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I don't quite understand what I'm supposed to be upset with here. You've got a guy who stalks users and attacks the administration, and they ban him for a year

I don't quite understand what I'm supposed to be upset with here. You've got a guy who stalks users and attacks the administration, and they ban him for a year, which kind of seems like a measured approach to be honest. Some other admins didn't like that treatment and quit. So what? If you see that kind of behavior as something acceptable and the organization doesn't, maybe you shouldn't be there either. Sounds like much ado about nothing.

kartan 7y ago
It's about the absolute right to free speech. It has been a far right tactic to attack people that condemns their speeches: https://lithub.com/when-fascists-weaponize-free-speech-absolutism/ https://lithub.com/when-fascists-weaponize-free-speech-absol... USA has started the political campaign and with it there is an increase in manipulation. What should be a matter of politeness - don't insult people - becomes an opportunity to push against moderated discussion. :( Please HN review this thread carefully as this is what comes for the next year.
nullc 7y ago
You might want to turn your skimming level down a bit. Wikipedia's community has a long established set of processes for self-governance, but they were bypassed in this case. The administration in question was banned by staff of the Wikimedia foundation, the 501c3 non-profit created by the community for the purpose of the operation of the infrastructure of Wikipedia, and have done so without providing a clear justification both for the circumvention of the project's governance and the specific. This is a highly unusual though not completely unprecedented event. 99% of the people who are up in arms about this would have had no issue had the arbcom banned the user in question, the constitutional issue is what has people so concerned.
- DanBC 7y ago
  > Wikipedia's community has a long established set of processes for self-governance, but they were bypassed in this case. This is untrue. The processes were used and they failed to work. They failed to protect people from this abusive admin. Read the discussion about fram - there are plenty of people there saying "he's a bit of an arsehole but he edits a lot". Clearly the existing processes were aware that fram was abusive.
  - nullc 7y ago
    Wikimedia is currently not even providing information about their actions to the arbcom. How can you argue that the process didn't work when it is apparently contingent on information which is being concealed from it? People in the discussion aren't for the most part arguing that fram shouldn't be banned-- the discussion is almost exclusively about the constitutional issues and accusations of impropriety. ... but "bit of an arsehole" could mean a lot of things and doesn't necessarily mean abusive. Edit: The arbcom has issued a statement-- a fairly strongly worded one, by arbcom's standards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation's_ban_of_Fram#Open_letter_from_the_Arbitration_Committee_to_the_WMF_Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t...
floatingatoll 7y ago
Wikipedia’s community is facing the same sort of problem with Fram that the Linux community has faced with Linus and that the OpenBSD community has faced with Theo. Is conduct relevant if someone is otherwise a good contributor of good work output in service of the project? Many, including a significant fraction of HN upvoters, have cheered on Linus and Theo over the years for conduct perceived as both hostile and contributory. Fram, too, has for many years had conduct perceived as both hostile and contributory. Therefore, it should come as little surprise that Fram has supporters. The question raised near the end of the article is relevant: Why did Fram’s peers allow Fram’s conduct to continue? To answer that question, we need only look inward: Linus is taking conduct training, so that he can continue to contribute usefully while conducting himself respectfully (but not necessarily politely). This change is not universally liked, as there are many who feel that they should have the right to disrespect anyone, and this is a critical turning point of sentiment against their “freedom”. The advent of codes of conducts in open source invoked the same problem and the same reaction, at a larger scale: people who swear they will boycott contributions to any project that restricts their freedom of conduct in any way. HN openly restricts the freedom of conduct of commenters, so I always smile when I see people post here that they’ll boycott some project over having their rights abrogated - they don’t see the irony and pointing it out would be inflammatory, so I keep it to myself. But it’s absolutely not “much ado about nothing”. It’s right at the core of whether “the right of free speech” includes “the right of speech perceived by others as inconsiderate, disrespectful, derogatory, and/or harmful”. HN commenters don’t yet agree on this point, and it’s no stretch to consider that Wikipedia editors don’t either.

kartan 7y ago

It's about the absolute right to free speech. It has been a far right tactic to attack people that condemns their speeches: https://lithub.com/when-fascists-weaponize-free-speech-absolutism/ https://lithub.com/when-fascists-weaponize-free-speech-absol... USA has started the political campaign and with it there is an increase in manipulation. What should be a matter of politeness - don't insult people - becomes an opportunity to push against moderated discussion. :( Please HN review this thread carefully as this is what comes for the next year.

nullc 7y ago

You might want to turn your skimming level down a bit. Wikipedia's community has a long established set of processes for self-governance, but they were bypassed in this case. The administration in question was banned by staff of the Wikimedia foundation, the 501c3 non-profit created by the community for the purpose of the operation of the infrastructure of Wikipedia, and have done so without providing a clear justification both for the circumvention of the project's governance and the specific. This is a highly unusual though not completely unprecedented event. 99% of the people who are up in arms about this would have had no issue had the arbcom banned the user in question, the constitutional issue is what has people so concerned.

DanBC 7y ago
> Wikipedia's community has a long established set of processes for self-governance, but they were bypassed in this case. This is untrue. The processes were used and they failed to work. They failed to protect people from this abusive admin. Read the discussion about fram - there are plenty of people there saying "he's a bit of an arsehole but he edits a lot". Clearly the existing processes were aware that fram was abusive.
- nullc 7y ago
  Wikimedia is currently not even providing information about their actions to the arbcom. How can you argue that the process didn't work when it is apparently contingent on information which is being concealed from it? People in the discussion aren't for the most part arguing that fram shouldn't be banned-- the discussion is almost exclusively about the constitutional issues and accusations of impropriety. ... but "bit of an arsehole" could mean a lot of things and doesn't necessarily mean abusive. Edit: The arbcom has issued a statement-- a fairly strongly worded one, by arbcom's standards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation's_ban_of_Fram#Open_letter_from_the_Arbitration_Committee_to_the_WMF_Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t...

floatingatoll 7y ago

Wikipedia’s community is facing the same sort of problem with Fram that the Linux community has faced with Linus and that the OpenBSD community has faced with Theo. Is conduct relevant if someone is otherwise a good contributor of good work output in service of the project? Many, including a significant fraction of HN upvoters, have cheered on Linus and Theo over the years for conduct perceived as both hostile and contributory. Fram, too, has for many years had conduct perceived as both hostile and contributory. Therefore, it should come as little surprise that Fram has supporters. The question raised near the end of the article is relevant: Why did Fram’s peers allow Fram’s conduct to continue? To answer that question, we need only look inward: Linus is taking conduct training, so that he can continue to contribute usefully while conducting himself respectfully (but not necessarily politely). This change is not universally liked, as there are many who feel that they should have the right to disrespect anyone, and this is a critical turning point of sentiment against their “freedom”. The advent of codes of conducts in open source invoked the same problem and the same reaction, at a larger scale: people who swear they will boycott contributions to any project that restricts their freedom of conduct in any way. HN openly restricts the freedom of conduct of commenters, so I always smile when I see people post here that they’ll boycott some project over having their rights abrogated - they don’t see the irony and pointing it out would be inflammatory, so I keep it to myself. But it’s absolutely not “much ado about nothing”. It’s right at the core of whether “the right of free speech” includes “the right of speech perceived by others as inconsiderate, disrespectful, derogatory, and/or harmful”. HN commenters don’t yet agree on this point, and it’s no stretch to consider that Wikipedia editors don’t either.