User talk:Sphilbrick/Fram

New Breitbart article

Hi, Sphilbrick,

Adler has written a follow-up article "Wikipedia Owners Back Down on Ban of Veteran Administrator Following Editor Revolt" dated 15 July. It's on www dot breitbart dot com at /tech/2019/07/15/wikipedia-owners-back-down-on-ban-of-veteran-administrator-following-editor-revolt/

Would you like to add it to your list? (I know it's technically allowed, but I don't feel comfortable editing others' user space directly.)

Cheers, Pelagic (talk) 20:54, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I would oppose doing that. Adler was banned from Wikipedia by the Arbitration Committee "for continuing harassment of other editors" and then ended up being banned from Wikipediocracy for pretty much the same thing. He discovered that Breitbart would give him a forum and that Wikipedia editors who don't know the whole story will introduce links to his words. It is the most creative method of block evasion I have ever seen, but it is still block evasion. See WP:BLOCKEVASION.

His previous Breitbart article and the current one harasses a WMF employee with unproven accusations of wrongdoing. That alone makes linking to it a violation of our BLP rules. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:09, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Pelagic, Well, this turns out to be mildly interesting, at least in terms of thinking through some of our internal rules.

Let me start with an informal one. I'm not aware of any written rule that says Pelagic should not edit an item in my user space without permission. In fact, some other editors have made some changes to the table. That said, those instances been rare, and I think it is an unwritten rule that one does not edit someone else's user space unless specifically invited. I certainly adopt that position and don't believe I've edited someone else's use of space without permission (with the exception of removal of copyrighted material and possibly some attack pages). However, user space, while being technically "public" is typically not as visible as this particular item.

I hadn't seen that article, so I think you for bringing it to my attention. Real life has intervened and I haven't been as active in the Fram discussion as I was earlier.

I see that Guy Macon opposes inclusion. If I am reading correctly there are two separate rationales for opposing inclusion. The first is WP:BLOCKEVASION. I think this is a reference to a proxy editing allegation although I appreciate some correction if I'm misreading it. I think this fails for at least two reasons. I suppose we could ask Pelagic whether they were specifically asked by TD Adler to do this, although even if the answer is yes, this is still a moot point, as Pelagic isn't making the edit but asking me to consider doing so. (Is there such thing as proxying by proxy?) However, at the risk of doing a little wiki lawyering, the prohibition is on "post[ing] or edit[ing] material". There is no discussion about posting the contents of the article, but simply pointing to the article, as an example of discussion in pulications about this incident. I guess we can debate whether acknowledging the existence of an external article constitutes posting material, but I don't think that qualifies in any substantive sense.

As an aside, I will note that the earlier article by TD Adler was not posted as a link, although that's because the site was blacklisted. I know something was changed – I think it was a specific white listing of that specific article, but I suspect I would follow the same approach and include the title without a link.

The second issue is the allegation that this article and the previous one constitutes harassment of a WMF employee. Is this a reference to María Sefidari? Given the prominence of the issue of harassment to this whole subject I want to steer clear of anything that could be reasonably construed as harassment, but I'm not seeing anything that remotely qualifies as harassment. If anything, the article notes in a positive way her commendable decision to recuse yourself from the proceedings. Is there something else I missed?

Speaking of missing things, I am more concerned about the details involved in the kerfuffle about the signpost article. I'm being deliberately vague but I don't think there will be any misunderstanding of the subject matter. I didn't see anything new, but once someone starts talking about outing people who attempted to be anonymous, I'd like to make sure that my knowledge of the screen names and real life name is sufficiently public that this article isn't providing anything new to anyone who's paid attention to this issue.

I am leaning toward including this not because there's anything new in the article but because it is relevant to know what affects of this incident are being discussed in outside publications. I'm going to hold off for the moment on the chance that I'm missing something with respect to

1. the proxy argument,
2. the allegation of harassment, or
3. the possible concerns of outing. S Philbrick(Talk) 15:42, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion, the WMF employee who has been accused should not have been named in the above comment. Please consider whether there is a compelling need to give the actual name.

Proxy:

Reasonable arguments both ways. My opinion is still that The Devil’s Advocate is banned and thus we should not link to anything he writes, but I can see how a reasonable editor could come to the opposite conclusion.

In particular, the statement at the bottom of both Breitbart articles containing the phrase "He was banned after..." is completely at odds with the stated reasons that ANI then Arbcom blocked him and took away his talk page access, as well as contradicting the evidence presented in that case.

Our policy on proxy editing does specify being specifically asked by the banned editor to edit on his behalf, but in practice ANI has held that if a banned editor posts something off-wiki (most of them do it on twitter, Reddit, Wikipediocracy, youtube, or some other site that allows anyone to write anything, so the analogy is not perfect) and a Wikipedia editor decides to link to it, that link may be removed (but I don't recall the editor ever being sanctioned). The usual removal comment is something like "banned is banned" or "proxy block evasion". Again, I can see a reasonable argument that disagrees with my opinion on this.

Harassment:

From the first Breitbart article: "Members of Wikipedia criticism site Wikipediocracy dug into [name redacted]’s background and found she had a close personal relationship with [name redacted], [WMF job description redacted], and alleged they were romantic partners. After editors raised the potential conflict of interest, [name redacted] denied any role in the ban and compared those suggesting it to GamerGate, the anti-corruption movement in gaming falsely branded as a harassment campaign by the left-wing press. This inflamed several editors and members of Wikipediocracy..."

From the second Breitbart article: "[WMF job description redacted][name redacted], who was accused of personal ties to someone alleged to have complained to the Foundation about Fram..."

I strongly contend that these accusations, which originated with an anonymous comment on Wikipediocracy (possibly created by a sock of The Devil’s Advocate, who is banned from Wikipediocracy) are harassment, and I strongly Oppose linking to them. As an aside, if anyone has actual evidence that the accusation is true, I encourage them to contact Arbcom privately and let them see the evidence.

Outing:

If we are taking about whoever the unnamed persons who accused Fram are I see no evidence of outing. The situation with the WMF employee seems to me to be more like harassment than outing.

Re: "it is relevant to know what affects of this incident are being discussed in outside publications" in my opinion this could be accomplished by mentioning the two Breitbart articles, noting the ban of the author, and giving a synopsis of what the articles contain. I see no compelling reason to add the exact title or the URL.

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:48, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Part 1 - how I got here

Wow, I'll need to digest all this in small chunks. It's the end of a work day for me and I'm feeling a little unfocused. Please forgive that I won't be answering every point all at once. I'll hold back the pings until I get home and wrap my head around what's written.

But I do want to clarify one part straight away ...

No, I don't know Adler and he didn't approach me. His byline about-the-author-line in the articles says that he is a former wikipedian, and he does seem to have some sour grapes, but I didn't know about whatever circumstances he left in and didn't care to trawl through old Admin or Arb cases to find out.

What's relevant is that it's a "news"-style article with at least the veneer of journalistic presentation published at an outlet with wide(?) readership. When I see all this argy-bargy blowing up around us, then of course I'm interested to see what the outside world makes of the situation. I don't expect the coverage to be unbiased or even accurate: just the fact that it exists is significant.

I don't hang out on Wikipediocracy and yet haven't sought out any of their materials about the Fram situation. There's already enough on-wiki here that it's near-impossible to keep up.

I didn't discover the first Adler/Breitbart article from this list; I saw it mentioned in the long wall of talk somewhere. The writer said it couldn't be linked because of the spam filter, so I had to Google (or Duck or Bing or whatever) it. The web search also brought up the newer second article as a hit. (There's an irony here that the lack of a direct link caused me to find additional "unsavory" material, but let's not go into that.) I found Sphilbrick's list after finding the articles, and thought "this new one's not listed yet, might let him know about it".

No ulterior motive, no plan of pushing a specific narrative.

— Pelagic (talk) 08:13, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Part 2 - thanks, excommunication, name is not shame

Thank you both S Philbrick and Guy Macon for your considered words. [That's not quite the expression I was looking for, but it will have to do.] Sorry if the previous part-reply was expressed emphatically, but I felt myself going from a naïve "hey, lookee, new article!" to suspected proxy meatpuppet quite suddenly. It is an interesting question about our community rules: how thoroughly must we excommunicate an expelled member, lest we become an unwitting proxy for their taint? I'm tempted to return to that, though it deserves a wider audience than here. I suspect I disagree with Guy on several aspects; I do appreciate the acknowledgement that there are reasonable arguments both ways.

As to the article harassing, outing, or improperly naming certain people, Guy "strongly contends" yes but I would say no. Reasons to follow.

— Pelagic (talk) 12:05, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Pelagic, I also had additional thoughts but I do have some outside errands for the next few hours, so I'll simply thank you for clarifying that you were not contacted by TD Adler. As you can see, this issue is a bit more complicated than you originally realized. Guy make some points that deserve careful consideration and I'll try to do so later today. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:31, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Sure Sphilbrick, no hurry. This has already turned into way more than I intended. I was honestly coming from an angle of "hey, a squirrel! ... what, you have problem with squirrels?" Pelagic (talk) 13:31, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Part 3 - it's out there [e/c]

It might not be the Truth, but it's certainly not the secret X-Files (Arbcom has those). María, Katherine, and Laura had been discussed at great length on-wiki before these media articles appeared. [I'm not meaning to imply a personal familiarity by using their given names; I'm aiming for something that's more humanizing than surname or job title. And, where I come from, first name is preferred (for address not reference) in all but the most formal situations, so it doesn't feel a great stretch to refer by first name.]

María and Katherine have high-ranking positions in a high-profile organisation; their identities are on record. It's no more improper for a journalist to name them than to name any other CEO or Chair(wo)man of the Board.

The only one who was outed was Laura, and the articles didn't mention her name.

Generally the articles reflected what I had already read. I didn't notice the bit about Gamaliel on first pass, and I missed seeing the Signpost article before it was deleted, so that part went over my head. I do feel much wiser to learn that GamerGate is "the anti-corruption movement in gaming falsely branded as a harassment campaign by the left-wing press".

The articles may have a slant (what doesn't?), but they were summarizing what's already out there. I don't see that as damaging.

— Pelagic (talk) 13:21, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

It is harassment to claim without evidence that someone at the WMF improperly influenced a T&S decision because of a romantic involvement. It is still harassment even if somebody else did it first. It is still harassment even if the person being harassed has a high-ranking position in a high-profile organization. Simple human decency calls for us to not call any further attention to this unproven and harassing accusation by a banned user who was banned for previous harassment. And I really wish you would stop naming the person who is being harassed. You can make your points without doing that. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:55, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

With respect, Guy, we may have to "agree to disagree" on several points. I don't think for me to make counter-arguments or further defend what I've written above will be productive. — Pelagic (talk) 03:13, 31 July 2019 (UTC)