7 ms·

He wrote 'Fuck Arbcon' in the entry for the arbitration committee. He had other warnings. He got banned for a year. Makes sense. I do not know from were the 'f

by kartan 7y ago

He wrote 'Fuck Arbcon' in the entry for the arbitration committee. He had other warnings. He got banned for a year. Makes sense. I do not know from were the 'freedom' argument comes from our relates to this.

luckylion 7y ago
> He wrote 'Fuck Arbcon' in the entry for the arbitration committee. He had other warnings. He got banned for a year. Should somebody go to jail for saying "fuck the DOJ"?
- Barrin92 7y ago
  No, but if you say "fuck the church" while you're staying at the podium people will probably show you the door. Wikipedia is a private organisation and can handle disputes how they see fit. You don't have legal rights to wikipedia editing.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    And this isn't about "legal rights", it's about the internal process of Wikipedia that people are protesting. But I see this is going to be a "it's a private organization, you mustn't critique it" thread.
  - turtlecloud 7y ago
    That doesn’t really apply here. There was no rule before about temp bans prior to this. Of course it was in poor taste, but it should have not have resulted in temp banning since there were no prior rules in place. In your situation what if I now had misspoke and when expecting a temp ban, somehow get perms banned due to new rules? Their was no due process and the wikimedia foundation is no better than an authoritarian government.
    - Barrin92 7y ago
      To my knowledge my chess club has no formal rules about insults either, but I know that if I started to say "fuck you" to the owner, he'd throw me out. If the person in question needs formal rules to not behave anti-social, maybe staying a year off wikipedia is a good opportunity to figure that out. Seriously we're dealing with adults here, not children. Which actually goes to the root of the problem, the type of personality that spends so much time on editing the website seems to have a problem with very basic civility.
      - turtlecloud 7y ago
        Well I personally don’t like the self censorship approach. You must come from a more authoritarian culture. In the US, there is the 1st amendment of free speech (something that other countries can not stomach). This includes the ability to criticize and insult our government, country, and president. The purpose of free speech is to speak without free of being reprimanded for saying the wrong thing in order to communicate more effectively. Only insecure organizations ban dedicated community members for speaking out of line. In a more open and democratic organization, the governing committee should just acknowledge statement and move on with the shared goals of the community. Especially with Wikipedia where controversy is expected, admins should not self censor with fear of being reprimanded for “thinking/talking” out of line. And with regards to your chess club, that is your insecurity speaking - your chess club leader may welcome the feedback and try to understand what made you say that in the first place. If the organization is open to feedback and criticism, and if you are a valued member then it should be concerning why u spoke out, since it may affect others too. A club is only as valuable as its members - please remember that.
        alex_young 7y ago
        Do you think you could get away with standing in front of a courthouse shouting "fuck the government" for long without getting arrested? The first amendment doesn't protect you from a disorderly conduct charge. Behavior matters in society, and we're not talking about the government here. If you want to behave like an asshole you will have a hard time in a lot of places, and that's a good thing for the most part IMHO.
    - DanBC 7y ago
      For clarity: "fuck arbcom" wasn't what led to the banning. The sustained pattern of behaviour that the community failed to deal with was what caused the ban. "Fuck arbcom" is the reason the ban was handed out by WMF and not arbcom.
- 0815test 7y ago
  No, but one can go to jail for contempt of court, or contempt of Congress.
dahdum 7y ago
I think the issue is the community used to have a say in these bans, and that’s why ArbCom exists. Now ArbCom is a bit irrelevant, the Foundation decides guilt in secret and hands out punishment as they see fit.
- izacus 7y ago
  The article states that was the case before too. What changed?
  - onei 7y ago
    From reading the article, the bans handed out by the Foundation appear to have been permanent and targeted at less high-profile members of the community. It also suggests that the bans were targeted at obviously illegal activities, e.g. child pornography. I'm not sure how verifiable what the bans were for is, but it seems to be the widely held view. This is an intervention that realistically should have been dealt with by the community. If he had posted "Fuck Wikimedia" as well, there could have been another perceived conflict of interest. Sooner or later you run out of conflicted groups of people and what happens then?
    - nullc 7y ago
      > obviously illegal activities, e.g. child pornography. Right. There was another recent incident which generated some drama due to the lack of transparency by Wikimedia, but it ultimately fizzled because the banned user in question was silent and so absent any alternative people assumed that the ban was well justified. In this case, the banned user has written a calm and clear description of events from their perspective, including paraphrasing the communication they received from Wikimedia. This discussion has essentially foreclosed the possibility that it was something like child pornography in question-- and, in fact, the specific citation of a rude remark towards arbcom stands out in particular because arbcom apparently had no involvement in the ban.
      - nullc 7y ago
xxxpupugo 7y ago
Exactly. If he gets away with it, then the said order is useless. Freedom from any consequences? That isn't a thing.
Sniffnoy 7y ago
It's a breaking of process. Why couldn't ArbCom have handled this? Wrecking a good process to get handle one particular thing is trading away long-term stability for that one thing. Bad trade.
- jonathankoren 7y ago
  The article pointed out that since ArbCom was the target of the harassment, it couldn’t rule on the case and be seen as neutral. Is this what happened? Maybe. It certainly sounds a plausible, but without any transparency, it’s hard to say.
  - eecc 7y ago
    Yeah, but that also comes through as demeaning for the ArbCo; it assumes that once insulted, the members are unable to remain adults and exercise restraint. No, IMHO the central office had already decided the ArbCo had already failed to defend itself and the platform from skilled manipulation. I would expect reforms are on their way
JdeBP 7y ago
The context of that was a mass message sent to all administrators that appeared to say that all administrators "must" enable two-factor authentication or the Arbitration Committee would disable their accounts. Some administrators were rather angry at this. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/MediaWiki_message_delivery?limit=5000&namespace=3&start=2019-05-04&end=2019-05-04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/MediaWik... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard?oldid=898629713#Return_of_permissions_to_administrators_notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Com... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard/Archive_40#Return_of_permissions_to_administrators_notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Com...)
- mr_toad 7y ago
  Defacing a Wikipedia page doesn’t sound like an appropriate response. If my employer demanded I use TFA (they do), and I defaced one of their public web pages, I’d be fired.
  - JdeBP 7y ago
    It's a good thing that no-one defaced a Wikipedia page in response, then.
rovr138 7y ago
They’re citing privacy and other issues to not give the case to the committee. I doubt that comment is the issue.

by kartan 7y ago

luckylion 7y ago

> He wrote 'Fuck Arbcon' in the entry for the arbitration committee. He had other warnings. He got banned for a year. Should somebody go to jail for saying "fuck the DOJ"?

Barrin92 7y ago
No, but if you say "fuck the church" while you're staying at the podium people will probably show you the door. Wikipedia is a private organisation and can handle disputes how they see fit. You don't have legal rights to wikipedia editing.
- luckylion 7y ago
  And this isn't about "legal rights", it's about the internal process of Wikipedia that people are protesting. But I see this is going to be a "it's a private organization, you mustn't critique it" thread.
- turtlecloud 7y ago
  That doesn’t really apply here. There was no rule before about temp bans prior to this. Of course it was in poor taste, but it should have not have resulted in temp banning since there were no prior rules in place. In your situation what if I now had misspoke and when expecting a temp ban, somehow get perms banned due to new rules? Their was no due process and the wikimedia foundation is no better than an authoritarian government.
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    To my knowledge my chess club has no formal rules about insults either, but I know that if I started to say "fuck you" to the owner, he'd throw me out. If the person in question needs formal rules to not behave anti-social, maybe staying a year off wikipedia is a good opportunity to figure that out. Seriously we're dealing with adults here, not children. Which actually goes to the root of the problem, the type of personality that spends so much time on editing the website seems to have a problem with very basic civility.
    - turtlecloud 7y ago
      Well I personally don’t like the self censorship approach. You must come from a more authoritarian culture. In the US, there is the 1st amendment of free speech (something that other countries can not stomach). This includes the ability to criticize and insult our government, country, and president. The purpose of free speech is to speak without free of being reprimanded for saying the wrong thing in order to communicate more effectively. Only insecure organizations ban dedicated community members for speaking out of line. In a more open and democratic organization, the governing committee should just acknowledge statement and move on with the shared goals of the community. Especially with Wikipedia where controversy is expected, admins should not self censor with fear of being reprimanded for “thinking/talking” out of line. And with regards to your chess club, that is your insecurity speaking - your chess club leader may welcome the feedback and try to understand what made you say that in the first place. If the organization is open to feedback and criticism, and if you are a valued member then it should be concerning why u spoke out, since it may affect others too. A club is only as valuable as its members - please remember that.
      - alex_young 7y ago
        Do you think you could get away with standing in front of a courthouse shouting "fuck the government" for long without getting arrested? The first amendment doesn't protect you from a disorderly conduct charge. Behavior matters in society, and we're not talking about the government here. If you want to behave like an asshole you will have a hard time in a lot of places, and that's a good thing for the most part IMHO.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    For clarity: "fuck arbcom" wasn't what led to the banning. The sustained pattern of behaviour that the community failed to deal with was what caused the ban. "Fuck arbcom" is the reason the ban was handed out by WMF and not arbcom.
0815test 7y ago
No, but one can go to jail for contempt of court, or contempt of Congress.

dahdum 7y ago

I think the issue is the community used to have a say in these bans, and that’s why ArbCom exists. Now ArbCom is a bit irrelevant, the Foundation decides guilt in secret and hands out punishment as they see fit.

izacus 7y ago
The article states that was the case before too. What changed?
- onei 7y ago
  From reading the article, the bans handed out by the Foundation appear to have been permanent and targeted at less high-profile members of the community. It also suggests that the bans were targeted at obviously illegal activities, e.g. child pornography. I'm not sure how verifiable what the bans were for is, but it seems to be the widely held view. This is an intervention that realistically should have been dealt with by the community. If he had posted "Fuck Wikimedia" as well, there could have been another perceived conflict of interest. Sooner or later you run out of conflicted groups of people and what happens then?
  - nullc 7y ago
    > obviously illegal activities, e.g. child pornography. Right. There was another recent incident which generated some drama due to the lack of transparency by Wikimedia, but it ultimately fizzled because the banned user in question was silent and so absent any alternative people assumed that the ban was well justified. In this case, the banned user has written a calm and clear description of events from their perspective, including paraphrasing the communication they received from Wikimedia. This discussion has essentially foreclosed the possibility that it was something like child pornography in question-- and, in fact, the specific citation of a rude remark towards arbcom stands out in particular because arbcom apparently had no involvement in the ban.
    - nullc 7y ago

xxxpupugo 7y ago

Exactly. If he gets away with it, then the said order is useless. Freedom from any consequences? That isn't a thing.

Sniffnoy 7y ago

It's a breaking of process. Why couldn't ArbCom have handled this? Wrecking a good process to get handle one particular thing is trading away long-term stability for that one thing. Bad trade.

jonathankoren 7y ago
The article pointed out that since ArbCom was the target of the harassment, it couldn’t rule on the case and be seen as neutral. Is this what happened? Maybe. It certainly sounds a plausible, but without any transparency, it’s hard to say.
- eecc 7y ago
  Yeah, but that also comes through as demeaning for the ArbCo; it assumes that once insulted, the members are unable to remain adults and exercise restraint. No, IMHO the central office had already decided the ArbCo had already failed to defend itself and the platform from skilled manipulation. I would expect reforms are on their way

JdeBP 7y ago

The context of that was a mass message sent to all administrators that appeared to say that all administrators "must" enable two-factor authentication or the Arbitration Committee would disable their accounts. Some administrators were rather angry at this. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/MediaWiki_message_delivery?limit=5000&namespace=3&start=2019-05-04&end=2019-05-04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/MediaWik... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard?oldid=898629713#Return_of_permissions_to_administrators_notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Com... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard/Archive_40#Return_of_permissions_to_administrators_notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Com...)

mr_toad 7y ago
Defacing a Wikipedia page doesn’t sound like an appropriate response. If my employer demanded I use TFA (they do), and I defaced one of their public web pages, I’d be fired.
- JdeBP 7y ago
  It's a good thing that no-one defaced a Wikipedia page in response, then.

rovr138 7y ago

They’re citing privacy and other issues to not give the case to the committee. I doubt that comment is the issue.