4 ms·

Hard data, please. What did he do specifically? EDIT: For the downvoters, my question is because I'm tired of being manipulated by parties on both sides of any

Hard data, please. What did he do specifically? EDIT: For the downvoters, my question is because I'm tired of being manipulated by parties on both sides of any issue only disclosing what interests them.

finnthehuman 7y ago
He rocked the boat. Wikimeida foundation thinks it's cute that their unpaid content worker bees have a governance system. But we just saw what always happens when an autonomous decision maker with delegated authority makes the wrong decision.
- dang 7y ago
  Could you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for something different from that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
DAlperin 7y ago
He was a good editor. But my understanding was he was mean. The community did not have systems to handle the situation so the WMF stepped in. And ruled over the community.
- kchamplewski 7y ago
  > The community did not have systems to handle the situation so the WMF stepped in. The community does have systems to handle such situations though (e.g. the arbitration committee which has produced this letter). Of course, these systems may or may not be adequate - I am not qualified to say, but it seems to me that the chief complaint here is that the WMF did not involve any community systems without having previously expressed concerns about them. This suggests that either the WMF does not consider the systems adequate, in which case the arbitration committee is quite right to request that the WMF communicate this to them, or the WMF has some genuinely top-secret reason to ban someone that even the arbitration committee cannot be trusted with (which for a matter as light as a 1-year ban due to community reports doesn't seem likely).
  - makomk 7y ago
    There are also (now-deleted) hints elsewhere that the matter which even the arbitration committee cannot be trusted with might have something to do with Gibraltapedia, which is... not a good look, given that was a particularly famous example of a Wikimedia trustee's personal financial interests and those of Wikipedia conflicting, and of this being handled badly by the Foundation.
- jmull 7y ago
  > He was a good editor. But my understanding was he was mean. In a community driven effort, those are contradictory statements.
adbge 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram/Summary#List_of_significant_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t...
GeekyBear 7y ago
>Fram is also known within the community as an asshole. “He’s like Inspector Javert,” one Wikipedian wrote of Fram recently, comparing him to the ruthless and inflexible antagonist of Les Misérables. “Brusque, bordering on rude sometimes,” another longtime admin, Floquenbeam, told BuzzFeed News. “He has a reputation for almost always being right on the underlying merits in a dispute, but going about it in a fairly obnoxious way.” Over the years, Fram has clashed with other admins, with editors, with ArbCom, and with the foundation itself. Fram explained that he had received two previous “conduct warnings” from the foundation’s Trust and Safety Council for his incivil style toward other Wikipedians. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikipedia-ban-editor-culture-war https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikiped... Personally, I'm reminded of Linus Torvald's "voluntary" leave of absence. With great power comes a great need to act with civility?
- microcolonel 7y ago
  The man is not going around stripping people of their rights because he's upset about how people talk to him. I don't think escalation of "I don't like his style" to "he should be banned from participating for a year" is appropriate, no matter how much that style upsets the sweet-sounding passive aggressive types. I, for one, would prefer a world of people who act in good faith, even if they address issues in a coarse and gruff manner at times; to a world of petty, passive-aggressive crybullies who ultimately contribute nothing of value, nothing but a veneer of shallow procedural "niceness".
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > I, for one, would prefer a world of people who act in good faith, even if they address issues in a coarse and gruff manner at times; to a world of petty, passive-aggressive crybullies who ultimately contribute nothing of value, nothing but a veneer of shallow procedural "niceness". These aren’t the only two options available.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - 7y ago
nsajko 7y ago
The WMF T&S team refuses to explain or justify their actions, thus no (public) hard data exists.
hrktb 7y ago
I don’t know how much you are downvoted, but it seems the issue is pretty public, accusations and responses are in the open, the whole threads are even linked in the article. If you care to any extent about the issue, going down the rabbit hole and looking for yourself would be the best course of action. If it seems tedious, pointless and gossipy, asking for other people’s super biased TLDR wouldn’t help anyway, so perhaps ignoring this event could be a course of action (that’s what I did after reading 2 pages of finger pointing BTW)
jakobegger 7y ago
According to the buzzfeed article [1] some users felt harassed by him. Allegedly he followed them and kept fixing their spelling errors, deleting their unfinished stub articles etc. Presumably those who felt stalked by him are wary of making the accusations public, since at this point that may invite additional harassment from others. [1]: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikipedia-ban-editor-culture-war https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikiped...

finnthehuman 7y ago

He rocked the boat. Wikimeida foundation thinks it's cute that their unpaid content worker bees have a governance system. But we just saw what always happens when an autonomous decision maker with delegated authority makes the wrong decision.

dang 7y ago
Could you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for something different from that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

DAlperin 7y ago

He was a good editor. But my understanding was he was mean. The community did not have systems to handle the situation so the WMF stepped in. And ruled over the community.

kchamplewski 7y ago
> The community did not have systems to handle the situation so the WMF stepped in. The community does have systems to handle such situations though (e.g. the arbitration committee which has produced this letter). Of course, these systems may or may not be adequate - I am not qualified to say, but it seems to me that the chief complaint here is that the WMF did not involve any community systems without having previously expressed concerns about them. This suggests that either the WMF does not consider the systems adequate, in which case the arbitration committee is quite right to request that the WMF communicate this to them, or the WMF has some genuinely top-secret reason to ban someone that even the arbitration committee cannot be trusted with (which for a matter as light as a 1-year ban due to community reports doesn't seem likely).
- makomk 7y ago
  There are also (now-deleted) hints elsewhere that the matter which even the arbitration committee cannot be trusted with might have something to do with Gibraltapedia, which is... not a good look, given that was a particularly famous example of a Wikimedia trustee's personal financial interests and those of Wikipedia conflicting, and of this being handled badly by the Foundation.
jmull 7y ago
> He was a good editor. But my understanding was he was mean. In a community driven effort, those are contradictory statements.

adbge 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram/Summary#List_of_significant_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t...

GeekyBear 7y ago

>Fram is also known within the community as an asshole. “He’s like Inspector Javert,” one Wikipedian wrote of Fram recently, comparing him to the ruthless and inflexible antagonist of Les Misérables. “Brusque, bordering on rude sometimes,” another longtime admin, Floquenbeam, told BuzzFeed News. “He has a reputation for almost always being right on the underlying merits in a dispute, but going about it in a fairly obnoxious way.” Over the years, Fram has clashed with other admins, with editors, with ArbCom, and with the foundation itself. Fram explained that he had received two previous “conduct warnings” from the foundation’s Trust and Safety Council for his incivil style toward other Wikipedians. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikipedia-ban-editor-culture-war https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikiped... Personally, I'm reminded of Linus Torvald's "voluntary" leave of absence. With great power comes a great need to act with civility?

microcolonel 7y ago
The man is not going around stripping people of their rights because he's upset about how people talk to him. I don't think escalation of "I don't like his style" to "he should be banned from participating for a year" is appropriate, no matter how much that style upsets the sweet-sounding passive aggressive types. I, for one, would prefer a world of people who act in good faith, even if they address issues in a coarse and gruff manner at times; to a world of petty, passive-aggressive crybullies who ultimately contribute nothing of value, nothing but a veneer of shallow procedural "niceness".
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > I, for one, would prefer a world of people who act in good faith, even if they address issues in a coarse and gruff manner at times; to a world of petty, passive-aggressive crybullies who ultimately contribute nothing of value, nothing but a veneer of shallow procedural "niceness". These aren’t the only two options available.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 7y ago

nsajko 7y ago

The WMF T&S team refuses to explain or justify their actions, thus no (public) hard data exists.

hrktb 7y ago

I don’t know how much you are downvoted, but it seems the issue is pretty public, accusations and responses are in the open, the whole threads are even linked in the article. If you care to any extent about the issue, going down the rabbit hole and looking for yourself would be the best course of action. If it seems tedious, pointless and gossipy, asking for other people’s super biased TLDR wouldn’t help anyway, so perhaps ignoring this event could be a course of action (that’s what I did after reading 2 pages of finger pointing BTW)

jakobegger 7y ago

According to the buzzfeed article [1] some users felt harassed by him. Allegedly he followed them and kept fixing their spelling errors, deleting their unfinished stub articles etc. Presumably those who felt stalked by him are wary of making the accusations public, since at this point that may invite additional harassment from others. [1]: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikipedia-ban-editor-culture-war https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikiped...