Quite clearly, Fram was told to stay away from a user named LauraHale (in March 2019) - to avoid any interactions with her or her content completely. Essentially, it's a restraining order.
So what did he do for him to get a Wikipedia "restraining order" against him?
AND... he broke that restraining order by mentioning her in some comments.
I mean, this isn't some statement about "banning all assholes" so much as action against a single person who refused to stop harassing another person.
Fram has also clashed with LauraHale who is the girlfriend of the WMF chair and has made noises about going to the Trust and Safety people before. No one knows if WMF chair was recused from decision to ban Fram. Pretty much everyone sees an obvious conflict of interest.
I'm not sure there's any solid evidence that she's the girlfriend of the WMF chair - that mostly seems to be a salacious rumor. However, there does seem to be evidence that the WMF chair and Laura Hale directly worked together over at Wikinews on the same topic area that Laura Hale and Fram ended up in conflict over on Wikipedia (sports in Spain). That seems like a better thing to focus on than juicy gossip.
The only solid evidence is that Fram used the word "fuck", as that was the diff provided to him. Everything else, including the incident with LauraHale or any potential relation between her and WMF is just speculation people are rushing into in order to find an explanation to WMF action.
This is why the Open Letter is so elegant written. It does not speculate. It addresses the core issue which is the lack of solid evidence and community process.
I have no idea either. Thinking about it though, maybe there is a corollary to Hanlon’s Razor “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”: Never attribute to stupidity what is adequately explained by conflict of interest.
I will not post links for obvious reasons, but it definitely seems like Laura Hale and Maria Sefidari are close, looking at some pictures of them together that are relatively easy to find on the Web.
Ah, that makes a lot mote sense, thanks - and I wouldn't describe that as being Wikipedia's Linus. (Linus's known public behavior, at least, does not include singling out an individual for harassment.)
But then it re-raises the question of why community governance couldn't handle this, since the worry of the existing community leadership being assholes themselves doesn't apply. Banning users from harassing other users, and enforcing it, seems like a good chunk of what ArbCom already does, no? If WMF wants to take this role, that seems likely beneficial and fine (to me, as a non-Wikipedian observer) but shouldn't they coordinate with ArbCom?
(Also, they should say that, because there are now a dozen other theories of what Fram did, as you can see from these comments, the open letter, the BuzzFeed News article, etc. If you punish someone for X and don't say X was the offense, you're wasting an opportunity to dissuade others from doing X.)
Very much so. Normally, such a restraining order would be issued through community governance; this one was from the Wikimedia Foundation, which itself was an unusual step. Also, I don't think there's any evidence of Fram breaking it?
Edit: To whoever downvoted me: The WMF T&S team (which banned Fram) did not say what was Fram banned for, neither was there any actions against him before the Arbitration Committee, there were not even any public complaints. What is happening to Fram on this thread is unjustified lynching.
I don't think "lynching" is a reasonable term here to describe being banned for a year from editing a single Wikipedia instance, even if the thread were not mostly leaning in favor of Fram as it is. TFA makes it clear that they didn't say what he was banned for and that there's no public info.
It is not literal lynching (as in throwing stones at a person), but I am not the first to use the word in that manner. Substitute lynching for character assassination, if you will.
He was told (in 2017 and 2019) to completely avoid interacting with her and her content. The notice Fram posted himself was quite clear - don't report her content, don't edit her content, don't interact with her in any way.
That's quite serious. How does someone get a warning like that from WMF?
Your comment is problematic for responding to because it is not clear if it is asking a question (and which question) or is it trying to say something between the lines. But I will try anyway:
Essentially you are trying to say that Fram is a harasser because he got a warning from T&S. But that is not how T&S works. They (as far as is publicly known) react to any reports of misbehavior with (without investigation) trying to deescalate the situation by asking to stop interaction between concerned parties. Usually this only applies to Wikimedia staff, contractors, participants at Wikimedia events, etc. The fact that Fram even got a "warning" from the T&S is quite damning for T&S because they usually do not meddle in such stuff as was happening between him and LauraHale (for the uninitiated, she was writing a lot of, let us say it bluntly, crap articles and edits [0]; and he was, as a good editor, trying to fix those edits repeatedly), because of the implicated power that you can have over the Wikimedia communities by knowing someone on T&S and/or the Board.
[0] She was writing duplicate paragraphs and mistranslating from a language she does not speak in an absurd manner.
Edit: I deleted unfounded speculation I made against LauraHale. Sorry.
Cherry picking lines out of context. A poor counter-argument.
The statement before the one you posted was quite clear. Do not interact with her in any way. At all. Nothing. Don't even contact other admins and ask them to do it.
Then why did they clarify specifically that this was not an interaction ban.What was the purpose of both lines if they thought Fram did harass her and thus wanted to impose a interaction ban?
The problem with the accusation of cherry picking is that I don't have an issue if you would include the full text. In context it is pretty clear that what they wanted was to prevent any further friction between the two editors. If they thought it was harassment and they intended to issue a punitive action then they would have done that. WMF is quite cable to call out harassment without needing to wrapping it up with false statements of "To be clear, we are not placing an interaction ban" and "We remain convinced that it was not intended to intimidate or make her feel uncomfortable".
> who do not know anything about the case calling him a harrasser.
I know what I've been told by WMF, which is that he was a harasser and that en:wiki failed to stop his harassment.
I know also what I've read in the fram-gigantathread, where a bunch of admins describe him as kind of an asshole, and say that it's being going on for years, but then go on to excuse that because he makes a lot of edits.
> I know what I've been told by WMF, which is that he was a harasser and that en:wiki failed to stop his harassment.
There is another thing wrong with your comment: how could the English Wikipedia community attempt to stop Fram's alleged harassment if no harassment is known. Whether you want to sanction someone or just improve that someone's behavior, you have got to give an indication of what is wrong with their behavior.
> I know what I've been told by WMF, which is that he was a harasser and that en:wiki failed to stop his harassment.
> told by WMF
No comment.
> I know also what I've read in the fram-gigantathread, where a bunch of admins describe him as kind of an asshole, and say that it's being going on for years, but then go on to excuse that because he makes a lot of edits.
The truth doesn't matter anymore, they think we won't remember that time they joined in the free-for-all to say whatever terrible thing possible about the guy.
There is a war on between the truth and the sensation of the high horse.
"Fuck ArbCom which doesn't even understand their own messages and again give themselves powers they don't have. First it was deletions, then it was mandatory 2FA, inbetween it is loads of evidence of utter incompetence in many of its members (witness the statement by AGK above, but also some of the comments at e.g. the Rama case request). Just crawl into a corner and shut up until the community asks you to do something within your remit, but don't try to rule enwiki as if you have the right and the competence to do so. Or collectively resign. But don't give us any more of this bullshit. [[User:Fram|Fram]] ([[User talk:Fram|talk]]) 07:39, 4 May 2019 (UTC)"
So what did he do for him to get a Wikipedia "restraining order" against him?
AND... he broke that restraining order by mentioning her in some comments.
I mean, this isn't some statement about "banning all assholes" so much as action against a single person who refused to stop harassing another person.