Are Fram's days numbered? From the Giant Snowman Arbitration Case Proposed Decision.......
While raising some legitimate concerns, Fram (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has also:
1. unnecessarily personalised this dispute with other users; eg with GiantSnowman, with Drmies, and with UninvitedCompany
2. assumed bad intent on the part of other users; eg with GiantSnowman
3. transferred concerns about one user to another, running the risk of demonising the former; eg about GiantSnowman with Mattythewhite.
Support:
Proposed. Many types of personality make up our community, and one user may be more forthright than another. This is no bad thing. However, Fram appears to have gotten carried away with holding GiantSnowman to account:
i. Fram appeared to adopt a "them and us" attitude about other users. I am unsure how Fram truly regarded the users whose view of GiantSnowman's conduct differed from theirs. However, edits such as these give the impression that if you were not on Fram's side then your view was worthless and your credibility questionable ("apart from Drmies, whose judgment or impartiality I seriously doubt."; "If your attitude prevails, it won't be long until we are here again, with more newbies scared off and more time wasted.")
ii. Whatever our findings about GiantSnowman's judgment, nobody contends that they acted out of anything but a genuine desire to improve Wikipedia. This comment by Fram indicates an assumption that GiantSnowman treats Wikipedia like a personal fiefdom. Such comments involve regarding other users in a manner that is incompatible with a collegial environment.
iii. At first, Fram appeared to me like a neutral party with serious concerns about another administrator's conduct. The impression of neutrality became difficult to endorse when Fram turned their attention to other users editing the same topic area as GiantSnowman. There was no basis for lumping those two users together and the passing reference to GiantSnowman was not appropriate.
The community does not condone this manner of interacting, and the hostility underpinning it seemed without excuse or explanation. As far as I can see, Fram simply found an ANI thread and proceeded to take absolutely no prisoners with GiantSnowman or any user who got in the way. This was an unhelpful distraction for a community that, at the best of times, can struggle to hold effective and focussed discussions about administrator conduct. AGK ■ 20:40, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
For those not used to Wikipedia officialdom, that is pretty harsh criticism, rarely seen when it is not simply a black and white issue of obvious rule breaking. The level of detail offered will be because these are issues of nuance and subjectivity, not black and white misconduct.
Fram is unlikely to escape here without suffering serious harm, perhaps even the ultimate sanction for an Administrator, the humiliation of being busted down to ordinary editor, since to my knowledge it would be quite easy to demonstrate Fram has been warned previously for being way too aggressive and bad faith in how he pursues his targets. While he usually dials it down a bit, it isn't usually long before he's back to his former self.
It rarely happens, and it is sad to see Fram could be the victim, but we may yet witness here a rare example of the WP:BOOMERANG actually affecting an Administrator. This is good for HTD, since for all his faults, Fram was at least effective in doing what most Administrators are too afraid to do, which is, ironically, holding each other to account, showing no fear or favour.
Basically, with Fram not doing what he does at AN/I, and Sandstein not doing what he does at AE, then those Administrators who are basically just gang leaders, with their clear favourites and their open contempt for basic policy, will have free reign. Or rather, even more than they already do. Queen Bishonen, for example. For good reason, plenty of the really worst performing Administrators, the real scum, people like Black Kite, have longed for the day when Fram could be taken out. As is typical, they were always too afraid to do it themselves, being all mouth and no trousers, precisely because they feared the BOOMERANG.
If he does get defrocked, it is open for debate whether he would stick around and take up the mantle of citizen-cop. My feeling is he would at least give it a go, before ultimately losing interest since citizen cops are easily ignored by the real Wikipedia cops, especially those with such a massive black mark on their record. For all his whining, you don't see similarly defrocked The Rambling Man actually reporting anyone, do you? He may just retreat into a niche, something like copyright, where he can cultivate a relationship with a go to Administrator to swing the axe when necessary. He definitively needs the thrill of the chase, but not necessarily the need to be the one pulling the trigger.