wikipedia are the bureaucrats, including User:WJBscribe. WJBscribe's action was not an abuse, but a precisely crafted political statement. It was done in the interests of the project, and it spoke for the community.

Pity WJB took the next step too far, resysop of Fram, for no good reason. I’m guessing that the stress of this was too much. We need some calm but timely action. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:30, 27 June 2019 (UTC) [reply]

The committee should act calmly, and logically, with a view to what's best for collegiality, community confidence, and the project. A sensible statement might suffice.

Statement by Robert McClenon

First, User:Sandstein is entirely correct that this is not a case that is within the scope of ArbCom. The ArbCom was set up by the WMF to deal with disputes between editors that the community cannot solve. It was not set up by the WMF to deal with disputes between the community and the WMF. ArbCom cannot open a case involving any of the issues about sanctions on User:Fram or any action taken with regard to any other administrator.

Second, User:Montanabw is correct that the English Wikipedia does not have an effective governance process. The WMF has sent a two-part message. First, the WMF has no confidence in the ArbCom. The ArbCom should have been the forum that dealt with issues involving conduct by an administrator, but the WMF found it necessary to take action without asking or involving the ArbCom. That was a finding of no confidence in the ArbCom. I do not know whether the WMF was right in that judgment. My guess, unfortunately, is that the WMF was right in ignoring the ArbCom. Second, the WMF recognizes that the English Wikipedia community is not governing itself effectively, either via the ArbCom or via the "community" process. The English Wikipedia is able to deal effectively with trolls, vandals, flamers, and other editors who are not here to contribute to the encyclopedia. It does not deal effectively with harassment, misogyny, bullying, persistent POV-pushing, or intractable content disputes involving reliability of sources. The English Wikipedia has not been able to manage its own disputes, and the WMF has had to reassert control. Any effort by ArbCom at this point to open a case would be too little and too late, and would interfere with solving the greater problem of which this is a symptom, the lack of a governance process.

The current governance of the English Wikipedia has not changed much since 2006, consisting of the ArbCom, the "community" process, which, as User:Montanabw notes, is too often simply the loudest editors, and the WMF exercising reserve powers. This governance model did not include any effective mechanism for its own evolution or for orderly change or growth. Changes, such as the Terms of Use have been mostly instituted by the WMF. The current events illustrate that the governance model of the English Wikipedia needs to be reformed.

Third, at this point, the arbitrators have a choice as individuals, which is whether to follow User:BU Rob13 and resign, either in protest, or as recognition that ArbCom is not effective, or for any other reason, or continue to represent the English Wikipedia community. Those arbitrators who continue to represent the English Wikipedia community should take a lead role both in explaining the current situation to the community and in working with the WMF to establish an effective governance system for the English Wikipedia.

Please see my further statement at User:Robert McClenon/Governance. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:45, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hawkeye7

The contention that this case is beyond the scope of ArbCom is incorrect. The arbitration process exists to impose binding solutions to Wikipedia conduct disputes (i.e., not content disputes requiring mediation) that neither community discussion nor administrators have successfully resolved. (Wikipedia:Arbitration) ArbCom has accepted many cases in the past that have been solely about conduct. Acceptable conduct is defined by the Terms of Use instituted by WMF. These are the rules that the rest of us live by. Every day (it seems) editors are blocked for trifling violations. The contention that the conduct of the bureaucrat and administrators falls outside the scope of ArbCom due to their privileged position has never been accepted before. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:59, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Cryptic: According to WP:WHEEL, the definition of WHEEL warring also includes "Reversal of a Wikimedia Foundation office action". While it is true that in the distant past some administrators were de-sysopped for WHEEL-warring, in recent times (the most recent case being Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder), ArbCom have taken a far more relaxed and understanding view, and have regarded WHEEL-warring as worth no more than a caution at most. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:29, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The most recent relevant case regarding an office action was the "Increase of protection on article protected under WP:OFFICE action" case, in 2014, in which Kww was "admonished for knowingly modifying a clearly designated Wikimedia Foundation Office action, which he did in the absence of any emergency and without any form of consultation". Although you could argue that administrator behaviour in this case is arguably far more egregious, that was four years ago. I doubt if the administrators in this case have much to worry about. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:29, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Cryptic: I agree with you, except that there's no such thing as a "bright-line instadesysop" any more. ArbCom generally ignores WHEEL-warring these days. And interference with office actions, once another bright line, is now also a relic of the past. None of the admins in this case need have any fear being blocked or de-sysopped, at least by ArbCom. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:34, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm personally very happy that admins de-sysopped for cause can now be re-sysopped on request. This is a great step forward. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:38, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Snow Rise

Honestly, I don't see how the Committee can avoid taking a case here, ultimately. Indeed, I would have liked ArbCom to have taken immediate steps to clarify that there was to be no more wheel warring in response to the WMF Office Action--frame it as "temporary emergency injunction" to stabilize the situation, but some immediate action was called for, imo; ArbCom's usual tendency towards caution (laudable as it is) should not have prevented drawing a line with regard to the escalating disruption. We very nearly saw a mass-desysop and the creation of a fault line between the WMF and the community as bad as any since the Knowledge Engine, and only the decision of the T&S team not to exercise their authority in the face of community members overstepping the bounds of their positions spared us mass sanctions.

I can appreciate your being caught off guard when the initiator of this case did the final office action reversal and then came straight here to throw the situation into your lap like the most high-stakes game of hot potato I've ever seen onsite. I sympathize especially in that the T&S team also did not give you more of a concrete headsup about the Fram's sanction. But the situation is within your purview and I don't see how you can avoid commenting at least upon the appropriateness of a community member reversing an office action, even if you ultimately only give responsible parties a slap on the wrist to sooth community upset. I'm sure its also self-evident the community would really appreciate an accounting of the depth of the committee's involvement in advising on T&S investigations and how comfortable you are with the situation in (as Jimmy would put it) a "constitutional" sense?

When Jimbo and his early collaborators ceded ownership interest in this project, he entrusted it to two groups, of which this community is one. The other, however, he vested with much more authority, including all legally-enforceable rights and responsibilities. The WMF owns the domain, the name, the servers, the tech backbone, and the bank accounts that keep the lights on around here. Whenever there exists a civil suit or a criminal complaint based on behaviour in this community, it lands in their laps. Everyone here will be safely in their armchair director seats and well insulated from the consequences. Put bluntly, the parties who reverted the office actions were out-ranked by light years and went way beyond what could be justified by the extent of their community mandate.

None of which should be taken to mean that I think the community is a junior partner here or shouldn't be upset about how events unfolded; far from it. But there is a division of responsibility and an institutional reality here that was not respected by some members of this community entrusted with powerful tools. ArbCom cannot go without addressing that behaviour at some level and making it clear that there can't be a repeat in the future. Snow ^{let's rap} 04:37, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Lourdes

ArbCom should decline the case for two clear reasons:

Assuming they take the case up and pass some decision against the Foundation's actions; they would clearly all be kicked out en masse by the Foundation, the community be damned.
Assuming they take the case up and pass the decision in favour of the Foundation, much of the community would see them as simply being lickers.

Sometimes, to run is better than to fight. Seeing all your current ambivalent responses, you guys are on the right path. Thataway puhleaze iz the fire escape. Lourdes 05:59, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Leaky caldron

No need to deal with the eponymous subject. These acts of self-immolation should be sensibly unwound in due course if that is what the functionary(s) concerned desire. They have served the purpose of escalating and highening awareness. It should stop - and probably should not have started - but we are where we are.

For next steps, we have the statement from WMF [7]. Today's meeting should provide direction. AC must be the conduit for conduct issues associated with en-WP matters that are identified to the WMF (but not raised en-wiki) and AC must guarantee their involvement and fully represent the community in all such decisions. A failure to accomplish this will immediately create the risk of any community member being office-banned by virtue of any scant evidence claim brought to WMF's attention by any mischief making, vengeful party willing to make a case of abuse by a community member they have had a run-in with. (not saying that is what happened here).

Finally, it is possible that a competency block of an editor who is also a WMF staffer might be required at some point. Paraphrasing our own essay on the subject, 'when we have finally exhausted all reasonable attempts to correct their behavior, explain and demonstrate how to do things correctly, and after a pattern of behavior has been well established and the user shows they are unlikely to do things correctly, a block, topic ban, or full ban may be the only solutions that minimize disruption to the encyclopedia'. There is no doubt this would end up in your lap down the line.

@SilkTork: - In any circumstances, what amounts to talks about talks should be attended if only to demonstrate a willingness to listen. If the invite is in good faith without commitment, what is there to lose?

@Promethean: "preferring the more self-aggrandizing approach of direct intervention" Do the actions of WJBscribe not fit that description?

Statement by Britishfinance

ArbCom must take this case, because in 7 to 14 days time, we will need a "clean the slate" ruling from ArbCom on interpretation of any "future" similar actions, post the expected upcoming WMF/BoT "clean the slate" statement. From subsequent WMF communications (esp. Jan Eissfeldt of T&S), it seems WMF have chosen not to go to Defcon 1 yet (e.g. not looking for material sanctions on these admin actions), but that may change if things on-wiki are not clarified, and further on-wiki counter-actions ensue. BN is filling up with corpses.

The crux is represented by FRAM's "F-ArbCom" post (and that whole exchange). FRAM correctly assumed his words did not merit material sanctionable actions, as in an audience of some of the most senior admins on WP, there was never a suggestion that such action was being contemplated.

In WMF-world however, the "F-ArbCom" post, in that audience, was evidence that on-wiki cannot govern WP:5P4 (note this). Given past warnings to FRAM, it seems it was a final straw for WMF. It is apparent WMF's rule change to have 1-year bans, and the communication from JE of T&S, is a sign WMF is going to play a more active role in this area.

The initial WMF communication was bad – no clarity the issue was civility, no "heads-up" as to their concern on WP:5P4, and no guidelines on their interpretation. However, ultimately, per Sandstein above, the WMF/BoT view will prevail; in my experience of BoTs, no trustee is going to over-rule legal advice in these areas of conduct and civility (god forbid, but if a person does something harmful to themselves after their concerns were ignored, the moral-legal-financial implications for WMF are dire). However, given disturbing posts about WMF potentially having COI issues in this case, it would seem critical that BoT/ArbCom are allowed inside the "secrecy circle" on such cases for good governance. ArbCom needs to prepare for this change (we all do).

Britishfinance (talk) 20:00, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: The root issue is the confusion on whether this new type of WMF office action regarding CIVILITY was justified, and the actions that ArbCom/BoT are taking to verify it. Before moving to your proposals, we need ArbCom/BoT to set a hard date – before which everybody will power-down (somebody please lock the BN) – on which ArbCom/BoT will tell the community either:

(a) ArbCom/BoT have seen all the evidence and believe (simple majority) the action was justified.

(b) ArbCom/BoT have seen all the evidence but disagree (simply majority) with the action.

(c) ArbCom/BoT will not be shown the evidence by WMF and therefore cannot form any view.

For (a), we are largely done, and just need to integrate ArbCom into the final stages of future WMF CIVILITY actions. For (b), we need a longer period of discussion with WMF on T&S versus Community Standards to see if we can improve alignment/close the gap (no RfC is going to work until the specific nature of this gap is established with WMF). For (c), we will need to recognize a reality that WMF will hold the final and confidential say on CIVILITY; this reality may not work for editors who have given their service on the basis of an understanding that Community Standards prevail.

This ArbCom case is a good device to focus discussion, however, we urgently need to know whether we are in (a), (b), or (c) before progressing. Britishfinance (talk) 21:38, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Land

I'd suggest that Arbcom takes some kind of case along these lines.

First, hopefully the outcome of the WMF's process will leave much of the resolution of this situation to community processes. It's preferable for decisions to come from Arbcom than from the WMF, where possible.

Secondly, hopefully Arbcom will use this as an opportunity to reflect on and develop how it as a body deals with harrassment and bullying, both in its own right and in conjunction with the Trust and Safety team.

Thirdly, I would like Arbcom to send some kind of signal about how this kind of discussion should be handled both by WMF and community members. I am sure there is already plenty of discussion about this behind the scenes, but some kind of statement from Arbcom about how it views its role and how it views Trust and Safety's role would be good. Also, there have been times when the discussion about this whole issue has gone well beyond the limits of what's acceptable on Wikipedia. We've seen some pretty unpleasant instances of harassment and bullying in the debates about Fram's ban, and I urge Arbcom to take action on those too.

Statement by MrX

Arbcom should decline this case as being outside of the scope of it purpose, and per Softlavender, Boing! said Zebedee, Doug Weller, Sandstein and others. Arbcom is not the de-escalation team, nor the community's chosen liaison to the WMF, nor the vanguard in a conflict with the WMF. Perhaps there is some small aspect of this that would require a motion, but a full case would not be productive in my opinion.- Mr X 🖋 12:48, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm troubled by the suggestion from Katie that Arbcom would consider reinforcing WP:OFFICE by desysopping admins who reverse WMF office actions. Fram's one year ban is either WMF testing the waters for a total usurpation of power, or it is incompetence heaped upon corruption to get even with a vocal critic. T & S has acted without transparency, accountability, and (apparently) oversight. While the board of trustees apparently takes their sweet time to align their message with Jan's contorted blather, this assault on our long standing self-governance continues its advance.

We have lost several admins over this, but I wonder how many regular editors like myself are just waiting for the last act of this horror show to unfold before we decide to quit contributing altogether, knowing that at any time, we might be ejected for any reason or no reason at all.- Mr X 🖋 12:29, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DGG

Actually, arb com is the community's liaison to Trust and Safety. It worked tolerably well in the years I was on the committee, with our liaison there at the time, James Alexander. The problems that T&S and arb com deal with sometimes overlap. DGG ( talk ) 14:22, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GRuban

I have a slightly different reason that I hope you accept. The statements from Trust & Safety have basically boiled down to "we are taking this action due to harassment, so can't reveal details to ArbCom because we need to protect the victim". Right now, WP:ARBCOM says "Arbitrators are volunteer users—usually experienced editors and administrators—whom the community of editors at large elects to resolve the most complex or intractable disputes that may arise within the community, and to oversee the few areas where access to non-public information is a prerequisite." - which has usually been interpreted that ArbCom is where to go to for harassment issues, and can be trusted with such information. But if WMF is taking this action because they can't trust ArbCom with non-public information related to disputes within the community, why should we? You don't need to accept this as a full case, you can merely pass a motion that changes this portion of your charter. (Or acknowledges that the WMF has just changed it for you.) --GRuban (talk) 15:37, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Carrite

There was a Wikipedia (est. Jan. 2001) before there was a Wikimedia Foundation (est. 2003). First the later was born and then it grew and grew into a massive bureaucracy with a $100,000,000 annual donation-take, cashing in on the work that the volunteer community has done and the public goodwill it has attained. As bureaucracies will do, its mission scope has expanded to match its income growth (largely to rationalize its budget and justify its future growth). This marks a turning point, a new phase, in which the WMF is attempting to micromanage day-to-day user behavior on En-WP. This has never been part of its purview; nor should it be. Arbcom absolutely must accept this case and fight as the volunteer community's democratically elected institutional representatives to preserve local autonomy in the face of the bureaucratic onslaught. Otherwise, we might as well admit that we are nothing more than unpaid interns for the (cough cough) professionals at WMF. And hey, that's not what I'm gonna do with my time. This is an existential menace for WP as a volunteer institution, all wrapped in the false guise of "Terms of Service." Carrite (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Historical explanation of origins of WMF is HERE.

Wake up and do your god damned job, Arbcom. Is Wikipedia the collective work of a set of semi-autonomous volunteer communities around the world or is Wikipedia a website run by professionals in San Francisco with (begrudgingly accepted) contributions from volunteers? Defend local autonomy! Carrite (talk) 01:43, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Gamaliel

If Arbcom isn't going to investigate tool abuse, what is the point of having Arbcom at all? Gamaliel (talk) 16:05, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Guettarda

I have mixed feelings about this, but it seems to me that we need a clear statement that accounts with advanced permissions need to be used with the utmost respect for our processes. We only allow a handful of role accounts (WMFOffice and WMFLegal are the only ones I can think of), and a person using an account like that needs to behave impeccably when using the account. Instead, we have WHEEL warring, and we have a block and de-admin of an account that WMFOffice could reasonably be seen to be in conflict with.

Whoever was using that account showed very poor judgment. We may not have the authority to sanction T&S, but the Arbcomm has every right to consider the actions of the person or persons in control of that account when those edits were made. Guettarda (talk) 18:55, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Beetstra

Note: I am not a fan of the ArbCom system to begin with. I still remain thatit is to be disassembled completely.

I am sorry, but I do not trust that ArbCom can come with any good resolution in the end. Anything that will go against WMF will be blundly overruled by WMF (seen Floq's desysop, and actions like superprotect). And any resolution in favour of WMF will result in the community asking the question whether the ArbCom came to a fair answer or whether they are meekly following WMF as to not make a problem. Both scenarios result in loss of (community trust in) ArbCom.

This is NOT something for ArbCom, this is plainly the community vs. WMF. ArbCom, stay at the sidelines, stay away from the core situation (as in this request) and make sure our individual community members behave with the expected decorum.

(and that from someone who thinks that ArbCom needs to be abolished). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:27, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by OID

I want to link to Seraphimblade's comment first for some background.

I would urge Arbcom to take the case and decide on the question of did the WMF over-reach when it started taking direct action against members of the wikipedia community. Not on the issue of Fram, nor on Floq, Bish & WJBscribe's actions. The key point that needs to be clarified, and clearly communicated to the WMF is how much the ENWP community will tolerate interference. The banning of Fram is not even the most disturbing issue (non-appealable star chambers with unknown evidence and unidentified witnesses aside) the most disturbing thing is the WMF directly, or by implication if you wish to interpret their actions that way, threatened an editor and administrator into backing off a problematic editor who was continuously causing editorial issues. It was a direct attack on the editorial process of ENWP, a direct attack on the ability of ENWP to govern itself, and its clear that the WMF staff want to impose their own ideological viewpoints on ENWP over community consensus. How long before they decide that our articles are not supporting their views? Just disappear the editors who are keeping them neutral, vanish the admins keeping the NPOV activists in line. Arbcom can at least assess the community views on the WMF's involvement in a structured manner. And if it turns out the community does agree that the WMF has no business interfering in standard ENWP conduct issues, then all the actions subsequent to Fram's ban are therefore in furtherance of the community's wishes and can be ignored. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:00, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am seeing comments from the Arbs here that talk about improving or handling the WMF as if the recent actions are a done deal. Very little about outright rejecting their interference. If Arbcom are going to roll over and throw up their hands, there is very little point in accepting a case. Deal with it by motion and rubber stamp the WMF Ofice point of view. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:31, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cryptic

Contrary to some statements above - and I sure hope the committee doesn't need a reminder of this - reversing an administrative action is not wheel warring. Floquenbeam did not wheel war. WJBscribe did not wheel war. Somewhere between two and three users did: whoever was operating the WMFOffice account, in reblocking Fram; Bishonen, in reunblocking; and JEissfeldt (WMF), in effectively reblocking Fram by declaring that any edit by Fram would get him glocked.

The committee may find that it's not able to sanction the WMF accounts. But it can certainly issue a statement that they behaved in a way that would have gotten one of the ordinary morlocks that generate the donations that pay their salaries instantly and uncontroversially desysopped. —Cryptic 21:22, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In response to Hawkeye7's statement here, no, "* Reversal of a Wikimedia Foundation office action" is not in the definition of wheel warring. It's in a list of four "Possible indications of an incipient wheel war:". Which isn't to say that it's not sanctionable in itself, or indeed has been in the past, but selective out-of-context quoting from policy in an attempt to turn a sanctionable action into a bright-line instadesysop one like wheel-warring doesn't help your case. —Cryptic 05:37, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hasteur

Observing that there are various "Support our Fram"/"OfficeBlocks mean unimpeachable" factions within the debate, The Bureaucrat (and needless to say the Admin) actions should be taken up by the committee. No amount of Administrators Noticeboard/Bureaucrats Noticeboard/RFC will resolve the issue at hand. The committee is the only one able to take the Non-Public information that the Foundation has and take into consideration the Admin and Bureaucrat actions. Anything less would be an abrogation of what the Arbitration Committee has been chartered to do. Hasteur (talk) 23:23, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Headbomb

Whatever you do, please, just deal with this by a motion, rather than protracted proceedings that span months. Put 1 month moratorium on specific people / types of actions if you need to and give a clean pass to the parties involved in recognition of the unusualness of the situation, or summarily desysops/decrat people, just don't let it fester for months. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:58, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kudpung

When I registered , IIRC, the WMF then had 7 employees. It has now grown to over 300 which leads those employees to believe that they are our masters where in reality, they are there to serve the communities. At its genesis, the founders had no inkling that Wikipedia/Wikimedia would grow to be what it is today, so many of today's issues were not preempted. Thus the communities and the WMF have had to evolve organically. We now need a strong Arbcom and what the Committee needs to do here, IMO, is regard this as a test case and conclude - without necessarily issuing any sanctions just because they can - with a statement of what needs to be discussed and created by the community to address the lacunae in our policies. In other words, deal with it by motion. Therefore I would suggest waiting on the outcome of the board meeting. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:08, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

JEissfeldt (WMF), you have provided some background about the position you hold in the WMF. Basically admitting that you are in charge of T&S but are not aware of what goes on there. Perhaps you could let Arbcom and the community know who your immediate superior is. It might help towards establishing lines of responsibility and communication for the future. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:02, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Serialjoepsycho

While I can't say if this case should be taken or not, I will say that arbcom should look at their own current competencies. "The office" was created in another time and at that time the competencies it ended up with were needed. What competencies does "The office" have that Arbcom could handle, without overwhelming arbcom? I wonder if the office could act in an investigatory and advisory capacity with arbcom acting in a judicial capacity. That's more an idea but the actual question what can ARBCOM specifically handle? And well ARBCOM knows what they can handle. The Logic: ARBCOM is elected by the English wikipedia. You represent our interests. While there are times when things can't be made public, the community at a minimum needs someone representing us. Consider opening a discussion with the office if nothing else.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 04:40, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by 67.164.113.165

StudiesWorld writes, "I also think that the actions of Floq and Bish should be reviewed with an eye towards possible violations of WP:OFFICE and loss of community trust." Others have said similar things.

I want to say that my own trust in Floq, Bish, and WJBScribe increased after the unblocks/resysops that they did. They were elected to serve the encyclopedia rather than the WMF, and they stood for the encyclopedia with their WP:BOLD actions when there was a conflict between the encyclopedia and the WMF. Meanwhile, I have lost considerable trust in the WMF, and also in the various sycophants, enforcers, concern trolls, and nervous Neds/Nellies on-wiki who couldn't bear the idea of the community responding with actions rather than words to the WMF's own outrageous incursion.

We are dealing with a WMF at least part of which is NHBE and wants to run a mini-Facebook or clickbait publisher instead. I'm convinced that Floq, Bish, and WJBScribe's willingness to engage in Realpolitik strengthened the pro-encyclopedia position within the WMF. We owe them gratitude and heightened trust rather than sanctions and lower trust. The large collections of barnstars posted to their talk pages following the incidents, and the strong support they received at WP:FRAM and WP:AN (consider the heavy support for a proposal to literally block/ban the WMF office account), show that quite a lot of other editors feel the same way I do. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 05:21, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Wehwalt

Take the case, don't take the case, as you please, what does it matter? The hammer of deciding who shall remain on this project has well and truly shifted to T&S. Who will have the patience for an arb case when anonymous denunciation will do, to a T&S whose standards are not our own? If you can say the right things about how you feel, and if the right people go to bat for you behind the scenes ... the bottom line is we could be marking this page historical in a very few years.

My personal advice is don't take the case because all the sound and fury will be meaningless unless something fundamental changes. Depending on where you are, it is spring or it is fall, but probably without exception, outside the birds are singing.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:56, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Joe Roe: What they said is meaningless. The name of the complainant would constitute additional private and off-wiki information. So we already knew that.-—Wehwalt (talk) 14:46, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Dax_Bane! Please don't urge calm out of one side of your mouth while calling some editors a "mob" with the other. They are fundamentally incompatible. You say there is a want of a better term. I don't know about "better" but there are lots of ways of putting it that will get your point across in a more appropriate manner. Consider rephrasing that part of your statement.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:00, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Just redoing the ping to Dax Bane.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:02, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Arbs: Before you get launched on this thing and the consequent time sink, could we know what purposes you have in it that cannot be accomplished in a motion? If you wish to make statements about the need for change on Wikipedia, maybe it would be best to get going on the change and ditch the statements?--Wehwalt (talk) 23:47, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Reaper Eternal

I urge Arbcom to decline this case, since they can only sanction one party. Even an indefinite block on User:WMFOffice does nothing since they can simply unblock themselves and change anybody's user rights via meta. Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:49, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Govindaharihari

Acccept and move to office actions - the arbitration committee is the highest authoritative body here and this storm needs to be addressed at the highest level. Per Rob, Should we just delete WP:WHEEL now, or...? locally on this wikipedia muliple violations of advanvced permissions have occured as yet without recriminations, that is clearly something arbcom has a remit for. Govindaharihari (talk) 17:57, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jéské Couriano

The goal of any Arbitration stemming from this incident, bluntly, should not be any form of sanctions on anyone. WMF's largely boilerplate responces have almost universally pointed to our policies in re harassment and civility and their lack of trust in ArbCom to address this area, so the focus should be on finding out just where the policies are deficient (as WMF won't outright tell us). While ArbCom generally does not make policy per its mandate, I am of the opinion that it can strongly suggest improvements to be made and leave the specifics of how to get there to the community members willing to make the sausage, and indeed it has done something similar before (WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Ottava Rima restrictions, WP:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia 2, WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility enforcement as examples). The question of the relationship between ArbCom and the Foundation is one that should be held between ArbCom and the Foundation only as this would directly affect ArbCom's mandate and their ability to hold in camera arbitrations such as Joshua Z (2008 Feb 5). —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 19:25, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rockstone35

This has to be the most dramatic incident I've ever seen at Wikipedia in all of my 12 years here; plus out of everything I've read on Wikipedia drama from before my time here. Whatever decision ArbCom makes will have serious impact that will reverberate for years to come. Indeed, the very survival of the project 10 years from now, at least in its current form, likely would hinge on what ArbCom decides. That's why ArbCom should be very cautious about taking this case before we get more information, and I'd recommend holding back on accepting it at this point. Rockstonetalk to me! 21:54, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Atsme

Current word length: 392; diff count: 0.

I'm on the same page as Montanabw and BU Rob13. Based on my understanding of WP, I've always seen a structured hierarchy (starting at the lowest) editors, administrators, bureaucrats, ArbCom & WMF. I was not aware en.WP was sovereign - thought it was part of a united front with the buck stopping at WMF. Considering admins comprise ArbCom and admins spend time in the trenches, it's hard to imagine they don't form alliances, friendships and have favorites - we're only human; thus UNBLOCKABLE and Teflon editor come to mind. I'm also aware of minor rumblings about alliances between editors and WMF staff but they are fewer and farther between, and the structure within WMF makes potential biases/favoritism less likely - of course, there's always recusal. I support T&S and believe their actions should be respected. No one is above civility policies or what the community expects from administrators; the latter of which requires high standards. While admins and ArbCom are an editor's 1st two lines of defense, WMF is our last resort. I see WMF as the least biased and safest place to seek help or resolution when all else has failed. Theirs should be the final word, so if you don't comply, say goodbye. ArbCom needs to take this case. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:50, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

After reading the responses, I don't understand why so many feel they have to "resist WMF". Our first priority is the project - same applies to WMF. Why the divisiveness and not unity? There's no need for anarchy - we're collaborators here because of the good graces of the WMF Board of Trustees - they've entrusted us to do the right thing, to be treated and treat others fairly, reasonably, and w/civility. There are aspects of the system that have failed us. In the broader picture, editors and admins are not the ones who will be held legally accountable/responsible if something goes awry or in cases of failed fiduciary responsibility/ToU. WMF's Board of Trustees carries that weight. The anarchy I've witnessed has not been in the best interests of the project but more of resistance to maintain independence, power and control with little to no legal responsibility. I don't see such tactics as noble because it's divisive and the project suffers. It's time to move on and let the responsible parties do their jobs. Let's all get back to creating an incredible encyclopedia. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 22:20, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Count Iblis

Per IAR, we should restore the status quo ante, so Fram should also be resysopped. If the WMF has evidence that Fram cannot be trusted to be an Admin or if his editing here poses a threat to Wikipedia and that evidence cannot be disclosed, then hand that evidence to ArbCom and let them decide on taking appropriate measures. Count Iblis (talk) 22:17, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Starship.paint

My original statement was removed at the request of ArbCom as it was not related to this case of change of user rights. This post is just to clarify what happened to whoever visits here from the several links and notifications I wrote to the original statement. That is all. starship .paint (talk) 02:46, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by John Cline

If this shitstorm stays its present course, I can not fathom its not being accepted as a case. Neither can I fathom its not becoming the largest disruptive distraction (by far) to building the encyclopedia this community has ever endured nor (potentially) the most derisive discourse ever regrettably had. The last thing I would ever wish to see on this site is the kind of nuanced bickering this case will undoubtedly engender among the most experienced and well respected of our editing community as is posturing now (on and off of en-Wikipedia). I fear (at this point) that we will suffer losses across the entire spectrum of this great project (among admins, editors, and readership alike) no matter what course ultimately emerges as the path of resolution. The only solution that could have positive mitigating effects, in my opinion, would be if all three parties who boldly chose to misuse their advanced permissions in calculated defiance of policy and bright-line rules would now take responsibility for, and ownership of their decision and actions by relinquishing their associated permissions voluntarily. I think this would spare everything undesirable about a case, hasten the likelihood of realizing positive changes in the methodologies under protest by your collective actions, and allow the community to heal her own wounds by reasserting our trust and appreciation in each of you at the earliest RfA/B that you each will hopefully convene. I sure hope that each of you will.--John Cline (talk) 11:01, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cwmhiraeth

I would urge the Committee to accept this case in order to clarify the rights and responsibilities of the WMF Office as against those of the representatives of the community (ArbCom, bureaucrats, administrators). The case, or motion, should settle such issues as who has a right to overturn Office decisions, and whether an editor desyssopped by the Office needs to undertake an RfA before being given back the bit. The findings could then be used to set a precedent for the future. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:45, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: I am shocked by the proposed wording of the motion which in effect, allows administrators or bureaucrats to overturn Office actions with impunity. Please consider rewording item C. to:

(C) Floquenbeam, Bishonen and WJBscribe will receive no further sanction from the Arbitration Committee for their actions but will be required to undertake an RfA, or RfB in the case of WJBscribe, if they wish to retain these rights, to show that they still have the confidence of the community. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:18, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Barkeep49

I thought after Gamaliel said my thought better and more succinctly than I could've I wouldn't be making a statement. However, I feel compelled to point out that this would now be the second time ArbCom, in the interests of community comity, declined to sanction a sysop for use of the tools in contravention of the Office. On the one hand it truly shows that Wikipedia has no firm rules, a pillar which I fully support. On the other hand, is it even a rule if it never gets enforced? I thought what Floq, Bish, and WJB did was brave because they acted knowing that there would be consequences. I agree with the principle they were standing up for, but it diminishes their action if the consequence is a hearty pat on the back for a job well done. I would support a re-RfA for Floq and Bish, but also think they need to go through one. If, as some of us suspect, WMF made this action because they've lost confidence in us to handle civility issues then part of that lack of confidence has to be our repeated willingness, even at ArbCom, to prize short term healing of the community over the longterm health of the community. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:49, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

I like what Carcharoth and Sandstein have said.

Would the arbitrator people please confirm that neither ArbCom as a group, nor any individual arbitrator asked WMF to investigate Fram. I think it will help to deflate suspicions, especially against AGK (talk · contribs) who’s name appears in the edit that was used by WMD to justify their sanction. Thank you. Jehochman ^Talk|

Statement by WereSpielChequers

This is the biggest such kerfuffle that Wikipedia has had for years. But I bet it won't be the biggest or worst ever. Arbcom could and arguably should take on a case to help reconcile the community and the WMF. A key part of defusing the current situation is to find a way that somehow gets a collective reconciliation and burying of the hatchet, not just for two admins and a crat who have stood up to the WMF, but for various admins who have resigned over this, and also for the unknown number of WMF staff behind the WMFoffice role account, many of whom are also members of the community.

At the moment it is probably clear to everyone that the WMF wants to alter some community norms on this site. But because in their first use of a 12 month ban it was unclear as to why they were banned Fram, we don't know what change they want to make to behaviour on this site. Only that some things that some of us do may earn us a 12 month ban. That should be troubling for those who have sensibly remained strictly pseudonymous, but for those whose real identities are or have been linked to their accounts - this is or should be a matter of concern. I would hope that my stock in trade of correcting easily confused words is uncontentious. But if the standard now is being perceived to harass goodfaith editors who you think have made mistakes, should I worry that someone will get me blocked for fixing typos in many of their edits?

Six years ago we had in my view a much worse kerfuffle here. In those days it was the WMF who had much lower standards for online behaviour than this community could accept, and Arbcom had to go through the difficult process of desysopping an individual who was unblockable because he worked for the WMF. Ironically, and I hope coincidentally, on that occasion it was Fram who threatened to block a WMF staffer for personal attacks on IRC.

I'm hoping that Arbcom can:

Find out from the WMF what policy changes they want to make to our cultural norms.
consult the community re these changes and implement the ones we can make work.
Negotiate with the WMF re any changes we object to
Make sure that these changes are not retrospective, so anyone who has been following the old rules has the chance to shift to the new ones.

I don't know the current Arbs as well as I knew some of your predecessors, but I'm confident that you are the right people to get us all out of this mess. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:28, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Liz

Current word length: 500; diff count: 0.

I've thought about this for several days and part of me thinks that the last thing ArbCom needs is yet another statement from a Wikipedia editor on this matter. But I would like to encourage you to take this case and make it not about admins and their blocking/unblocking or sysoping/desysoping but tackle the trickier aspect of the relationship between ArbCom and WMF. A case is not the ideal forum for this discussion but I can't think of an alternative method that would tackle this evolving relationship. There needs to be some focus on where ArbCom's responsibilities start and stop and if WMF is going to usurp part of ArbCom's role, everyone should be aware of this and at least have a modicum of agreement with this change.

I think this is important because WMF is only going to grow bigger, not smaller and the chances of a situation like this occurring again are increasingly likely if this experience has taught us anything. Yes, everyone agrees that this incident was not handled correctly but I agree with SilkTork that it does present an opportunity to define roles. The reason I think this action has hit everyone so hard is a) most of us didn't see it coming and b) the evidence is considered private and can not be shared.

If ArbCom can have a formal conversation with WMF on their intentions and how they see themselves policing projects, I think editors, admins and the committee would feel better knowing in advance what actions they might take when WMF feels it is necessary to act. Fram's block and the ensuing actions were unprecedented and caught so many of us off-guard and having a better understanding of what ArbCom handles vs. what WMF handles can only improve all of our expectations. Editors might not like the answers that come out of this discussion but at least we would be warned ahead of time on ways WMF can exercise disciplinary authority on hot-button topics like those Trust & Safety oversees. I can truly understand those who are saying you should stay a mile away from this subject and I agree that the outcome might not change. But I think that to avoid incidents like this occurring in the future, it's a discussion that needs to happen, better sooner than later. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:58, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. If there is another venue for having this conversation between ArbCom and WMF rather than a full-fledged case, then go for it. But a community RfC just can't handle something so fundamental to the way this website is governed. This will involve a sustained discussion between ArbCom and WMF and if there are alternative ways of handling it, that would be great. I just don't see any right now but that might be from a lack of imagination. Do whatever works best to bring ArbCom and WMF into more agreement, other than an extended conference call. That sounds like it didn't work out so well last time. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:07, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Epipelagic

This behaviour by the WMF may be here to stay. Similar clamps on free speech are currently happening on social media sites around the world. So is it that, following Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the WMF are eager to show they are up with the play by unpersoning and disappearing their own community members? There is nothing new about this on Wikipedia. Jimbo Wales initiated similar crackdowns on the more able content creators a few years ago. It was his attempt to placate an infestation of social networkers who wanted to control them. Now it seems the WMF is hunting for community members they can disappear, charging them with the one act guaranteed to generate mindless outrage – the political incorrectness of saying something someone else didn't want to hear. Or, as the WMF likes to put it, "harassment and/or abusing others".

Damnation comes easily this way on the basis of evidence from anonymous informers that only the WMF knows about. Even the WMF becomes anonymous at this point, and the charge itself is made by a faceless apparatus called the WMFOffice. No details of the charge is offered, merely that there is a charge. No review is offered, no defence is possible. We have no idea whether Fram was engaged in serious bullying, and it seems Fram has no idea what the charges relate to either. Liberal principles of justice have been abandoned. Guilt is final on the grounds that an unknown charge has been made by a faceless apparatus. The same suppression techniques Kafka wrote about and Stasi implemented. The Committee needs to establish whether this behaviour by the WMF is likely to continue as part of a wider alignment with the clamps on free speech by other social networks, or whether the current incidents are just an aberration. – Epipelagic (talk) 04:07, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kusma

Basically the whole issue is that some people at the WMF are not satisfied with the norms of this community, and how it chooses to enforce them (or not). They chose a heavy handed way to approach it, bypassing ArbCom and banning Fram. The WMF Office staff (assuming they are not completely incompetent, in which case they shouldn't have anything to do with the management of a community of volunteers) knew this was a declaration of mistrust in our ArbCom. I would like to see something done by ArbCom, but it should not be directed at WJBscribe, Floq or Bishonen here. Defending our community against an aggressive bureaucracy is not a crime, nor is saying "I'm Spartacus". Any case should be the WMF Office versus the ArbCom arguing about who has jurisdiction about editor conduct here. If ArbCom doesn't believe it should have jurisdiction, I suggest you all resign. If ArbCom believes it should have jurisdiction but hasn't, I suggest to go on strike until outside interference ceases.

While I'm here, a few words about Fram (I was his admin nominator many years ago). I have often disagreed with Fram (sometimes about the substance, more often about the tone of his comments) but have never regretted nominating him. He is a tireless and uncompromising advocate for upholding quality and standards, especially on the Main Page. I can understand why some people would feel followed or even harassed by him, but I always felt he did what he did (asking for high quality/notability standards and calling out people for repeatedly failing to improve) to everyone. There is a line between repeated legitimate criticism and harassment, and in the case here we are not shown where it is, so we can't actually do anything about our community norms to address this. An invisible hand enforcing invisible rules is not an acceptable situation. —Kusma (t·c) 05:18, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Premeditated Chaos: @KrakatoaKatie: I don't think the proposed motion giving admin tools protest against an Office action a pass this time but promising to disallow it at the next Office action, no matter how problematic that action might be, is a good way forward on its own. Remember, there is no way to appeal Fram's ban through any normal channel. We don't know where the authority of ArbCom ends end where the authority of T&S starts for local project issues, and we don't know what type of behaviour might get us a one year office ban. If all we get out of this is your proposed motion strengthening the Office, with no resolution of the underlying conflict, the correct community response should probably something like the "fuck arbcom" that may or may not have started this mess. —Kusma (t·c) 05:44, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nishidani

Optimally, we are trained to research, control sources, winnow wheat from the chaff, in order to produce a quality in articles that can stand up to the best external specialized scrutiny. Documentation must be verifiable, by a link or direct consultation in libraries, and if someone cannot verify what I, for one, report from a source, I am obliged to reconsult it and copy out the queried passage to enable the sceptic to ascertain/verify the correctness of the paraphrase. Trust in the integrity of the product is secured by the best-practice procedures. The reader of our ideal FA articles is assured that minute scrutiny by multiple editors of competence has verified everything in the text. When disputes flare up or persist, we have an internal system of monitoring and judgment deliberated upon by elected members of this community, and defer to their decisions because, like the process of high quality article drafting, everything is visible to the involved parties. We can verify everything in a democratic process. We may dispute conclusions, bans or closures without verdict, but we know who said what, how which arbitrator interpreted the evidence. What the WMF is proposing challenges all of the principles that govern the actual construction of the encyclopedia. It may be within their right as owners to do so, but for 16 years it wasn't thought necessary, and the innovation proposed undermines enwiki's autonomy while encroaching on its established culture of conflict resolution. It does this by instituting a parallel process/Proceß whose methods and criteria of assessment are beyond our purview, cannot be independently verified, and therefore demand blind trust. It is, apart from modern experiments in totalitarian 'justice', essentially theological, a secular demand for a mass community fideistic acceptance that some omniscient godlings will understand and punish more fairly than our sublunary institutions manage to do.

In short, the culture we were encouraged to develop: subjecting admins to scrutiny and recall, constraining editors to abide by known rules, verifying everything to secure the trust of our global readership, is rendered subordinate to a parallel universe that demands trust without proof of competence, methods of verification and evaluation that are opaque, and whose results cannot be challenged. All this because of a numbers of plaintiffs feel their hurt sensibilities have not obtained justice within the existing Arbitration process. Since the innovation implies arbitration is inadequate, cannot be internally reformed, Arbcom itself of questionable efficiency, and that the remedy consists of the introduction of secret deliberations that overrule the standard methods we employ, it is surely imperative that the community and its representative organs, assess the issue, ne vitam silentio transeant velut pecora, quae natura prona atque ventri oboedientia finxit. —Nishidani (talk • contribs) 10:13, 17 June 2019‎ (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nableezy

Just as a general comment, if any individual arbitrator filed an anonymous complaint to the WMF T&S team about Fram I think it is incumbent on them to recuse. And any editor who has filed the same should not be commenting as an uninvolved editor. Either make your complaint privately or publicly, but publicly supporting your own private complaint should not be allowed. nableezy - 16:57, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MJL

Current word length: 600; diff count: 2.

I've been following this controversy for the last week. I am disheartened and unamused; at times shocked and vexed; but most of all I am just tired.

Tired of this drama, tired of mob mentality; tired of how the most I can ever hope to achieve right now on this site is more additional whitenoise to this near endless fiasco. What is there for me to do? I wrote an essay, made my comments, and received semi-positive feedback. However, I'm not satisfied because if I truly did enough then we would never have been here.

Here's my contention: I suggest that Arbcom duly accept this case by motion.

Precedent for this case

(1) In early 2014, after Kww filed this request, arbitrators admonished them for reversing an office action. (2) Later that year, Arbcom opened [and closed] Media Viewer RfC. (3) Even in 2017, arbcom enacted Crosswiki issues: Motion.

For various legitimate reasons, arbcom has not previously involved itself with the issue of Fram's conduct. In 2016, Arbcom declined to hear a request against Fram as the request had many faults. Then in 2018, arbcom declined a similar request from Gatoclass as it was premature.

Arbcom has jurisdiction

In full disagreement with WormTT below, Arbcom clearly has jurisdiction here. In the section on precedent, I have outlined 3 specific times Arbcom (1) reviewed admin actions that interfered with WP:OA, (2) reviewed community conduct in reaction to WP:OAs, (3) previously found a need to step in community disputes related to WMF.

Separately, Arbcom has the ability to set the parameters for which it chooses to look into Fram's conduct as an administrator (without interfering with the office action). I am aware of at least six accounts that have both a global ban and an arbcom ban (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6). However, I make no statement as to whether arbcom should choose to act on this matter. Historically, arbcom has not chose to review Fram's conduct, and there is no precedent for arbcom taking action after an office ban has been placed.

Community has deadlocked

There have been multiple attempts to resolve this controversy. Spanning multiple pages, there have been 1 million characters written on WP:FRAM alone. The community cannot engage with this issue any more than it already has.

Arbcom needs to take action

To conclude, this is the group of arbitrators I trust the most to be able to settle this issue. This arbcom has thus far made some the most difficult choices and has worked harder for this community than any arbcom before it. It consists of users with amazing judgement and insight.

Yes, there exists ongoing discussions in the community and the WMF board regarding this issue. However, regardless of the outcome of those discussions, we need to see arbcom step in to restore order and prevent further disruption to the project.

I fully believe our rules work if only there exists a will on Arbcom to enforce them. I believe there is right now. Thank you. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:30, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Current word length: 500.

Extension granted on 23:56, 18 June 2019 (UTC).

Responses

@Kww: My apologies for abrupt ping.

@SilkTork: Don't resign; you're needed.

@WormTT: This case couldn't overturn WP:OA, yes. Conduct is still reviewable. Comparison: Getting blocked for WP:3RR violations at the WP:OFFICE enwiki page. It wouldn't be OA to block (Just ADMINACCT).
Regular conduct disputes don't require this. Otherwise, I'd agree. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:36, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@GoldenRing: have extension. 566 words. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:31, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Katie: Good motion; happy with results. See above. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:42, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
SilkTork see above history. Also, rename: "Office actions." Two words ==> shorter/nicer. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 01:53, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
SilkTork Out of room. Need another extension to explain. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:57, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Beyond My Ken

I would like to bring to the Committee's attention Newyorkbrad's "A suggested resolution" at WP:FRAM. While not specifically addressed to this case request, it is pertinent to the background of the case, and could potentially impact the decisions of Arbitrators about whether to take the case or not. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:01, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by wbm1058

@Hawkeye7: "While it is true that in the distant past some administrators were de-sysopped for WHEEL-warring, in recent times (the most recent case being Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder), ArbCom have taken a far more relaxed and understanding view, and have regarded WHEEL-warring as worth no more than a caution at most." (link)

Excuse me?? Bauder was DESYSOPPED! The hypocrisy here is absolutely astounding. If an editor can be EMERGENCY desysopped for wheel-warring on their own ArbCom elections page, then it should be a slam dunk to desysop them for overturning an office ban. Y'all should just admit you have no respect for rules, and just make things up as you go along to rationalize your self-serving desired outcome. wbm1058 (talk) 01:34, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@EllenCT: (link) Well, if you can make a valid argument that Bauder's possession of the admin toolset "prevented the community from improving the (content of the) encyclopedia" in order to justify his desysopping, then an equally valid – or even more valid – argument can be made that Fram's presence was preventing certain community members from improving the encyclopedia, and thus that is a valid reason for the WMF's Office Action. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:02, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kww

Really weird to get pinged on this one on the basis that my admonishment set some kind of precedent. I guess in a way it did: WMF behaved irrationally, I behaved rationally, so I got admonished, despite the fact that the WMF action was clearly erroneous and that all accusations that I had somehow "reverted" WMF by increasing the protection level on an article were blatantly false. I expect to see a similar result here.

There may be a chance to address one of the root problems that plagued Wikipedia while I was active, and, from periodic monitoring, still seems to be the case. Somehow, somewhere, people got the idea that it was OK to unilaterally undo a block placed by another admin, even when that admin objects, and that it becomes the blocking admin's responsibility to generate a consensus for the block. That's how problems like Eric Corbett got magnified and magnified. That behaviour also goes against the flow for all other admin actions: if the blocking admin disagrees with the unblock, the block should be reinstated unless and until there is a community consensus to unblock. I'm quite certain that if that approach had been used here, the community consensus to unblock would have been easily obtained, and we would not be in the case of one admin facing sanction for doing something most people think was right.—Kww(talk) 05:17, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by North8000

Any case involving admins / 'crats who undid WMF actions is going to end in a quandary. I'm certain that they had obvious & overwhelming support enwiki support, but possibly there was no organized process that arrived at that. Also the mysterious WMF processes and unspecified rules that led to their actions could be (or not be) considered an authoritative rulebook. Plus it appears that the admins / crats that undid WMF actions are not going to suffer any retribution. So IMO a case involving them would be a bad idea. A better case would be to wait a bit and then have Arbcom take up the case of what Fram did and didn't do. Say that Arbcom must be given all of the info, which can be kept confidential as needed. North8000 (talk) 16:24, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by UninvitedCompany

This whole thing makes me sad and has sapped much of my motiviation to contribute. I see disrespect for the community and its traditions all around and a lack of leadership and communication in certain key places.

The handling of the office action (and by extension, what to do with Fram) is a problem for @Jimbo Wales: and the community members of the board of trustees. I hope they take their responsibility seriously. I do not believe that the arbitration committee can help in this area. I believe that accepting this portion of the case would distract the community from the more important task of working with the trustees and, in future trustee elections, remembering the vital importance of these roles.

There is a trend towards activism and politics among the bureaucrats. Maxim's desysop of Fred Bauder, and (in essence) supervoting at some recent RFAs, are prior examples. WJBscribe's actions in this matter are a continuing example. It is not clear to me whether this is a good thing. It is here that that committee could make a difference.

Uninvited Company 21:13, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nick

The statement I don't know Jan, and he hasn't been on any of the meetings with us so far this year and I don't know why (James Alexander missed very few). worries me enormously. I have the utmost respect and trust for Katie, I know her to be tactful and diplomatic, so for her to say this makes me incredibly worried. Just how much of a breakdown has there between between T&S and ArbCom ? I would like @JEissfeldt (WMF): to comment in relation to this.

-- Nick (talk) 08:09, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rschen7754

Maybe I'm not supposed to say this as a former steward, but I would be deeply troubled by any motion that requires or mandates that ArbCom remove sysop permissions for any violation of WP:OFFICE. Yes, in most cases ArbCom should remove sysop, and admins should know that it is a very likely consequence (and I would not object to that being the motion), but it could tie ArbCom's hands in a future case when the "right" thing to do is to oppose the OFFICE action, or whether mitigating factors should be considered. (It leaves the question of what "right" is, I suppose).

I also think that a six-month ban on RFA after that comes dangerously close to ArbCom making policy, and is inconsistent with past decisions where admins who did far worse things didn't get that restriction. --Rs chen 7754 04:17, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Bishonen: I suppose, but I think that ArbCom would lose credibility if they did that. --Rs chen 7754 23:17, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Given WJBscribe's actions I now think a full case is inevitable. --Rs chen 7754 05:45, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bishonen

I have a question for Katie, and also Rschen7754. Arbcom famously doesn't go by precedent. The policy states: "While the Committee will typically take into account its earlier decisions when deciding new cases, previous decisions do not create binding precedent. As community policies, guidelines and norms evolve over time, previous decisions will be taken into account only to the extent that they remain relevant in the current context. So if Katie's suggestion for a motion that "in the future, reversal of WMF office actions will be met with desysop and no RFA for at least six months" is supported by the committee, can that motion even tie the hands of future committees? In six months, we'll already have a partly different committee. Maybe they won't think it's relevant in the next context.

As long as I'm here, I'll just say I agree with Floquenbeam's recent addition.[8] What he says goes for me too. Bishonen | talk 10:00, 22 June 2019 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by Mendaliv

I want to echo the complaints above about the notion of the Committee rubber-stamping Office Actions with a summary desysop. I have little to add that hasn't already been said about that specifically. I want to further address the notion of a six-month RfA ban. It is my view that the Committee should never enact RfA bans as part of a desysop. The Community's ability to start a RfA as a means of overturning a rogue Committee's overreach should never be subject to question.

I additionally want to address the outrageous notion that this Committee's jurisdiction does not encompass the entire website. The Arbitration Policy, which may be amended, does exclude the official actions of the Foundation and its staff. And yet, the Committee is not subordinate to the Foundation. Wikipedia is a separate sovereign, not a treaty port where visitors from this foreign land of the Foundation are not subject to our policies. This is inherent in the history of Wikipedia and the relationship between Wikipedia and the Foundation.

Even if remedies might be difficult to enforce, it is likely that the Foundation would obey the decrees of the Committee out of a sense of comity. Viz. Mr. Eissfeldt's use of a non-role account to make an official statement in this case. And if the Foundation wishes to disrespect the commands of the Committee and desires of the Community, they may do so. Regardless, it is important that the Committee formalize its ability to investigate and pass judgment as to the wrongfulness of Foundation conduct and the conduct of its staffers. Refusal to declare a wrongful act wrongful merely because the wrongdoers would thumb their noses at you would be symbolic of the utter failure of this Committee.

I therefore propose that the Committee take the following actions:

Hold this request in abeyance
Enact a Motion to amend the Arbitration Policy to strike any jurisdictional limitation with respect to the Foundation
Hold the required referendum
Resume this request once the referendum passes

Questions for the Arbs, that may need to be resolved prior to any motion going forward: (1) If there is a lack of jurisdiction over "official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation or its staff", does this solely mean jurisdiction to overturn or bind in remedies, respectfully? (2) If the answer to 1 is "yes", then ArbCom has jurisdiction to investigate particular OAs and their propriety, as well as make FoFs, and probably should be prior to going forward with this motion. (3) If the answer to 1 is "no" (and I think it is), then there is no jurisdiction to adjudicate or to make FoFs with respect to WMF actions or staffers; I would then argue there's an implied reciprocal lack of jurisdiction—ArbCom should not be enforcing office actions, period, because it lacks the jurisdiction to investigate whether they were violated and determine appropriate sanctions for violating them. Please consider this. I believe it may be a rephrasing of what SilkTork says below. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 02:48, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Promethean

I removed my previous opposition to hearing this matter; There is now a legitimate question of WP:WHEEL violation due to the actions of Primefac and Maxim. In my view, the action undertaken by these bureaucrats was at best unhelpful and inflammatory; They should have deferred to the active WP:RFAR, but appear to lack the good judgement required to do so, preferring the more self-aggrandizing approach of direct intervention. Promethean (talk) 16:50, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Leaky caldron: "Do the actions of WJBscribe not fit that description?" I would forgive anyone for thinking that his actions do fit that description. But even if they did, WJBscribe has now resigned, which isn't much of a prize to show for his actions. The other two have not yet resigned, and thus extra scrutiny of their actions seems in order. Promethean (talk) 21:13, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac: You've indicated that you held private counsel with another bureaucrat on IRC, and that from that discussion, came to a decision to take an official on-wiki action. Would you be willing to make those IRC logs available to the Arbitration Committee and or the broader community? In addition, given that there is an active arbitration case relating to this matter, do you accept that it may have been poor judgement to take an action like the one you and Maxim did, with only an editable IRC chat-log as evidence of your prior consensus and initial reasoning, knowing that it would have been of interest to ARBCOM and the community? Promethean (talk) 21:44, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Maxim: Same question ^^

Statement by El_C

Seeing as the Foundation's representative has seemingly entrenched themselves in their position, now is the time for the Arbitration Committee, as the closest thing to the community's elected governing body, to assert itself on our behalf. I realize Committee members still have to work closely with the Foundation, but the time to take a stand is now. El_C 19:18, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: who do you envision drafting the RfC? The community? The Arbitration Committee? Both? El_C 19:35, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

~~Also, will the Committee not issue further statement about the present crisis in confidence?~~ El_C 19:40, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: first, sorry for being a bit slow. I asked the question, but almost immediately realized that drafting the RfC itself effectively is (or can be seen to be) as a sort of statement. True, my hope was that the Committee would also issue a separate statement about the crisis in confidence that the community has developed with the Foundation (or certain components therein), but I realize that isn't likely to happen due to a variety of factors, chief among them, that the discussion with them is still ongoing. But the slow pace of this discussion has proven, well, problematic. Hopefully, all that is on the verge of changing. Thanks again for baring with me here. El_C 20:07, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Floquenbeam: I think that this is something such an RfC would aim to resolve, serving as a joint-statement from both the Arbitration Committee and the community. Something the Foundation would have to take notice of. I mean, what else would you propose? El_C 20:16, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Floquenbeam: by all means, expand on my talk page. I'm interested to hear your proposal. El_C 20:29, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We must not let the community's overall objection be muddied. It is, I believe, generally, as follow:

The Foundation's component imposing the ban can be seen to imply criminality-level misconduct, which is surprising given the ban's local application. The case being judged in absentia is also facet of the objection. Being denied a right of appeal is yet another (even though, historically, one could always appeal to Jimbo).

The losses that this crisis of confidence with the Foundation has brought and continues to bring, hopefully, are going to resonate. This is a matter of urgency. I am putting stock in the RfC idea (which I hope will reflect what I said here) and, directly at the board level, on efforts on the part of Jimbo and Doc James, also, to help bring this all to resolution. El_C 17:08, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nick-D

It is not acceptable for admins and bureaucrats to unilaterally attempt to overturn office actions: they simply do not have the right to do so, and it amounts to protecting people who have been assessed to have violated the terms and conditions. In the case here, a prominent editor who had been found to have engaged in harassment was protected, which obviously sends a terrible message. Commons had similar problems with this after Russavia was banned by the WMF, with users with advanced permissions there insisting that he retain his admin rights and his ban-evading socks not be blocked as the ban hadn't come from their community (see [9], for instance) - never mind that he had been banned for sexual harassment after years of trolling and other misconduct which the Commons admins had disgracefully failed to address. At the time there was a widespread view here that Commons was dysfunctional and its admins and bureaucrats needed a clean out. More recently, we had some similar issues with admins wheel warring over blocking Eric Corbett. As we obviously don't want to go down the same path as Commons did, Arbcom needs to accept this case. As to the problem of the WMF foolishly stepping into Arbcom's role through its intervention here and not explaining why it needed to do so, I'm struggling to see how it could be sorted out through an arbitration case given it relates to WMF policies, not En-Wiki policies. Other avenues would be better suited to resolving the issue. Nick-D (talk) 23:31, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mjroots

I respectfully request that ARBCOM does accept this case. Fram should be a named party. He should be permitted to participate in the case notwithstanding the threat from OFFICE to block him should he edit on en-wiki.

Even if the case is that ARBCOM cannot impose sanctions on OFFICE, it can certainly make statements that It is very strongly recommended that OFFICE... (takes a certain course of action).

This issue is far too big to ignore.

Statement by Aquillion

I can understand the need to make it clear that, ultimately, trying to reverse Office actions is futile and counterproductive; and I trust ArbCom enough that if you genuinely feel that such a finding is necessary as a show of good faith in order to reach a better outcome from discussions with T&S, then it's necessary. That said, I urge you to avoid a formal finding to that effect unless it is absolutely necessary. Community backlash is an important part of what keeps our editorial independence safe from WMF overreach. ArbCom was chosen to be the representatives of the community in that sort of discussion, and I don't think they should be making that sort of overreach any easier than is strictly necessary. I mean, if this is part of negotiations with the WMF and you think it will help, go ahead, but I'd strongly suggest not doing it out of a desire to maintain stability or things of that nature - the fact that WMF overreach risks destabilizing the site and its community is a feature, not a bug, and serves as a sort of Poison Pill that ensures that the culture, outlook, and opinions of the community do matter even in situations, like this, where the WMF is putting the full weight of its authority behind its actions. Normally, we discourage those sorts of WP:POINTy gestures because other channels for resolution exist - but in this case, when dealing with the WMF, the fact is that they often do not. --Aquillion (talk) 20:12, 23 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Joe Roe: Even if you're not in a situation to actually overturn the ban, and even if you of course wouldn't be able to publicly share any information you have, Arbitrators are still reasonably respected by the community. Having you sign some sort of NDA and review the privileged information in this case and then say "I can't share what I saw, but it unambiguously justifies the ban" could definitely help cool things down. (Conversely, "I can't share what I saw, but it was an edge-case that could have gone either way" or "I can't share what I saw, but it definitely doesn't justify the ban" might not as directly resolve the situation, but it would at least point us towards where we need to go moving forwards.) Obviously it wouldn't be ideal, but this is a non-ideal situation where we have to weigh lots of competing factors; I think just having ArbCom, who was selected and is trusted by the community, weigh in like that would help bring clarity going forward. Obviously, this would depend on T&S playing ball, but it seems worth pushing for. --Aquillion (talk) 19:11, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dennis Brown

I accept office actions in cases where the community can not deal with the problem, however, Arb was fully capable of handling the Fram situation without the ham fisted actions by the Office. I have no opinion on the merits of the Fram case, as I don't have the information, but I do take issue with the methods employed by the WMF. Of course, that isn't why we are here, Actions by Crats and Admin are at issue.

It is not ArbCom's job to be the minions of the WMF and enforce their rulings, particularly when their methods so offend the community. The WMF may have a right to do as they please, but if they want to maintain a community of volunteers, they have an obligation to engage the community, or by extension, Arb, before taking non-emergency action on an editor. The actions by WJBscribe, Bishonen and Floq might violate one policy, but they are clearly within the spirit of another, the most important policy we have, WP:IAR. Sometimes you do the right thing even if one policy says don't, not as an act of defiance but as an act of restoring the status quo and in the long term, improving the encyclopedia.

My personal recommendation is to decline the case, let things stand, and continue working with T&S towards a better solution in the future, one that doesn't alienate the community. If the WMF has no accountability to the community, then we are not volunteers, we are subjects, and I don't care to be ruled. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:17, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And now we are up to around 10 or 11 admin gone and 1 crat. WJBScribe just handed in his admin and crat tools. Not sure this is worth pursuing anymore. This isn't slowing down Arbs, it is gaining momentum. Now would be a good time for forget this case and get something concrete in assurances from the WMF that this won't happen again this way. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:03, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Buffs

Current word length: 329; diff count: 1.

The issue with this ban is twofold: the first is the lack of transparency. ArbCom is our body of elected representation and should be privy to relevant communications when banning a user. The second is a lack of process. ArbCom is perfectly capable of handling this situation. Given that one of the possible aggrieved parties ("Laura" as identified by the Fram) has a personal relationship with the WMF Chair and this block was enacted with someone they are having a disagreement, at a bare minimum, there is a conflict of interest present at the bureaucratic level. That the same person implied that the community response was sexist leads to the implication that a ban may have been at least related to an attempt to "right a great wrong". ArbCom should have been given the evidence and dealt with it. If ArbCom has seen the preliminary evidence and deems it appropriate, I have no problem with a suspension of rights/privileges of Fram until such time as ArbCom finishes/rules. WMF Office Actions should be limited to emergencies and I've seen no evidence of such exigent circumstances.

It is worth noting that I do not feel that Fram has done a particularly good job maintaining civility (in fact, he's been pretty lousy). Had I been in the position of authority, I would have probably desysoped him for his behavior; as an admin, it's inexcusable. I do not defend him personally, but the process here is ripe for abuse, POV pushing, and fraught with atrocious precedents that need to be addressed and curtailed/clarified. Thanks in advance to ArbCom for taking on this case.

I think it's pretty clear that the actions taken here by admins were in good faith and they made their point well. I think they are indeed guilty as sin and their punishment should be a solid trouting at worst. The rest of the issues needed to be resolved and this was the best way to do it. Buffs (talk) 17:33, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tazerdadog

I'd like to endorse the actions of Floquenbeam, Bishonen, and WJBScribe as necessary and correct. They should be commended, should not be sanctioned, and no rule should be put in place to enjoin future similar actions.

The committee should accept this case with an eye towards scrutinizing all parties, including the WMF. A motion is not likely to be sufficient to address the problems here. Even if sanctions are not enforceable, a statement from ARBCOM that said this is unacceptable and would've gotten a community administrator desysopped would still be effective (assuming that's what the evidence shows).

Statement by Fish and karate

Resolving this by a motion that says "don't do it again" is a cowardly abrogation of your responsibilities. Floq, Bish and WJB did what they did knowingly in breach of the rules around wheel-warring and WP:OFFICE. I completely applaud their actions. However, the job of ArbCom is to dispassionately apply the rules, not wuss out, and they should all be desysopped at a minimum. They know this and were all willing to accept it. If a motion saying "blah blah naughty admins don't do it again" is the end result you should all take a page from Rob's book and resign. ArbCom was created to handle the really complex and difficult cases that the community as a whole could not. Right now, the community is doing a far better job than ArbCom of dealing with this case, and ArbCom noping out of addressing, properly and significantly, this whole episode will be the final straw that demonstrates that ArbCom is utterly pointless, and reinforces my belief that most of you ran for ArbCom to allow you to pontificate, collect another hat, and feel important. Fish+Karate 10:02, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I urge the committee to note Ched’s post below. This is going to continue to spiral unless you get a grip of this, firmly. The shitty, passive, mimsy motion below is not sufficient and does not address any of the real issues. Yes the original block is outside your jurisdiction, but everything that followed is very much what you signed up to be on arbcom to do (or, increasingly more likely, professed to) which is handle this stuff. Fish+Karate 06:47, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mangoe

I ask that this case be declined, along similar lines to those set forth by Dennis Brown above. What I have heard does not convince me that there was anything that couldn't have been handled through normal processes for dealing with interpersonal conflict, and it does not strike me that this conflict is any much worse than others which have been allowed to continue, or the many that have been stopped through a visit to AN/I or ARBCOM. I do not gather that T&S intends to take over routine civility patrol, never minding that various discussions have established that the standards are much lower than I would ever personally tolerate— negligible, I might say.

But this all points (beyond the circumstances of this thus far unique occurrence) to a systemic problem which ARBCOM should not try to put itself in the position of legislating by fiat. If T&S is required to exist due to some legal necessity, it does not seem to me that it should put itself at an Olympian distance, hurling an occasional thunderbolt to intervene in the affairs of us mortals. We do not work to serve them, not in any way whatsoever, nor do we work to serve the foundation as a whole. The foundation exists to serve the mission, again because it is necessary to have such organization. And thus I reject the notion that ARBCOM should presume to tell us what the relationship is between the community and T&S, which is the direction I see this case taking.

~~Yes, the issues here need to be worked out. This is not the place. Mangoe (talk) 01:17, 26 June 2019 (UTC)~~[reply]

On further consideration I'm convinced that my input is not needed, not here, not anywhere in the project. Mangoe (talk) 13:23, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GMG

I agree with F&K. They should all be deadmined, clearly and unequivocally, and anything less means that ArbCom is, as I have long suspected, a body which can mostly be replaced by the other functionaries in the role of handling private information, as they are on any other project without an ArbCom. Most or all of them will be immediately resysopped in an immediate RfA. I was under the impression that the point of ArbCom was resilience and level-headedness regardless of the whims of the mob, and that was supposed to be its saving grace. GMG ^talk 01:21, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Legoktm

Either WP:OFFICE is a real policy that needs to be followed, or it's not (hint: it's not really up to the community to decide). Not mentioning it at all in the motion makes no sense, since that's the actual issue that ArbCom can deal with. Overturning office actions should be immediate desysops/decrats for everyone involved, regardless of the reason - that's how I always understood and interpreted the policy. Legoktm (talk) 02:02, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(Yes, I'm a contractor for the WMF, but I've also been an editor/admin for much longer than that. It's in that role I'm leaving this comment)

Statement by Ched

Feel free to delete my post (again) if it is covered elsewhere - (I can't read everything, nor do I wish to) Several things each Arbcom member should be aware of:

Changes to Fram's user rights (abilities), both back and forth [10] and discussion at WP:BN here. [11]
Changes to what used to be a policy page, and the edit waring over it. (please note that a WMF declared account made changes without discussion.) This is over Wikipedia:Office actions. RfC here: [12]
An AN/I report on said policy/non-policy: [13]
And the XfD that was sure to follow. [14]
New page to log office actions: Wikipedia:Editing restrictions/Placed by WMF Office
.. and again the attending XfD [15]

Given these recent developments I would think that at least one or two of you may want to reconsider that "handle by motion" parts of your voting. Sorry to add to an already overly long ... whatever this is, but I thought it important that you all know. Thanks. — Ched : ? — 05:30, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Crazynas

@Maxim: (technically) and @Primefac: (socially) have engaged in what we technically (although perhaps no longer in practice) define as wheel warring by taking the third action with regard to the +sysop status of Fram. [16] Although they cite policy in their close [17] this is in fact outside the bureaucrat mandate for removal of permissions, since a request for removal came neither from the user or this committee (as Pppery had in fact already noted in the discussion referenced).

The extraordinary circumstance that locus is OFFICE in my mind detracts (rather than adding, as cited in the close) any justification for this action. They don't need our help to enforce their policies (especially when doing so is contra to our own). If we want to expand the mandate of the bureaucrats to enforcing office actions we need to change our policy to reflect that. Regardless, ~2.5 hours of discussion was premature (and certainly hadn't snowballed) for finding a consensus, either way, for this reversal. By their actions I believe both Maxim and Primefac are now implicit parties to this case, and should be so included in any subsequent action. Crazynas^t 09:39, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Casliber

Recommend (1) striking a private deal with WMF not to do this again without private consultation with the committee (2) calling an amnesty, and (3) vacate the case. The grossly unusual action in the first place has led to a slew of conflict that is escalating. If a deal can be struck just get everyone to move on. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:58, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Xeno

Maxim’s removal of Fram’s administrator userright is the second time Maxim has performed an out-of-process desysop (previous occurrence: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder#Maxim desysopped Fred Bauder). –xeno^talk 10:19, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dax Bane

This whole mess started with WMF taking the golden global banhammer, photocopying it at 75%, putting the original back in the tool chest, and using the new shiny silver one to issue a minimum 12 month ban on Fram, with reference to a complaint originating from one (or more) editor (or editors), on this particular project under the WMF's purview.
The community, understandably was divided in its response, with a vocal mob (for want of a better phrase here) forming a posse and calling for various actions (and information) from the WMF - none of which is realistic, bluntly. Then came the bold actions, some covered under the auspices of IAR (and I don't fundamentally disagree with the reasoning used for the most part in any of them) - but I ask both WJBScribe with restoring Floquenbeam's sysop tools (and your recent resignation of your own tools) and Maxim (@Maxim: courtesy ping) recently electing to enforce the original WMF decree in removing the same tools, what have you ultimately achieved with either of your actions? Have they improved the project in any meaningful or substantial way, or merely added more fuel to an already volatile powder keg?

What this community needs, right now, is calm - not more irrational bold actions taken in the heat of a moment without further thought to, or care for, consequence. Dax Bane 10:55, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Wehwalt: Yes, you might be right, however initial appearances of the crowd that gathered (initially at WP:BN, later at WP:FRAM, then elsewhere) did have some hallmarks of a mob IMO - which has since further spilled out into not only calls for action but action taken in addition, of which I couldn't pick a better example than this very case request and everything that has transpired as a result of it. Frankly, that's calling a spade what it is. I called for calm because, clearly, further bold actions aren't helping matters. If you think that is a two-faced way to put things, well you're entitled to your opinion and I couldn't fault you for having one. Dax Bane 11:40, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Primefac

I do not have much more to say than what I said in the closing statement of the original BN thread regarding WJB's actions, but I suppose I should explain mine/Maxim's.

Following WJB's re-sysop of Fram, Maxim and I discussed on IRC what (if anything) should be done; we agreed with TonyBallioni's statement regarding a rock and a hard place for any other 'crat (to paraphrase heavily), and set out to see if WJB's actions (regardless of motivation) were permitted by policy. If they were, we were willing to let ArbCom and/or the WMF sort it out. They weren't, however, and with WJB acknowledging that they would not consider a reversal to be wheel-warring we reversed the action.

Regarding Xeno's statement above: while Maxim pulled the trigger, I was just as equally involved and it could have easily been me that flipped the bit and Maxim that posted the closing statement, but I crafted the language of the close so it went the way it did. I also think it is improper to call it an out-of-process desysop, because the sysop itself was out-of-process; we simply corrected an error — besides, we're so far away from "proper process" and any sort of normal that there is almost nothing regarding this case that can be considered "in-process". Primefac (talk) 16:45, 26 June 2019 (UTC) (please ping on reply)[reply]

Statement by Quetstar

While i fully agree with Floq and Bishonen's actions, i disapprove WJBscribe's decision to restore Fram's admin rights. He should have consulted the community and the other bureaucrats before restoring them. I therefore ask the ArbCom to resolve this request by motion. Quetstar (talk) 16:17, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Maxim

I don't have much to add to Primefac's statement. The action was taken to revert the extremely unusual situation to previous level of detente while other involved parties (i.e. WMF, Arbcom, community) continued the discussion, without prejudice to future direction to re-admin Fram's account. Maxim_(talk) 23:35, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

WJBscribe: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

I have removed a few statements that do not contribute anything to the question of whether to accept a case or not. To those editors, there was nothing objectionable in your statements and you are not unwelcome here; I am just trying to keep the case request as manageable and relevant as possible. GoldenRing (talk) 09:20, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(Note of a clerical nature, rather than by a clerk as such.) @BU Rob13: The request may be renamed after the committee's view crystallises. I was renaming as a judgement on what the request should not be (a bunch of words all boiling down to one bureaucrat's name) named rather than what it necessarily should be named. Watch this space, I guess. Significant renames are usually handled when the case is opened. AGK ■ 17:15, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Recuse I have spoken about issues that might cross over with this case with a reporter that I respect at a national (US) outlet --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 20:15, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note to all: Please remember that the purpose of statements here is to help the committee decide whether arbitration is necessary, not to give detailed arguments for particular outcomes. I have asked a couple of editors to trim their statements in line with the word count limit (1,000 words for parties, 500 for others), bearing this particular point in mind. GoldenRing (talk) 09:03, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk Note At the direction of the committee I've removed references to Wiki Project Women in Red as they did not play a role in the change of user rights. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 16:54, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- - Since there seems to be some concern with where I received the directions from the committee. The clerks team was instructed to remove statements pertaining to WikiProject Women In Red on the Clerks-L mailing list by a member of the Arbitration Committee. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 07:21, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- As above, I have removed the remaining references to WiR. SQL ^{Query me!} 01:22, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
BU Rob13, Amakuru, Atsme, MJL: You are all over the word limit to varying degrees. Please trim your statements. Snow Rise gets the prize for correctly guessing the number of sweets in the jar. GoldenRing (talk) 16:02, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks to those who have shortened their statements. GoldenRing (talk) 09:48, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WJBscribe: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <8/0/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)

Comment The last thing I want is for the Arbitration Committee to rush into becoming involved in an already fraught situation and make things worse. I intend to keep up-to-date with all of the various conversations surrounding this to the best of my ability, but I would like to be deliberate about any action we choose to take. There is no rush to decide whether this case needs to be accepted, and especially considering that the board will be meeting in a few days and that the folks behind the WMFOffice account are likely not working around-the-clock, we should extend some understanding that things may move a bit slowly on the WMF side of things. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:38, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- @BD2412: No comment on the point you're making, but I did want to note that Floquenbeam did indeed request it. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:09, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- I would like to publicly register my support for what Opabinia has suggested below: using this opportunity to have an arbcom community consultation/RfC on a few key points of improvement for local community processes for dealing with complaints about harassment and related behavior. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:26, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Accept with the intention to resolve the case by motion, and follow up with an RfC (organized by the Arbitration Committee) on how the community would like to see harassment and private complaints handled going forward. While I fully understand SilkTork's concerns about doing this in RfC format, I think we could organize an RfC with moderation rules similar to an ArbCom case and ask the clerks to keep careful watch over the page. This page has already become quite long, and much of the conversation here addresses matters outside of the scope of the RfC I'm envisioning, so I'd rather not try to lump it all in to this case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:06, 23 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - I stand by my wish to follow this with an RfC, but I am reconsidering whether a full case is needed. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:46, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - After a night thinking it over, I have decided that we would be doing a disservice to the community by handling this by motion. I think we do need to devote a full case to this. I would still like to see conversations about future harassment incidents and the relationship between the community, ArbCom, and WMF to be held in an ArbCom-hosted RfC, but I do think we need a full case to address the concerns raised here. Accept with the intent to open a full case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:26, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - I would also like to clarify the scope I'm envisioning for this case. The Arbitration Committee (at least at this time) does not have access to the information that the T&S team/WMF presumably used to make their decision. I think it would be inappropriate for us to relitigate whether Fram deserved a ban—that decision has been made by the WMF and cannot be overturned by the ArbCom even if we were to disagree with their conclusion, and without the full picture, the only possible decisions we could reach are "based solely on evidence presented at this case, and not necessarily the evidence off which the WMF was working, a ban of one year was justified (or we choose to impose a stricter sanction)" or "based solely on evidence presented at this case, we would not ban Fram, but because we're operating with a limited view of the evidence, we cannot say the WMF ban is undeserved." Making a decision based off of a limited set of evidence, when a decision has already been made on a fuller corpus of evidence, seems pointless at best, and counterproductive at worst. It also seems like an inappropriate set of outcomes—no outcome would change the effect on Fram (other than possibly extending a ban, I suppose). Therefore, I think this case should be opened and limited in scope only to the actions of various community members after the ban was placed: namely, those who took actions using their admin or bureaucrat tools. I have not decided whether the ArbCom should be sanctioning users for overturning an action we don't fully understand, or sanctioning users that the WMF has specifically decided not to sanction, but that is precisely what a case would be for. I would specifically choose to defer any conversation on how harassment, private complaints, etc. should be handled going forward to the RfC—I think combining that and the admin/crat conduct would make for a much too large case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:21, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've been doing my very best to keep shtum over the past few days, as someone is going to have to tidy up this mess. A case request is a good place to have some discussion. I intend to ask the clerk's to enforce word limits evenly and firmly. If there is something you want to say, say it succinctly. Worm^TT(talk) 06:41, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Banedon:, no, case requests are awful places to have sensible discussions - but the case request page can act as a stopper to controversy around and about. Since it is monitored by clerks, hopefully extraneous discussion can disappear. Worm^TT(talk) 13:38, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My current thought is that we should accept the case and resolve it by motion. The facts are not in dispute, we all know what happened. I was looking back at what 2014 WTT thought about Arbcom handling Office actions and I agree with that wise individual. Those actions are rightly out of our jurisdiction. Things are still developing, so I may hold a different opinion in the near future - but I feel that any motion should make a statement about what happened and little more. I have little or no interest in sanctioning individuals who were reacting to such extraordinary circumstances. I empathise with those community members, and while I may not agree with their actions, I do understand them. If the WMF can make peace with our community member's dissenting actions then I see no benefit to the committee throwing around sanctions instead. Worm^TT(talk) 20:32, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- @MJL: I remain unconviced. ArbPol specifically states that Arbcom Has no jurisdiction over OFFICE actions. I'm not willing to enforce their actions - they have the ability to do that. They appear to be attempting to de-escalate, by answering questions and not doubling down against the admins and 'crat who acted against them. When it comes to Office actions, I am willing to accept their decisions - they have more information than I do and the dialogue I have had with them over the past year and half has led me to trust the WMF of 2019 far more than the last time I was on the committee. Further, website owners are under increased pressure to manage their own communities properly. We are not in 2004 - the world has changed, and we need to accept that. Arbcom is the last step in dispute resolution amongst the community and the WMF actions are outside that remit. Worm^TT(talk) 14:50, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Xaosflux, thanks for that, I absolutely agree that any motion would need to answer those questions. My hope is that a closing motion would answer those questions to the best of the committee's ability - so that follow up cases would not be needed. Worm^TT(talk) 11:05, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WJBscribe, as a fellow 'crat, I'm stunned at the action you took last night. One fundamental rule of restoring sysop bits is that it comes from the community, not from the individual 'crat - there needs to be a request (I've seen none from Fram). There needs to be discussion (actually, on the sysop bit, there has been very little), and there needs to be consensus. None of these existed (or point me to them if they did). You chose to step over that fundamental crat role (of not making decisions, but weighing consensus), to give advanced user-rights to a user who has been banned for reasons that you (and I) am not aware of. I empathise with the fact that you took the action to snub the WMF - but it made no sense as an action. Fram is banned on the English Wikipedia for one year - if he takes any action, he will be globally banned indefinitely. I've been tempted to re-block Fram a number of times (and would do so at his request), simply because I do not feel it fair to allow him to be banned indefinitely because he makes an accidental edit. Your action almost appears to be egging him on to do just that.
I'm left with a quandary. I still believe that actions taken in retaliation to Fram's ban are out of our jurisdiction. In additition, I want to see this matter de-escalated. Yet, all the other actions up until this one have been made within the admins / 'crats individual authority. The only rule they broke was the "bright line" of "ignoring Office actions", but I firmly believe that the Office should be the ones to enforce Office actions - they have the full information, and the full toolset to do so. In this case, you did not hold the authority to make the decision, you crossed a number of additional lines - to snub the WMF. I need to think further, but it looks to me like you want to go out with a bang, to force a bad decision. That's simply not behaviour I expect of a 'crat. Worm^TT(talk) 07:55, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've just come back from an extended break and am not intending to say much about this elsewhere on the project. As Worm notes, a case request is a good place to have some discussion about this as long as it is done calmly, respectfully and succinctly. Keep in mind that we may have more information after the Board meeting and that a case request does not necessarily preclude the Office from acting as they see fit. I'd also like to emphasise GW's comment that the folks in the WMF Office have office hours and we should not be expecting them to communicate around-the-clock. @Worm That Turned: did you intend to include the ≠ symbol? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:15, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- @Banedon: I was referring to comments specifically on the issue at hand: The use of admin/crat tools to override/interfere with/other characterisation an office action, what ArbCom's role is here, and when, if at all, we should take any action. My preference to wait until after the Board meeting is primarily that the result of that meeting could be directly relevant. For example, the Office may decide to act itself or the Board might ask that we all draw a line under it and move on. To what extent the outcome is relevant is an unknown at this point so I'd rather wait. Hope that answers your question? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:36, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I dunno, guys, I don't think enough stuff is on fire yet. Come back when there's more stuff more on fire. (Since this is one of those situations where humor is in short supply: No, I'm not serious.) I agree with GW about patience with a WMF response, and plan to sit on my hands on this one for a bit. The board is apparently scheduled to meet on the 14th, so the time horizon is not long. Consistent with my general views on the subject of good-faith but imperfect actions taken under highly urgent circumstances, I actually think we could make some progress untangling the community aspects of this separately from inquiring further into the WMF's decision-making, but on balance it's better to take a holistic view if we can. One important point: I think most people who follow arbcom know that I'm not exactly the civility warrior type. So I am serious when I say that in this particular request, in any resulting case or other followup, and ideally in discussions of this issue across the project, please be extra civil. Even if your temper is frayed, even if you're sure you're right, even if the other person was rude, etc etc etc. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:03, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you JEissfeldt (WMF) for your comments and for your (in my opinion) wise decision to help us all de-escalate this situation by not pursuing further actions. I do not think we will need or should have a full case: reviewing office actions is out of the scope of an arbcom case, and dragging this out for a month about the community aspects under our purview would be the worst thing we could do. I'd accept only to dismiss by motion, documenting the outcome with no local sanctions. (Accept-and-dismiss sounds a bit silly, but is a handy way to make sure we preserve all the relevant history here in a searchable way that is consistent with all the other stuff in arbspace.)
  There's a lot still to unpack here, but I think we can more productively do that in other venues. To the extent that it's a communication-with-arbcom matter, that's better discussed privately; many of the remaining issues are either the subject of ongoing community discussion or are more general than an enwiki dispute resolution process. I understand there are ongoing conversations that people might be interested in contributing to on meta, for example this "Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation" talk page. Jan's statement indicates there will be further initiatives that are designed to promote inclusivity by ensuring a healthier culture of discourse, and may I strongly recommend that notifications about those initiatives be posted in places like the arbcom noticeboard where community members with knowledge of our dispute resolution processes will see them, as well as the usual places. And likewise, may I also recommend that enwiki editors voice their opinions in those processes. I personally don't tend to do that - in part because (ironically!) I don't tend to feel heard in those conversations - but perhaps that's a mistake and there's a communications gap on our end too.
  Earlier I floated the idea on the mailing list of channeling the widespread interest in this issue into an arbcom community consultation/RfC on a few key points of improvement for local community processes for dealing with complaints about harassment and related behavior. I think Steve's idea below has merit, but think we should start with a more focused agenda, and a format that doesn't have the local-sanctions/admin-conduct stuff in this case mixed in or leave the community members who are parties to this case waiting for discussions about other issues to wrap up. Specific points of interest, for me at least, would be:
  1. communications expectations around actions taken on private evidence - which always generate lots of star chamber/secret trial drama, which is a disincentive for taking those actions (no matter how much I'd like to believe otherwise about my own motivations)
  2. managing the environment in case requests and on case pages - I know the contentiousness of cases can also be a disincentive to pursuing dispute resolution
  3. handling harassment-related complaints that are based mainly on public behavior, but where the complainant believes a public complaint will prompt retaliation
  Lastly: I am still hoping that we will get an answer to the question I asked in comments to Jimbo in advance of the board meeting, as to whether the ban rationale included non-public information (as I'd first assumed) or was based entirely on public behavior - either as a public response or privately to arbcom. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:12, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  @Only in death: I think "done deal", "roll over", etc. is the wrong framing. The argument is basically that this should have been handled locally. For that to be the case, we need to make sure of two things: first, that our local processes really can handle harassment problems within reasonable limits, and second, that this really did involve a set of complaints that were within those limits. The first part is something the community has struggled with before, and the conversation about this incident has highlighted some potential current problems. If there's problems, we should fix them while we have the opportunity, even if we don't like how they came to light. On the second part, I think we need more information still. We know what Fram has said on commons, but we do have to consider the possibility that he is misrepresenting or misunderstanding something (though it would be out of character). It is also possible that T&S chose not to describe the full range of issues in their communications to him because the material was private, or that some kind of misunderstanding or miscommunication occurred that led them to think the issue was beyond our limits when we would have thought otherwise. Being too confrontational puts us at risk of ending up in a worst-case scenario where we don't repair the damage to the relationship between the community and the Foundation, and we make it harder for harassment complaints to be handled by either party.
  
  Speaking more broadly - the three people who used their user rights here did a lot of things right. They saw something they really disagreed with, took the actions they thought were necessary, explained their reasoning, did not personally attack the people who made the original decision, and took responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Although their reactions were the ones that were "against the rules", and undoubtedly escalated the situation - and really, speaking with the Arb Hat on, are Things That Should Not Be Repeated - those actions are in many ways more constructive than a lot of the other stuff that's been said and done in response to this incident. There's aspects of the community's reaction here that I'm really uncomfortable with, and think we need to do better on. One is the rampant unsubstantiated personal speculation (please nobody repeat that stuff here). Another is the flame-war-y style of a lot of the comments about T&S staff - calling for their firing, accusing them of corruption, questioning their motives on dubious grounds, comparing them to various historical repressive regimes, etc (please nobody repeat that stuff here either). T&S is these people. We might recognize some of them. Any one of us can think they made a serious error, and say so, without all the purple prose.
  
  @Ms Sarah Welch: I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting we actually do with that. I think it's inevitable that we'd "take notice of" the WMF's actions here, if there were a case - and I suppose we could in principle vote on a collective statement of some kind - but I don't think this is best done in a case format. Relations with the office could be a topic to include in the RfC. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:37, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Accept, solely to handle by motion. Opabinia regalis (talk) 10:20, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, that took a turn. OK, I get that there's a lot of pent-up frustration here, and a widespread sense of not being listened to or not having a working accountability mechanism, and that's a recipe for dramatic actions. As a purely practical matter, I think we'll be more effective if we act like a mature community that can handle its own dirty laundry rather than continuing with more brinksmanship.
  I'm still against a case. The whole point of the case structure is fact-finding; we gather evidence, and then we figure out solutions based on that evidence. It makes no sense to run a fact-finding process when no one who's going to participate has the relevant facts. I think we keep the basic structure of the motion as-is; nobody but WJBscribe has done anything that would need different treatment now than it did this morning. The RfC is about broader issues and separate from WJBscribe's re-sysop act, so keep that too. An act of conscience like this, I respect the motivation, but I think you usually resign when you do this kind of thing - as I see WJBscribe has now done. I think we make a note of that in the motion and otherwise move forward with it. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:47, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've been quiet over this whole saga, mainly because I do not want to seem like I am involved, show a bias etc. I concur with my fellow Arbs here, this is a good place to have a CIVIL discussion. I cannot stress civil enough here. I also want to see what comes from the board meeting tomorrow as well. FOr the moment i am neutral on taking the case. RickinBaltimore (talk) 11:19, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Reviewing everything since then, I believe that we need to Accept taking this case to resolve by motion. RickinBaltimore (talk) 22:29, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
While I am generally inactive on all matters, I feel I have to get involved in this one as it relates directly to the very incident that I am concerned about. The head of the WMF team responsible for this incident, Jan Eissfeldt, has said: "We defer to Arbcom’s judgment on how to proceed with regard to such behavior issues in this case." As such ArbCom can decide to remain silent on the issue (decline the case) in order to reduce drama in an already tense situation, or can accept that Jan is courteously acknowledging that conduct on enwiki is best handled by enwiki. Remaining silent does not always resolve anything. Sometimes it does work to ignore drama. Indeed, we advise that as the initial approach to disputes and incivility: WP:DISENGAGE, WP:UNCIVIL. But sometimes not dealing with an issue doesn't actually make the issue go away. It can make things worse by allowing inappropriate conduct to go unchallenged and unchecked. In the various threads on this issue, there are a number of comments that Fram should have been dealt with a while ago, and that - essentially - through our own inaction, community and ArbCom, we have forced the Foundation to act in this way. We are blaming the Foundation, when we should be taking this opportunity to critically examine ourselves. Let me be clear that I firmly believe that the Foundation acted inappropriately here, largely through inadequate communication, but even there we need to reflect on ourselves and look at what we have done, community and ArbCom, to assist paths of communication. I don't think we have done enough. I feel we should take the opportunity offered by this situation to talk openly in the structured environment of an ArbCom case, and start moving toward both a new type of ArbCom and a new type of relationship with the Foundation. So far Jan has spoken, but any member of the Foundation can speak here as a party because User:WMFOffice is named as a party. I don't think the case should be named WJBscribe, as Will is but one person involved in this incident. The case should be named Office actions, and the scope should be to look into all aspects of this incident with a view not to punish anyone, but to clarify procedures moving forward. My ideal would be that if the Foundation do take full advantage of the opportunity offered here, that at the end of this case we will have clarified in an open discussion between enwiki and the Foundation exactly when and how the Foundation can get involved in conduct disputes on enwiki, and exactly how the community can raise objections that will be listened to. With the full involvement and commitment of Foundation, community and ArbCom we can establish procedures that we all support and uphold. Let's take this opportunity and Do The Right Thing. Accept. SilkTork (talk) 08:25, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I also feel that it is important that if we do hold this case, that everyone conducts themselves as they would at a job interview. With the benefit of the internet, none of us are speaking live, and so we all have the opportunity to pause and reflect on what we have typed before pressing the Publish changes button. Anyone who uses the sort of language that would not be used in a job interview or on day time TV will be reverted and warned. If they do it again they are banned from the case pages. Anyone who comments negatively on another person rather than that person's actions will be reverted and warned. If they do it again they are banned from the case pages. Anyone who posts angrily will be reverted and warned. If they do it again they are banned from the case pages. It is time for us to stop making allowances for people being angry and insulting during ArbCom cases. There is far less excuse for that than there is during a live court case. We need to move forward and show that sensitive and contentious issues can be conducted in a calm and structured manner. SilkTork (talk) 08:36, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Banedon. I think I may have expressed myself poorly. I am not proposing a case in which we seek to punish anyone or even look for blame. I am proposing a case in which we seek out to resolve the problems we have. There in nothing in ArbCom policy that says we have to have a case in order to decide blame and punishment. Our role is to act to resolve problems and to reach binding solutions. Those solutions can be positive and enhancing - they need not be restrictions and sanctions. I think not only that the Foundation made an error here, but also that ArbCom made an error, and that the community made an error, and I as an individual made an error. I think that's the basic starting point: recognising that we have made errors. Acknowledging that helps enable us to be clear that we need to seek solutions to assist us in avoiding such errors in future. If anyone here is thinking that the community and/or ArbCom are blame free in this incident, and that any fault is entirely that of the Foundation is probably not going to be helpful to the case. For this to work we all need to be self-reflective and entirely honest. Nothing less will do. But, of course, it depends entirely on the Foundation being willing to take part and embrace the opportunity. I am optimistic that they will. SilkTork (talk) 15:41, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WMF and ArbCom are currently arranging a phone meeting to discuss this issue, and I have been invited. I wish to decline that offer here in public, and invite WMF instead to discuss the issue openly (minus, of course, any private information specifically about Fram) on enwiki. I think for an open project which is built on accountability and open record keeping, we have drifted toward a culture of accepting too many private meetings in which decisions are made which have an impact on the community and the project, and are then imposed on the community with no accountability. As far as possible we need to break that cycle, and bring back openness and accountability. My stance here is not going to change that meeting, but I feel it is important to indicate that I favour holding meetings in as open an environment as possible, with accurate record keeping to allow everyone freedom of access. At the very least, those taking part could commit to providing minutes of the meeting for the community. SilkTork (talk) 09:26, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I hear what people are saying regarding attending the meeting. I hadn't expected to be militant about this issue. I am not a militant person, but we are living in interesting times, not just here on Wikipedia, but out in the real world as well. There is much fear, secrecy and walls when what we actually need is trust, communication, and openness. Today I visited a friend who has recently had a baby. During her pregnancy it was discovered she had breast cancer. She was allowed a few weeks to breast feed, but is now doing chemotherapy so cannot breast feed, and her hair is falling out. Her partner is not coping with the stress, and last night they had a big row and he stormed out. So she's got three mega stress events all going on at the same time. But she's a brave woman and is handling it all really well. It puts this Fram Incident into context I suppose. Maybe what is needed here is less people protesting and being militant, and more people willing to cooperate and seek a solution. On the other hand, I am so so so annoyed at what has happened, which has exasperated my already fragile frustration at ArbCom doing much of what it does out of sight (when much of it can be done here on enwiki). There are some good people on Trust & Safety. People known and respected here on Wikipedia. The Foundation itself is composed of well meaning individuals - same as here on Wikipedia. We are essentially the same people. It's not the people that are at fault but the procedures. Not all the procedures. But certainly a number of the procedures that take place out of sight of the community. While I may possibly serve some good by attending that meeting, I'm not sure that I could, and I'm not sure that is the true route out of this situation anyway. Also, I'm not sure I want to do it on a personal level. Thoughts of resigning are also present in my mind, and have been since this started. Indeed, if I'm not prepared to discuss this situation with the WMF via a phone conference perhaps I'm not living up to the responsibilities of this post. Sigh. But, on the other hand, I am very very very willing to discuss the matter with WMF here in the open on enwiki. My mind is in a whirl, and I'm "veering all over the place like a supermarket trolley". So, I am undecided on what to do. But I do feel that it would be better to hold discussions out in the open than in secret behind closed doors. SilkTork (talk) 18:57, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the "restore order and move on" thinking behind Katie's suggested motion. But I could not support a motion in which one part of the community (ArbCom) instructs another part of the community (Crats) to remove community given rights from a user who was operating with the consent of the community and with the best interest of the community merely because that user was doing so in opposition to an unclear Office Action which potentially undermines the community. What I'd like to get from this case is a clear understanding of the relationship between the community and the Foundation, and more clarity regarding when and how Office Actions are performed. I don't think it is helpful for ArbCom to swear blind loyalty to the Foundation and promise to uphold whatever action the Foundation does in the future, regardless of how damaging to the community and therefore the project as a whole that action may be. We need clarity before we can support any future Office Action.

I would like to get that clarity from an open discussion here on ArbCom pages where experienced clerks can maintain decorum, and where - if needed and appropriate - private material can be examined by ArbCom, rather than via a RfC where keeping the discussion in hand would be more difficult, and where private material could not be seen. I'd like to see the Evidence pages turned over to Discussion pages, and the Workshop pages turned over to Suggestion pages. And, however many Committee members take part in this case, an equal number of Foundation members take part, and all build and vote on the Proposed decision pages. I am excited at the prospect of how such a case could bring the community and the Foundation together with greater understanding, and we can all move forward in greater harmony and stability. There is an opportunity here to do something great. This is not a time to hush things up and sweep concerns aside, leaving nothing resolved. This is a time to do The Right Thing. SilkTork (talk) 11:18, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The levels in which this whole thing makes me sad are innumerable. My community is tearing itself apart. At my count, in the last week we've lost eight good administrators, including Fram, who have either taken breaks or have resigned the tools. WereSpielChequers, we're supposed to have a meeting with Trust & Safety this week, and I'm going to do my damnedest to get the answers to your questions, because they're my questions too. I support OR's idea for an RFC, because we as a community simply must do better in handling harassment and bad behavior. As for this case, I'm on the fence. I understand the 'civil disobedience.' I do. I also understand that we can't have admins contravening WMF office actions. I'll most likely make a motion to make sure everyone understands that going forward – in the future – reversal of WMF office actions will be met with desysop and no RFA for at least six months. Before all that, though, I want to hear what the outcome of the board meeting was and I want to have this conversation with Trust and Safety. Then I'll have more to say. Katie^talk 12:09, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth: Thanks for pointing that out to me. I don't spend much time on Commons so I missed it. Fram's concerns are part of why I want to get some answers from the WMF. There was a recent case where Fram's conduct was part of the FoFs and the remedies, and I voted against them. I didn't do that because I wasn't concerned about Fram. I did it because if we're going to discuss Fram, then le's do it in a case about Fram. Do we need to do that now? Maybe. At the moment, I'd say hold off until we get to talk to the WMF. Let me temper expectations, though – it's entirely possible that we don't get the answers we're seeking. I don't know Jan, and he hasn't been on any of the meetings with us so far this year and I don't know why (James Alexander missed very few). All I can vow is that we'll do our best. Katie^talk 14:26, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Accept to resolve by motion, though I won't be the one putting it forward. We've discussed it, and I see some of the problems that Bishonen has pointed out. Here's the macro view: I'm very encouraged by the initial conversation we've had with T&S, and I hope we can find a way to handle these kinds of private matters locally, as a committee, in the relatively near future. I wish I could say more than that, but I can't at this time. Soon, though. :-) Katie^talk 13:40, 23 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Although I haven't been editing this week, I have been keeping up with both FRAMBAN and this case request. Speaking only about the unblocking/resysopping that this case request concerns: I don't think it would be helpful for the Arbitration Committee to place sanctions on editors whom the WMF has explicitly decided not to sanction. That doesn't mean I endorse or support their reversal of Office actions, but I think it would be counterproductive to reignite the issue when the WMF has opted to take a step back and not re-escalate the situation. I would support a motion like the one Katie suggests, to make explicit that future reversals of Office actions would be unacceptable and grounds for loss of tools. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:08, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Accept to resolve by motion. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:45, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Like OR, my preference is still to resolve by motion. Had WJBScribe not resigned, I would have wanted a change in the current no-sanctions proposal, but since he has, any further sanctions on him would be moot. I think the RfC on self-governance with regards to harassment/civility is a better way to get a handle on the rest of the issue going forward. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:35, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Accept with a view to resolving by motion. I'm coming late to this, but I'm seeing a consensus that, whilst reversing office actions should not be encouraged, nobody wants to see any further sanctions in this instance. What happens next with regard to harassment and T&S bans is going to be a longer discussion, outside the scope of a single ArbCom case. – Joe (talk) 13:21, 23 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Xaosflux: As I see it, this case pertains to the administrative actions of Bishonen and Floquenbeam and the bureaucrat actions of WJBscribe in overturning an office action. For the time being at least, ArbCom has neither the authority nor the information needed to review the original WMF ban of Fram. I would like ArbCom to be part of the discussion on the role of community processes vs. WMF oversight in harassment and private reports, but I don't think it's our place to "rule" on that as part of a case. – Joe (talk) 09:18, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@WJBscribe: We have asked, and were told a) there is additional, private and off-wiki information relevant to the ban; b) ArbCom doesn't have all of it; and c) they do not consider the ban, as an office action, to be overturnable by ArbCom. Given that, I don't feel competent to assess Fram's ban, although others on the committee may feel differently. – Joe (talk) 14:17, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@SchroCat: I don't know. I can ask, but I strongly suspect that the answer (either way) will end up giving out more information about the ban than I could disclose under the access to non-public information policy. I am also not sure what the purpose of asking would be if I can't share the information, other than curiosity, because I don't foresee being in the position of reviewing Fram's ban any time in the near future. – Joe (talk) 14:48, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SchroCat: "Off-wiki" does not necessarily mean "offline", and I'm not saying either are the exact words they used; otherwise, I think your question is directed at the WMF rather than us. – Joe (talk) 15:27, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have been following events since Fram's block despite being marked as inactive. Significant life changes have recently taken me away from Wikipedia, however, given recent events I felt compelled to remain involved. I was on the ArbCom-WMF conference call and I have personally written a letter to Jimmy on the matter. Despite my silence on Wikipedia, for which I apologize, I have been following along with the community discussions as best I can including the recent bureaucrat actions. I share many concerns expressed by the community such as the lack of consultation; local governance; a form of due process; while also understanding the need for confidentiality; a solemn responsibility for providing a safe space; and protecting victims of harassment. These are undoubtedly complicated issues and I fully support any and all efforts within our community that seek to address these issues.

As expressed to the WMF, on principle many of us on the committee do not believe ArbCom should be enforcing WMF Office actions unless absolutely necessary (such as public safety). I was pleased to see the WMF was willing to de-escalate the situation by rightly choosing to not pursue further actions against the individuals who initially reversed or acted in contravention of WMF Office actions. By withdrawing their intent to enforce a portion of their own policy, they are providing a standing one-time exemption.

The recent resysop of Fram stands out from the others. In my opinion, it was a step backward and not in the best interest of the community, nor did it seemingly have the broad support of the community. Rather, it felt very much like an individual action (even if the individual felt they were acting in the interest of the community). The community has not granted bureaucrats the discretionary ability to resysop editors who have been involuntarily desysopped. In the weeks since Fram's ban, the community had the opportunity to amend our policies such as WP:RESYSOP. While this recent action was again in contravention of the WMF Office action policy, it was also in violation of our local resysop policy. As a community attempting to defend our ability to self-governance, the recent action only works against these efforts; we cannot have editors with access to advanced permissions unilaterally acting against local policy. If the WMF Office actions are a source of confusion for the community, the precedent set by allowing unrestricted admins and bureaucrats to act without regard to policy will only exponentially exacerbate the situation. We must adhere to our own local policies and rules.

The community and the WMF will need to address the issue of enduring long-term harassment and incivility. These are not a Wikipedia only problem and it is widely being addressed both online and offline, particularly in legislation and in the workplace. Whether we like it or not, Wikipedia has become an institution and must also adapt to the changing times. If this whole situation has shown us anything, unilateral action is not the way to go. Instead, we must engage in dialogue and consultation on both sides going forward. If we truly believe we are capable of handling these issues locally, then we as a community must be ready and willing to make uncomfortable and even controversial blocks of established (and possibly even well liked) editors who consistently cross the lines of civility through a local governed process.

Much of this is outside the scope of this case, so as for the case at hand, I vote to accept. Mkdw ^talk 04:42, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed motion to close

This motion is currently for discussion purposes. It is not ready for voting.

Suggested wording

On 10 June 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) imposed a ban of 1 year upon Fram from the English Wikipedia as an WP:Office action. The ban was controversial amongst the English Wikipedia community, and after significant discussion at WP:FRAM, Floquenbeam unblocked Fram on 11 June. In response The WMF took an additional office action to re-block Fram and desysop Floquenbeam for 1 month. On 12 June, Bishonen unblocked Fram, while WJBscribe restored Floqenbeam's sysop privileges, simultaneously opening this Arbitration Request.

The Arbitration Committee has considered the request for arbitration and decides as follows:

(A) The case request should be accepted under the name "Administrative actions around Office block of Fram" and resolved by motion.

(B) The decision to ban was made solely by the WMF, and per WP:Arbitration/Policy#Jurisdiction, the Arbitration Committee does not have jurisdiction over this decision.

(C) Floquenbeam, Bishonen and WJBscribe will receive no further sanction from the Arbitration Committee for their actions.

(D) To allow the English Wikipedia community to decide the policy issues involved, a Request for Comment will be opened under the Arbitration space, and managed by the Arbitration Clerks. This RfC will focus on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future.

Comments

I've been trying to make a decision on how best to move forward on this specific case request. Generally, I believe this is what the Arbitrators are looking for in closing, but my wordsmithing skills are never the best, so have put it here for discussion purposes, rather than directly for voting. I am aware that a significant portion of the community will not be happy with point C and I do expect discussion around that point. It may be better to split this motion into different parts and vote separately when we do, so that we can finish with a complete motion from the committee as a whole, even if individual members may disagree with individual points. It may be that there is more to add too, but for now, I believe we have a starting point. Worm^TT(talk) 19:30, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

El_C I (and I believe other Arbs) intend to draft an initial RfC based on the questions we have after our discussions with WMF. I expect it to be in Arbcom space and so subject to some strict clerking, but at the same time, to be accessible to the community who should be able to bring forward proposals and ideas. Worm^TT(talk) 19:39, 25 June 2019 (UTC) (As for the follow up on "crisis in confidence", Arbcom suffers from this regularly. The best way to handle that is at election time, or if you feel it necessary, to take it to an RfC. I don't intend to make statements as a committee which do not help the community, but rather to help work towards a solution). Worm^TT(talk) 19:47, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that WTT, I think that covers a number of things; though it's worth thinking on it a bit more. My first query, and perhaps someone can point me to the right page, is does ArbCom have the authority or remit to sanction these three people? Our authority is over enwiki, not over WMF. Is there wording which says it is down to ArbCom to sanction admins/'Crats for interfering with Office Actions? The closest I can see that we have some kind of authority here is that Jan said above: "We defer to Arbcom’s judgment on how to proceed with regard to such behavior issues in this case." But this was said after "the Foundation will not be issuing further sanctions against or desysopping those who edited the block or the sysop rights of those who edited the Fram block to date." I am having difficulty parsing that. Is that saying - "ArbCom would not normally have authority to sanction these editors, but we have decided in this case to give them authority to make a decision rather than do it ourselves"? I'd like clarity on that from Jan (or anyone else at WMF) before voting. Point D doesn't include WMF in the discussion. At the moment the WMFOffice is named as a party. If we dismiss this case with that motion, we are effectively dismissing the WMFOffice as well. This leaves enwiki talking to itself and WMF talking to itself and no progress would be made on the issue of cooperation and communication between enwiki and WMF. Of course, there is no saying that if we hold the case open rather than dismiss it by motion that anyone from WMF would take part anyway, but I'd prefer to try that. Either that or get an agreement from WMF that they would take an effective role in any RfC decided here. So my feeling right now is that we need further input from WMF. SilkTork (talk) 01:00, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Our jurisdiction is covered under WP:Arbitration/Policy#Jurisdiction. In effect, we have the authority to sanction these individuals - their actions were taken on the English Wikipedia, in relation to actions outside of our jurisdiction. However, because there is another group (the Office) who took the initial action, with the full information about the initial sanction (which we do not hold) and with the ability to enforce their initial action - I consider the three actions (Floqenbeam's unblock, Bishonen's unblock and WJBscribe's resysop of Floquenbeam at his request) to be something that the WMF should handle. They have stated they would not take any further action on the matter and I felt that we should allow that de-escalation to stand. On the RfC, I would expect that the WMF would be involved. We would be specifically discussing a privacy / harassment way of working, and so we would need their involvement. That said, this discussion has been overtaken by WJBscribe's escalation last night, and so I'm struggling to see how this motion can work. Worm^TT(talk) 08:11, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(ec ^{- yes, a long one - I had to do a couple of things after I opened the window and starting writing}) Thanks MJL, those links are useful. I am unclear on the relevance of your third link to the Crosswiki issues request; you may need to explain that to me a bit more. But the other two are clearly relevant.

I note in the Kww situation, that a WMF representative gave ArbCom authority to deal with the matter: "On any other wiki, I'd be removing your tools right now. However, on this wiki, because there is a functional Arbitration Committee, I'm going to, instead, refer this to them for them to determine what sanction to take.". Also noteworthy is that though the WMF representative felt that Kww should be desysoped, the Committee decided on an admonishment instead, by 10 votes to 5. I follow Worm's thinking in that case: "From a jurisdiction point of view, it's not something Arbcom should be weighing in on, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Jurisdiction is clear about this OFFICE actions are the top thing we should not be dealing with. By extension, we should not be dealing with reversals of OFFICE actions. Philippe, however, passed it our way."

In the Media Viewer RFC case, that was to look into the warning issued by a WMF staff member to an admin from the staff member's ordinary user account. The case was suspended after the staff member resigned as an admin, and WMF introduced a new staff user account policy, prohibiting the use of the same account for both work and non-work purposes. So that case was about a Wikipedia admin "making threats to another Wikipedia admin" - a conduct issue, and ArbCom had jurisdiction. If the "threat" had been made from a WMF staff account then that would have been a WMF warning, and ArbCom would not have had jurisdiction, and that would have been a matter for WMF to look into, not ArbCom.

So, we have two arbcom cases involving WMF. One which was about a staff member using the wrong account to issue a warning (and so became a conduct issue), and fell into ArbCom's remit because of that, and that case was suspended after the staffer resigned their admin tools, and the WMF made clear that when staffers are operating on behalf of WMF they must use their staff accounts. The other was looked into by ArbCom because a WMF staffer asked them to, and ArbCom passed a lower sanction than that the WMF staffer would have done. SilkTork (talk) 09:16, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Worm That Turned, I suspect that we would be able to decide on what should be done with the admins given that it appears that Jan has passed it to our hands, and there is precedent for that, and the WMF has accepted that ArbCom will pass lower sanctions than that they recommend themselves. But I am uncomfortable with that process, particularly here when the actions were done to underline the breakdown in the relationship between enwiki and WMF. I'd prefer to look at a solution which helps build the relationship, not undermine it further. If we do decide ourselves what to do with their behaviour - either sanction them, admonish them, or dismiss the incident by motion, we would be doing so alone, and whatever action we take has political implications. Where there is a conduct issue merge between WMF and enwiki, such as here, with enwiki admins undoing WMF actions, I feel the matter would be better resolved with WMF and ArbCom working together. I don't think WMF passing responsibility to ArbCom is helpful, though I appreciate the gesture. I think I would prefer we open a full case, and together with WMF attempt to resolve the issue of what to do with regard to Office Actions. SilkTork (talk) 09:33, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fram

Initiated by Jehochman ^Talk at 05:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Jehochman (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
Fram (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[diff of notification Fram]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

WP:FRAMBAN

Statement by Jehochman

I request that the Arbitration Committee conduct an independent review of administrator Fram. Fram has been banned by WMF Office for one year. We need to decide what to do with Fram's access rights after that year ends and we can also provide findings that may be of use to WMF for improving their process, and more importantly, for resolving this sprawling controversy within our community. Most importantly, we can provide Fram a venue to respond to accusations. Although we don't have the power to overturn WMF Office actions, our findings could provide a measure of fairness.

Using publicly available information I have identified at least one user who appears to have been targeted by Fram in a way that felt like severe harassment. The incidents I found date back to 2016. I used the user interaction tools to find multiple instances of one way interaction where Fram consistently followed another user around causing that user distress, even after being warned to stop by other editors and administrators. There are also a few recent instances of potentially problematic editing by Fram, such as [18] ("She" is Katherine Maher, CEO of WikiMedia Foundation). I think close scrutiny by the full Committee after taking evidence from the community would be beneficial.

This is not the evidence page, so I will refrain from posting a long pattern of diffs, especially because I am loath to identify the targeted user against their wishes. The Committee could contact the targeted user and determine whether evidence involving them should be public or private. Until then, if you need a sampling of diffs, I can provide them by email.

I saw one other administrator who engaged in poor conduct in the same incidents involving Fram. That evidence probably needs to remain private, so I will not name the administrator as a party yet.

Many editors are upset about the way WMF handled this situation. Let's show them a better way. Jehochman ^Talk 05:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fram

Statement by Mendaliv

In May of this year, Fram used a racial slur on WT:NPA in an argument with another prominent editor. While he might argue it was used in a descriptive fashion, its use was highly inappropriate and paradoxically was not raised by anybody for further review. I will not go into great detail as to why this is not excusable. The diff speaks for itself. [19] I believe this particular diff, as well as the context in which the slur was uttered, further indicate a need for review at some level. I am sure others who make statements will point to evidence of why other dispute resolution has failed or is futile. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 05:28, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@WBG: My intent wasn't to cast Fram's conduct in that discussion as harassment, either within the scope of WP:HARASSMENT or the TOU meaning of the phrase. Rather, to point out additional misconduct (incivility and creating a hostile editing environment) that may (along with other information that will surely be provided by the filer and by other commenters) weigh in favor of considering this case serious enough for arbitration rather than leaving to standard community processes. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:06, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Godric

The sole edit, diff-ed by J, links to me. And there's nothing more except private diffs and another private rogue admin. Why did the committee allow him to file a public case request, on private details? ∯WBG^converse 05:31, 27 June 2019 (UTC) [reply]

About the diff. ∯WBG^converse 05:48, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anybody interested enough can read a subsequent discussion over my t/p. Whilst I respect Levivich's views (and often agree with him), that was a particularly volatile dispute and one, where he was engaging in non-stop bludgeoning across multiple pages (to borrow the words of a fairly respected functionary).

As I said over my t/p, that was (in hindsight) a rude response and deserved re-framing but that was not anywhere near harassment, in my opinion. And, certainly not redactable. Fram merely undid that redaction but w/o supporting my content or anything thereof.

That being said, I am willing to hear Levivich's opinion, as to whether he felt harassed by my comment. If yes, I apologize. ∯WBG^converse 05:48, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, on re-reading J, it seems that he alleges that Katherine was harassed by me&Fram. Ha! ∯WBG^converse 06:02, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I disagree with Mendaliv about the N-word aspect. There is a contextual determinant in these areas and there does not exist any word, that shall never be uttered. Not an optimal equivalency and I don't agree with Fram's views but that part. usage of word was not harassment, by a few miles. In the context of impoliteness and harassment, linguistic devices and parts thereof, can never be de-contextualized for a treatment in absolute binaries. ∯WBG^converse 06:02, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment(s) by MJL

This case should be declined by motion in favor of merging with WJBscribe. Two cases full with drama running concurrently is not procedurally helpful. (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:51, 27 June 2019 (UTC) [reply]

Possible motion from newbie

The Arbitration Committee has considered the request for arbitration titled "Fram" and decides as follows:
(A) The request for a separate arbitration case is declined at this time.

(B) Both Fram (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) and Jehochman (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) shall be added to the arbitration case currently titled "WJBscribe" by the clerk who enacts this motion.

(D) The committee makes no comment to Fram's conduct as an administrator at this time, but it may later choose to do so in the proceedings of the aforementioned case request.

I literally just through that together. I'm off to bed, but I will address this to SilkTork as this is substantially what I am referring to with the third link. Crosswiki issues was essentially the same circus affair as this, but I would say there are actually three issues at play with WP:FRAMBAN. Fram's conduct as an admin, the sysop/crat actions of the users mentioned in the above case, and the remaining community response to both. I can't say whether or not arbcom should step into the issue of the community response to FRAMBAN (as they did in crosswiki issues), but it certainly is worth considering with the level of vitriol we have begun to see. AC/DS may be worth it, but I am not sure nor am I equipped to decide. I really don't know a lot about this community, and there has already been enough disruption here that I am not 100% sure what the best solution moving forward is.
Either way, that's my thoughts in the matter, I guess. Sorry arbcom is getting so overworked right now. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 06:18, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SchroCat (Fram)

Seriously?

We cannot hold a case on Fram if the information is not fully known (supposedly).
He did not use the N word in a slur against anyone, but as an example of a strawman argument.

This is a waste of time filing and the committee should decline quickly before more ink is spilt on something they can't deal with. - SchroCat (talk) 06:17, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sitush

Exactly what SchroCat says - this is a hopeless case request in its current form and with our current knowledge, and Mendaliv's diff is not at all problematic with regard to use of language. - Sitush (talk) 07:26, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Boing! said Zebedee (Fram)

I was sympathetic to the idea of presenting this evidence to ArbCom privately (and recommended it should be done that way). But I now learn it is from 2016, which means it is either stale (if it is indeed previously undiscovered) or it has already played a part in T&S's previous warnings to Fram. What is controversial now is whatever recent activity, that is activity subsequent to T&S's warnings, precipitated the current 1-year ban on Fram, and I think any light cast on that could potentially be helpful. But we shouldn't be trying to dig up even more dirt from years ago. I urge the Committee to decline. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:17, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also add that the use of the "N" word is a complete red herring. Even though I don't use it myself here (because even seeing the word seems to offend a great many people), its use when speaking of the use of the word itself is in no way derogatory. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:22, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Fram: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Fram: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/2/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)

You want us to accept an open case, where we do not have all the evidence from WMF, based on the idea that you have a pile of secret evidence, which you will not give until a case is opened? No. It doesn't work like that. I'm also not happy with the the idea of you making public evidence of harassment of a individual, when this whole mess is predicated on the idea that harassment is handled poorly on-wiki, with a blame the victim mentality. Finally, we won't know if the evidence you present is the same as the evidence looked at by the Foundation, meaning that whatever decision we would make would be taken as relevant but may not be. I cannot see any reason to take this case as written - decline. I will note however, that you are welcome to send your evidence to Arbcom privately. I don't know how it should be handled there, but at least then we can respond to you based on what you've got. Worm^TT(talk) 06:12, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. I'll be honest and say that the thought of requesting a case on Fram had crossed my mind. But after further thought on the matter I felt it would be inappropriate. Even though it is like walking through month old porridge, the Committee are talking about the Fram issue, and are communicating with WMF (^{though we've had no communication from them since the 19 June phone call meeting other than setting up the next call on 3 July}). It's not as though we are ignoring it. The bulk of my thinking around opening a public case concerns what positive results it may achieve compared with negative results. Yes, there are questions about what happens when Fram returns (if he decides to), particularly regarding his admin status, but much of that discussion can be handled by the community, perhaps in discussion with the 'Crats. Like WTT, I am not sure what we would be able to do with your diffs. If they do indicate harassment, that stuff gets sent to WMF; and even though the enwiki community are currently in dispute with WMF about how they handle harassment issues here on WMF, that still appears to be the most appropriate route. I would hate to think that a dispute between the community and WMF about poor communication should result in even poorer communication and non-reporting of harassment. That could never be an appropriate situation, so, yes, please do send your diffs privately to ArbCom. SilkTork (talk) 08:37, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 1,010: / Line 1,010: @@
 *
-=== Fram: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/1/0> ===
+=== Fram: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/2/0> ===
 {{anchor|1=Fram: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter}}<small>Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)</small>
 *You want us to accept an open case, where we do not have all the evidence from WMF, based on the idea that you have a pile of secret evidence, which you will not give until a case is opened? No. It doesn't work like that. I'm also not happy with the the idea of you making public evidence of harassment of a individual, when this whole mess is predicated on the idea that harassment is handled poorly on-wiki, with a blame the victim mentality. Finally, we won't know if the evidence you present is the same as the evidence looked at by the Foundation, meaning that whatever decision we would make would be taken as relevant but may not be. I cannot see any reason to take this case as written - '''decline'''. I will note however, that you are welcome to send your evidence to Arbcom privately. I don't know how it should be handled there, but at least then we can respond to you based on what you've got. [[User:Worm That Turned|<b style="text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;">''Worm''</b>]]<sup>TT</sup>([[User talk:Worm That Turned|<b style="color:#060;">talk</b>]]) 06:12, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
+*'''Decline'''. I'll be honest and say that the thought of requesting a case on Fram had crossed my mind. But after further thought on the matter I felt it would be inappropriate. Even though it is like walking through month old porridge, the Committee are talking about the Fram issue, and are communicating with WMF (<sup>though we've had no communication from them since the 19 June phone call meeting other than setting up the next call on 3 July</sup>). It's not as though we are ignoring it. The bulk of my thinking around opening a public case concerns what positive results it may achieve compared with negative results. Yes, there are questions about what happens when Fram returns (if he decides to), particularly regarding his admin status, but much of that discussion can be handled by the community, perhaps in discussion with the 'Crats.  Like WTT, I am not sure what we would be able to do with your diffs. If they do indicate harassment, that stuff gets sent to WMF; and even though the enwiki community are currently in dispute with WMF about how they handle harassment issues here on WMF, that still appears to be the most appropriate route. I would hate to think that a dispute between the community and WMF about poor communication should result in even poorer communication and non-reporting of harassment. That could never be an appropriate situation, so, yes, please do send your diffs privately to ArbCom.  [[User:SilkTork|SilkTork]] ([[User talk:SilkTork|talk]]) 08:37, 27 June 2019 (UTC)