So, Fram might have just killed the SignPost then? His knack for sowing division and destruction and making everything be about him, even from beyond the grave, is impressive. Not remotely the traits you'd want in an WP:ADMINISTRATOR, but I'm sure someone in the community will get around to realising that......not.
Since Smallbones is claiming credit for being so good at journalism he managed to get Rob13 and Montanabw to talk about how they feel, maybe not such a great loss?
Their pieces on FRAMBAN were poor imho. I went so far as to label it
fake news.
It's a shame however, SignPost would have been the perfect vehicle for exposing ArbCom's role in turning a potentially small drama into a full on house fire. And now, by a complete coincidence, ArbCom wants to investigate their Editor in Chief. Fancy that!
If the Wikipedia community really are an autonomous sovereign self-governing people, then wouldn't they be pretty annoyed at this rather obvious attempt by the government to shut down the free press?
Who are the Wikipedians calling for this shutdown?
Sitush
SchroCat
WBG
Mendaliv
Wehwalt
Black Kite
The Rambling Man
Dweller
SerialNumber54129
starship.paint
Beetstra
PamD
Nableezy
I mean, I know the Wikipedians are slow, but to my trained eye, this list doesn't contain one person who has ever really believed in the community as an entity, a living organism, a fragile ecosystem built for just one purpose. They're just some of its biggest gang leaders, factional fighters, most toxic citizens, and wannabe corner boys.
Future special reports on harassment would be highly likely to feature some of these scuzzballs, most can regularly be seen tag teaming to insult their fellow editors over some turf war or respekt bullshit or other.
The only surprise is they are all lining up to help en.wiki's most powerful gang, the mighty ArbCom. But hey, enemy of my enemy and all that. Classic gang logic. It is not unlike those film plots where street gangs get together to use the forces of the state to squish those whose civic duty compels them to monitor gang activity. Probably never happens in real life, but the nastiest Wikipedians don't live in the real world. Too scared to, ironically.
These fuckers in particular....
MrErnie
Capeo
Coffee Crumbs
Mr rnddude
......as well as a few prominent people in the above list, they're all actively posting on the harassment site Wikipediocracy....whose management absolutely hate the SignPost because its been producing far better investigations of what's wrong in the movement from inside the tent than that so called independent critic site.
As seen by its emissaries turning up in this matter to spout the shit the are, Wikipediocracy is just a platform for disaffected Wikipedians, the ones most unhappy at the cultural changes sweeping through the site, such as
stop being toxic assholes and
stop being dicks to women and
start writing an actual encyclopedia people want.
Kill the SignPost, you cut off one more way the community can be seduced into being better people, leaving the people who want everything to stay the same or even be rolled back to their Traditionalist version of Wikipedia as the only independent voices.
This case has the potential to become quite the witch hunt if accepted, per this astute observation......
In a way, this is almost like the original Fram ban case you have never heard -- but instead of finding out whether Fram harrassed people, you may need to find out whether saying "Fram harrassed people" is a true statement or a nasty personal attack
Not hard to see the WikiJustices demanding to know the identify of Smallbone's anonymous source, so he can be suitably sanctioned for what will inevitably be found by ArbCom to have been a nasty personal attack (because of course the Committee's private conversations that would prove it is more likely to be a true statement and therefore not a PA at all, are sealed records, not available for review by the citizenry or their independent journalists, because national security, or Daddy told me I can't share, or just plain we don't want to).
Wehwalt's reasoning is hilarious....
If we're to pretend to be a self-governing community on turf owned by the WMF, to avoid any potential of liability to our host, we should pull such things until and unless given clearance by WMF Legal.
Dweller too.....
Heading into full-fledged personal investigation, with its natural reliasance on claims and counter-claims 'for balance' is incompatible with BLP, but never mind that, and here I address you, Signpost stakeholders, not Arbcom, it's incompatible with the sense of community the Signpost should be trying to build. Totally inappropriate
Beetstra made me spit out my coffee at its level of astoundingly brash bullshittery......
This is until now the most obvious on-wiki case of harassment I have seen.
I will repeat, because this is important. ArbCom above another any other user, absolutely have a dog in this fight. Their conflict of interest is screamingly obvious. Next month's special report, assuming the printing press hasn't been seized by the government, could/should be a piece that analyses the following curious set of precedent, and how they relate to policy as precedent and the community reaction to FRAMBAN.....
* SignPost publishing an anonymous email about a pseudonymous editor - definitely probably harassment, totally worth a three month investigation, indeed, a case ArbCom absolutely has to take because the Foundation
wants them to.
* Fram/toxic community vs. LH - not harassment (has ArbCom even publicly said anything about this aspect of the reaction to FRAMBAN?)
* Fram/Black Kite/toxic community vs. MS, JS, KM - not harassment (indeed, perhaps even legitimate investigation and natural justice, if not just plain self-defence/free speech?)
* Giano/Bishonen vs. Jimmy - not harassment (or maybe even outside their
jurisdiction?)
* Or to put it another way......
It would be a real shame if the only thing Arbcom does in this whole affair is to sanction people who have tried to work out whether Fram was actually harrassing anyone. That would, in the circumstances, be pretty much the ultimate irony. The Land (talk) 19:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
I would find it highly ironic, ArbCom, if you accept this case as one concerning harassment against Fram and ignore any consideration of charges of harassment BY Fram. That would be highly hypocritical. Liz Read! Talk! 00:56, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
Open your eyes, you dumb autonomous bastards. Only some of you even get it. Not enough, per the rules of the game. You are being PLAYED for fools by your so called representatives, who have jumped right into bed with your biggest criminals to shut down a common threat to their way of life. This is literally the only part of the FRAMBAN controversy still attracting any attention, so you've got no excuse for not having read it and understood what is really happening.
Predictably, Arb. Opabina Regalia has an entirely different take on how she can satisfy the gang leaders. A case would just be too much time and effort, could potentially lead to yet more examples of how the community and their ArbCom have stood idly and indeed actively refused to investigate harassment complaints, such as in that incident sparked by the transphobic writings of Stanton McCandlish (and did all these fuckers not line up on the other side of the aisle over that issue of freedom the wikipress?).
Opabina has a better idea. In her capacity as a powerful member of the Wikipedia self-government slash judiciary, she merely wants to politely suggest to the Editor-In-Chief that maybe he got his story wrong, maybe he misinterpreted the facts, and maybe if he just tweaked it so it was right, well, there'd be no reason for
anybody to come down there to the offices of the SignPost and audit their operation for compliance with correct handling of information obtained from anonymous sources. A direct attack on their editorial independence.
This is how you
really abuse your community accrued power, Wikipedians, if you honestly can't see it. What she does in the marbled balls of ArbCom, Queen Bishonen (many of her gang listed above) does out there in the jungle. Smart power. Still entirely corrupt and self-serving, but way more effective than some of the histrionics of the penis people. They don't even have the excuse that money is changing hands, or anyone is gaining anything tangible. It is done purely for the satisfaction of knowing it can be done.
The hilarious outcome here, if it goes the way it probably will, is that when it comes to trusting people when they tell you what is wrong with the project based on private information, you won't trust the Foundation despite them being bound by any number of laws and codes of conduct, you won't trust the chief of your independent newsletter whose real identity is known (so can be sued by Fram along with the WMF, if he honestly gave a shit), but you
will trust a partly pseudonymous ArbCom that finds common cause with a pseudonymous Administrator it has previously admonished for misconduct, that have both previously lied to you (that Administrator being Black Kite, who in addition to that misconduct has also lied to the community about a returning banned user and faced no action from ArbCom for it, and this ArbCom over what they new when, in FRAMBAN).
The community will likely never be told, in a clear and transparent form, the who/why/where/when of ArbCom's role in turning what was potentially a small drama into a wild fire. But for damn sure that is even less likely if the SignPost feels ArbCom's boot on its neck.
For shame. The one thing that happens in this whole affair that would truly merit a mass strike and fundamental policy change to finally draw clear lines of jurisdiction, and you fuckers are asleep on the job. All tuckered out from endlessly screaming into the void, I guess.
