Extended precautions

Editors, Admins and Bureaucrats blecch!
Post Reply
User avatar
CrowsNest
Sucks Maniac
Posts: 4459
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2018 4:50 am
Been thanked: 5 times

Extended precautions

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Oct 02, 2019 8:38 pm

A Wikipedia Arbitrator.......
This exact outcome perfectly demonstrates why the committee must take extended precautions to protect the privacy of individual who report being the victims of harassment when sending any evidence to the other involved party. Lately (in at least three recent instances), whatever seems to be sent to the individual frequently ends up being posted publicly on-wiki, on another wiki, or on another website. No greater argument highlights the fact that the committee should presume that whatever is sent to another party will become public. We have also clearly seen that when the identity of the individual who made the report becomes public, they are frequently subject to further harassment and hounding (both on and off-wiki). It has been something an increasing number of editors have expressed a concern about when contacting us. Mkdw talk 03:43, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
As we know, two of those cases involved Wikipedia Administrators - the infamous Fram, and the permanently dumb Ritchie. The harassment site Wikipediocracy was intimately involved in both cases, and countless Wikipedia Administrators and even a few current and former Supreme Court members participate there, like it's no big thing to seen to be associating with people like that, who do things like that.

Another Administrator, Beelebrox, openly solicited on Wikipediocracy for the leaking of sensitive data relating to the Fram case. As far as I can tell, he faced no consequences for it whatsoever. I'm the only critic I know of who has even mentioned that this might be a thing people on Wikipedia should be concerned about.

Unless these "extended precautions" are a flame thrower and a Death Star, I don't think they're going to work.

The problem started when it suddenly stopped being the norm to respond to any Wikipedian who started talking about their rights and freedoms as a Wikipedian, with a reminder that for all intents and purposes, they have none. They have their pre-existing legal rights, and their freedom to leave.

As far as I can tell, the change occurred during Framgate. So maybe it wasn't such a great idea for the Arbitrators to have come out so strongly during it on the side of the people, with their open letters and other nonsense.

They are not a court, they are not dispensing justice. And they are not and never were the leaders of an autonomous self-governing community.

Start banning the people who defy your Orders and agitate for their supposed Rights, particularly those doing so in a venue they believe is outside your jurisdiction, and you might have at least a slim chance of getting this genie back in its bottle.

Show them no mercy.

:twisted:
Attachments
Beeblebrox-leak.png
Beeblebrox-leak.png (24.29 KiB) Viewed 2365 times

User avatar
CrowsNest
Sucks Maniac
Posts: 4459
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2018 4:50 am
Been thanked: 5 times

Re: Extended precautions

Post by CrowsNest » Thu Oct 03, 2019 4:31 pm

Administrator Ritchie333 was banned by ArbCom from ever even mentioning User:Praxidea.

He is of course getting around that restriction by mentioning her on Wikipediocracy, and not for the first time.....

http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtop ... 91#p252391
http://archive.is/vaDAN

Not just griping as he was before, but there (CTRL F "Paul Cauthen"), he is actively soliciting people to interact with Praxidae on his behalf.

Long time Wikipediocracy lurker and disgraced ex-Administrator Yvangottir has of course accepted the invitation.

Praxidea may not even know that her edits are being undone by people working on Ritchie's behalf though an external forum, and presumably that would be the kindest thing, since he did rather upset her, and ignorance is bliss. But I would be surprised if she stays in the dark for long, these things have a habit of finding their way through the grapevine, and it seems like Ritchie would be fine with her knowing he's still got her in his sights.

So, we have a Wikipedia Administrator circumventing an Arbcom anti-harassment measure using the very website that is a byword at Wikipedia for harassment of Wikipedians, and what has been the reaction of the Wikipedia governance system?

Nothing, that I can tell.

User avatar
Abd
Sucks Warrior
Posts: 749
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2017 11:22 pm
Has thanked: 72 times
Been thanked: 48 times

Re: Extended precautions

Post by Abd » Thu Oct 03, 2019 7:37 pm

CrowsNest wrote:Administrator Ritchie333 was banned by ArbCom from ever even mentioning User:Praxidea.

He is of course getting around that restriction by mentioning her on Wikipediocracy, and not for the first time.....

http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtop ... 91#p252391
http://archive.is/vaDAN

Not just griping as he was before, but there (CTRL F "Paul Cauthen"), he is actively soliciting people to interact with Praxidae on his behalf.

mmm.... this is not a poster boy for serious meat puppetry or ban evasion. Anyone can remove a speedy deletion tag, and no reason is necessary, though one was given, and alleging canvassing for that is not a winning argument. The article looks completely inappropriate for CSD. That Yngvadottir may have seen this on WPO is boring. Posting on a criticism site has long been a method of bypassing bans or Wikipedia restrictions. The one who takes up a cause is fully responsible for the action, and how they learned about it is actually irrelevant (unless a clear and abusive pattern can be shown). As a deeper example, he could email a sympathetic user and it would be completely invisible.

I looked a little deeper. The actual CSD was based on the page having been created by a banned user. Status offense. My opinion on this was that yes, any banned user creation can be reverted or deleted, but any user may take responsibility for the page continuing. That is what yngvadottir did.

The plot thickens. See AN/I and SPI. The creator is alleged to be Office-banned BrillLyle. Wikipedia block log shows first problem on Oct. 5, 2018. Office banned Oct. 8, less than three days later. WTF?

User avatar
Graaf Statler
Side Troll
Posts: 3996
Joined: Sun Jun 11, 2017 4:20 pm

Re: Extended precautions

Post by Graaf Statler » Thu Oct 03, 2019 11:13 pm

Unreadable bullshit of a confused mind. useless for criticism.

User avatar
CrowsNest
Sucks Maniac
Posts: 4459
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2018 4:50 am
Been thanked: 5 times

Re: Extended precautions

Post by CrowsNest » Fri Oct 04, 2019 12:06 am

Abd wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:Administrator Ritchie333 was banned by ArbCom from ever even mentioning User:Praxidea.

He is of course getting around that restriction by mentioning her on Wikipediocracy, and not for the first time.....

http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtop ... 91#p252391
http://archive.is/vaDAN

Not just griping as he was before, but there (CTRL F "Paul Cauthen"), he is actively soliciting people to interact with Praxidae on his behalf.

mmm.... this is not a poster boy for serious meat puppetry or ban evasion. Anyone can remove a speedy deletion tag, and no reason is necessary, though one was given, and alleging canvassing for that is not a winning argument. The article looks completely inappropriate for CSD. That Yngvadottir may have seen this on WPO is boring. Posting on a criticism site has long been a method of bypassing bans or Wikipedia restrictions. The one who takes up a cause is fully responsible for the action, and how they learned about it is actually irrelevant (unless a clear and abusive pattern can be shown). As a deeper example, he could email a sympathetic user and it would be completely invisible.

I looked a little deeper. The actual CSD was based on the page having been created by a banned user. Status offense. My opinion on this was that yes, any banned user creation can be reverted or deleted, but any user may take responsibility for the page continuing. That is what yngvadottir did.

The plot thickens. See AN/I and SPI. The creator is alleged to be Office-banned BrillLyle. Wikipedia block log shows first problem on Oct. 5, 2018. Office banned Oct. 8, less than three days later. WTF?
Ritchie is famous for using email and other backchannel methods, even when transparency is called for, so it can be assumed he wanted people to know he was doing it publicly, that he wants to flaunt the fact that even though he is under a sanction, he can get around it using the well known means of using Wikipediocracy as the Wikipedia Craig's list. Advertising on the open market also means he doesn't have to put any of his friends in the difficult position of declining his offer of aiding him in further harassment of his victim.

Yvangottir is famously a closed book, so I wouldn't be speculating on what she does and doesn't do and why unless you know for sure. What little we do know, is that she loves Ritchie, and we also know she is not above expressing her love for her friends by ignoring fundamental policy (hence why she is a former Administrator).

A presumption that she proxied for Ritchie solely for the good of Wikipedia is therefore not sound, even if we assumed aiding and abetting harassment could ever be conflated with good content curation. The truth of the matter is that both Ritchie and Yvangottir think his ArbCom restriction is invalid, so they are nullifying it, in a very deliberately public way. Common cause, rather than conspiracy.

I'm sorry you aren't impressed by the example, but if you think there are better ones of Administrators circumventing anti-harassment sanctions handed down by ArbCom, please share them. Note that this is a topical example, which is necessary, given that historical examples of course carry less weight after the events of these last few months, where we are meant to believe lessons are being learned and action is in the pipeline, hence the OP.

Post Reply