FRAMBAN, the revolution that fell apart
Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 3:59 pm
Well, it didn't take long, but it has now become abundantly clear that the sound and fury that characterized the FRAMBAN controversy, was fake news.
The Wikipedia community's insistence that they are mature and responsible enough to police themselves in all matters except the most serious (as if that caveat in of itself didn't convey a lack of responsibility), has spectacularly fallen apart in the wake of the very first example of their elected government trying, and apparently failing, to resolve a serious harassment case.
It was a simple affair between two parties, the Administrator Ritchie, and the editor Praxidicae. After a private hearing, the ArbCom resolved that both parties shall be banned from interacting with each other, while making it clear Ritchie had been the problem user. The actual result, of course, is that Ritchie has retired.
So, what have we learned?
Ineffective community processes
Yet again, this was an incident that looks like it only got to the stage of secret trials, because the community itself had manifestly failed to deal with it through the normal channels. A concerned third party had asked the community to make sure Ritchie left Praxidicae alone back in November 2018, and despite the fact Ritchie had committed serious breaches of the higher standard expected of the Administrators, nothing was done, the prospect of an interaction ban being explicitly rejected. It is highly relevant the closer was an Administrator who seems to be getting a reputation for shutting down these community investigations early, in a manner that benefits sub-par Administrators. Still nothing was done as they tangled again, the community all looking on as if what they were doing to each other was fine and dandy. It was anything but.
It seems clear that private contact with Arbcom happened around the time of the third party request, if not before, a direct result of victim's dissatisfaction with the level of protection from harassment offered by the community. The same happened with Fram. It is clear ArbCom chose to act in this case precisely because, whether before but certainly after Fram, they now accept their role is to act decisively when it becomes clear the community has failed to do so.
Low standards is the reality
As regular readers will know, Ritchie is on my radar because he's an incredibly good example of how bad you can be, and still not be considered unfit to be an Administrator by the Wikipedia community. It is incredible, the breadth and scale of his failures - from copyright to personal conduct to dispute resolution.
What's incredible is how Ritchie seems to think he's good at this stuff. He's forever blowing his own trumpet, convinced he's right, and impervious to the fact that on several occasions, the community is universal in their belief he is not, either through their silence or explicit feedback. As was the case in the underlying philosophical dispute that led to the enmity with Praxidicae.
He tried to start a revolution against the Wikipedia sister site Commons over his manifest cluelessness over basic copyright issues, and nobody on Wikipedia said a word, except to support the know nothing dufus. It's ironic that Ritchie was one of the chief critics of Fram, he just never did what the rules expect of him and actually instigated proper proceedings. He just kept sniping from the sidelines, making snide comments and veiled threats. Harassment, in other words.
Loudmouths dominating as ever
As with Fram, the public inquest into the supposed faults in how ArbCom have handled this case are being dominated by a tiny minority of loud and aggressive and mostly male editors, motivated not by any serious ethical or procedural concerns, rather by their personal friendships or their wider sociopolitical aims to actually change the procedures.
As is tediously familiar, the toxic environment of Wikipedia sees no problem with these people just endlessly regurgitating their views in this entirely unproductive fashion. Wikipedia has established processes and procedures for people who think something has gone wrong, to state their case and gauge just how much support their is for it in the community, and act accordingly. These are set aside as irrelevant. Administrators aren't stepping in to moderate or refocus, indeed many of the mob are Administrators, that being precisely the social capital required to be a loudmouth pain in the ass. As with Fram, the clear aim of the vocal minority is to just express their rage and break stuff.
Nosey parkers everywhere
Yet again, there was an insatiable thirst among the community to know every sordid detail of this dispute. As with Fram, they simply cannot accept not being told information they want to use to judge for themselves who was in the right and who was in the wrong.
The mob is adamant that this should have been handled publicly, they're saying that even though they don't even know if the parties involved wanted it to he handled privately. There can be no privacy from the mob. The own you. ArbCom has total authority to decide what is and is not handled privately, this is long standing Wikipedia policy, but the mob is no longer happy with that arrangement.
The message is clear - participating in Wikipedia comes with a price. Whatever the dispute, but especially if you end up in a dispute with a popular Administrator, everything you do and have ever done, is up for public debate. What you said, what you were wearing, whether you deserved it, etc, etc. Victims are not victims until the community has revictimised them to the point they are satisfied they were the wronged party. Which is unlikely to be the outcome anyway, since there seems to be no real acceptance that their internal governance is so poor that yes, it is actually quite common for their Administrators to be guilty of misconduct, and occasionally one is going to be sanctioned for it.
It seems increasingly pointless even assuming there is ever a time when the community will accept being told something had to be handled privately. This has become a byword for mistrust of any and all findings and outcomes that result.
Vengeance said the Lord
After initially showing some restraint, it of course didn't take long before the inquest into the secret trial turned to the matter of finding some way of punishing Praxidicae. This mirrors what happened in the Fram case, and nobody shut it down with anything except mild condemnation. The editor doing it was defiant, but despite the clear threat that they will carry on doing this sort of thing in future, they are not blocked.
Not therapy
Truth be told, Ritchie is a mental case. A proper Section 8. As he ironically saw fit to reveal in his public protestations at his perceived mistreatment by ArbCom. Like the similarly oddly feted but clearly unfit to serve, Dennis Brown, he is a middle aged white man, who seems to be using his status a Wikipedia Administrator as a crutch to compensate for a failed career and a train wreck of a personal life.
Despite both being quite open about their personal circumstances, specifically their suicidal tendencies, there seems to be no desire among anyone in the Wikipedia community to state the obvious - maybe it isn't a good idea to put vulnerable people in roles of high stress and great responsibility, relatively speaking.
No good deed
As is normal for the toxic Wikipedia community, and despite it being a total violation of their fundamental principle of Assume Good Faith, the reaction to the announcement of the interaction ban has been riven with had faith, the barbed commentary going way beyond legitimate criticism. As always, no blocks are issued, this bile is just allowed to continue for as long as the aggressors want, even when it results in conduct violations far worse than those the announcement was meant to remedy. The parallels with the Fram revolt are obvious.
As they never tire of telling people, apparently it is significant to their sense of justice that their ArbCom is made up of volunteers, i.e. they are not evil paid staff, with their secret agendas. Remarkable then, that there seems no individual or collective sense that it might be best for everyone to not make this role appear like a thankless task, where every single mistake is viewed with the maximal bad faith. Back in 2018, there were only eight viable candidates for eight seats. Quite where the optimism that there is an entire new Committee waiting in the wings to replace this supposedly failed body, is a mystery. They get the leaders they deserve.
The strains are starting to show. This Committee is already much reduced through resignations, sackings and absences, and the aftermath of this Ritchie case has seen one more say they are taking a break due to the stress, and another two openly expressing their unhappiness at being the community's punching bags.
Of course, this is just a reset to the toxic working conditions, pre-Fram. The community has always treated ArbCom this way, and as a result they have always struggled to stay motivated and feel valued, their decisions always controversial when they affect popular users.
Their own worst enemy
As with the Fram debacle, much of the ensuing controversy is down to ArbCom's own mishandling of the case, their woeful communication and their inability to predict the reactions of the horrible community they serve. The community were happy to ignore that aspect of the Fram debacle, because it didn't fit the desired narrative of the Foundation being the enemy. With no Foundation to blame this time (although it course some are still trying to claim they are the ultimate villains), they're happy to blame ArbCom for their fuckups. They didn't word the announcement properly. They were wrong to hold it as a private hearing. Blah blah blah. As one person has observed, as if these armchair quarterbacks could do any better. One of the loudest critics is of of course someone who stood for election to ArbCom as the Trumpian drain the swamp candidate, and finished well outside the running.
Fake critics
As happened in the Fram case, the supposed preeminent critic forum, Wikipediocracy, isn't highighting any of the real issues. Their forum is just awash with the same loudmouth Wikipedians, the same tendency to blame the victims, and the same instinct to protect establishment volunteers against the hated Foundation. Wikipediocracy didn't even have a thread on Ritchie until this controversy, which was not surprising, since they don't really concern themselves with exposing the misbehaving volunteers who are the bedrock of the broken Wikipedia community - many like Black Kite are actually valued members of that forum. Their only concern is the evil Foundation, because of course they're the ones really to blame for Ritchie being such a foul mouthed emotionally unstable and generally clueless figure of authority, somehow. They're not sure how, but they'll find a way to blame the blameless and shield their friends from scrutiny, it's what they do.
Abandon all hope
As a couple of the Arbitrators have observed, the atrocious reaction to this trivial matter really does hand all the momentum to those who have been arguing all along that the community is dysfunctional, their Administrators useless if not actively a roadblock to progress, and they have absolutely no legitimacy when it comes to serious matters like harassment. They call for change. Spoiler alert - there will be no change, not without further major shocks like FRAMBAN. This is their culture.
The results are in, the Wikipedia experiment is a failure. The people prepared to volunteer their time and do what is necessary to climb their social ladder to achieve the crucial positions of trust, are not the people with the necessary skills to discharge that trust effectively. They lack the judgement, temperament and attitude required. They are seriously damaged people, looking for something from Wikipedia beyond the meagre satisfaction they can offer.
And the whole consensus model where everybody is in charge just does not work. It's clear that even if they see a problem, which his debatable, individuals are scared to act, our of fear of the mob. Ritchie lasted for as long as he did because it was the done thing among the community to pretend he wasn't a problem, indeed to praise him as one of their best Administrators. They're doing it even now, as if someone could possibly serve as an Administrator after what he has done.
The Wikipedia community's insistence that they are mature and responsible enough to police themselves in all matters except the most serious (as if that caveat in of itself didn't convey a lack of responsibility), has spectacularly fallen apart in the wake of the very first example of their elected government trying, and apparently failing, to resolve a serious harassment case.
It was a simple affair between two parties, the Administrator Ritchie, and the editor Praxidicae. After a private hearing, the ArbCom resolved that both parties shall be banned from interacting with each other, while making it clear Ritchie had been the problem user. The actual result, of course, is that Ritchie has retired.
So, what have we learned?
Ineffective community processes
Yet again, this was an incident that looks like it only got to the stage of secret trials, because the community itself had manifestly failed to deal with it through the normal channels. A concerned third party had asked the community to make sure Ritchie left Praxidicae alone back in November 2018, and despite the fact Ritchie had committed serious breaches of the higher standard expected of the Administrators, nothing was done, the prospect of an interaction ban being explicitly rejected. It is highly relevant the closer was an Administrator who seems to be getting a reputation for shutting down these community investigations early, in a manner that benefits sub-par Administrators. Still nothing was done as they tangled again, the community all looking on as if what they were doing to each other was fine and dandy. It was anything but.
It seems clear that private contact with Arbcom happened around the time of the third party request, if not before, a direct result of victim's dissatisfaction with the level of protection from harassment offered by the community. The same happened with Fram. It is clear ArbCom chose to act in this case precisely because, whether before but certainly after Fram, they now accept their role is to act decisively when it becomes clear the community has failed to do so.
Low standards is the reality
As regular readers will know, Ritchie is on my radar because he's an incredibly good example of how bad you can be, and still not be considered unfit to be an Administrator by the Wikipedia community. It is incredible, the breadth and scale of his failures - from copyright to personal conduct to dispute resolution.
What's incredible is how Ritchie seems to think he's good at this stuff. He's forever blowing his own trumpet, convinced he's right, and impervious to the fact that on several occasions, the community is universal in their belief he is not, either through their silence or explicit feedback. As was the case in the underlying philosophical dispute that led to the enmity with Praxidicae.
He tried to start a revolution against the Wikipedia sister site Commons over his manifest cluelessness over basic copyright issues, and nobody on Wikipedia said a word, except to support the know nothing dufus. It's ironic that Ritchie was one of the chief critics of Fram, he just never did what the rules expect of him and actually instigated proper proceedings. He just kept sniping from the sidelines, making snide comments and veiled threats. Harassment, in other words.
Loudmouths dominating as ever
As with Fram, the public inquest into the supposed faults in how ArbCom have handled this case are being dominated by a tiny minority of loud and aggressive and mostly male editors, motivated not by any serious ethical or procedural concerns, rather by their personal friendships or their wider sociopolitical aims to actually change the procedures.
As is tediously familiar, the toxic environment of Wikipedia sees no problem with these people just endlessly regurgitating their views in this entirely unproductive fashion. Wikipedia has established processes and procedures for people who think something has gone wrong, to state their case and gauge just how much support their is for it in the community, and act accordingly. These are set aside as irrelevant. Administrators aren't stepping in to moderate or refocus, indeed many of the mob are Administrators, that being precisely the social capital required to be a loudmouth pain in the ass. As with Fram, the clear aim of the vocal minority is to just express their rage and break stuff.
Nosey parkers everywhere
Yet again, there was an insatiable thirst among the community to know every sordid detail of this dispute. As with Fram, they simply cannot accept not being told information they want to use to judge for themselves who was in the right and who was in the wrong.
The mob is adamant that this should have been handled publicly, they're saying that even though they don't even know if the parties involved wanted it to he handled privately. There can be no privacy from the mob. The own you. ArbCom has total authority to decide what is and is not handled privately, this is long standing Wikipedia policy, but the mob is no longer happy with that arrangement.
The message is clear - participating in Wikipedia comes with a price. Whatever the dispute, but especially if you end up in a dispute with a popular Administrator, everything you do and have ever done, is up for public debate. What you said, what you were wearing, whether you deserved it, etc, etc. Victims are not victims until the community has revictimised them to the point they are satisfied they were the wronged party. Which is unlikely to be the outcome anyway, since there seems to be no real acceptance that their internal governance is so poor that yes, it is actually quite common for their Administrators to be guilty of misconduct, and occasionally one is going to be sanctioned for it.
It seems increasingly pointless even assuming there is ever a time when the community will accept being told something had to be handled privately. This has become a byword for mistrust of any and all findings and outcomes that result.
Vengeance said the Lord
After initially showing some restraint, it of course didn't take long before the inquest into the secret trial turned to the matter of finding some way of punishing Praxidicae. This mirrors what happened in the Fram case, and nobody shut it down with anything except mild condemnation. The editor doing it was defiant, but despite the clear threat that they will carry on doing this sort of thing in future, they are not blocked.
Not therapy
Truth be told, Ritchie is a mental case. A proper Section 8. As he ironically saw fit to reveal in his public protestations at his perceived mistreatment by ArbCom. Like the similarly oddly feted but clearly unfit to serve, Dennis Brown, he is a middle aged white man, who seems to be using his status a Wikipedia Administrator as a crutch to compensate for a failed career and a train wreck of a personal life.
Despite both being quite open about their personal circumstances, specifically their suicidal tendencies, there seems to be no desire among anyone in the Wikipedia community to state the obvious - maybe it isn't a good idea to put vulnerable people in roles of high stress and great responsibility, relatively speaking.
No good deed
As is normal for the toxic Wikipedia community, and despite it being a total violation of their fundamental principle of Assume Good Faith, the reaction to the announcement of the interaction ban has been riven with had faith, the barbed commentary going way beyond legitimate criticism. As always, no blocks are issued, this bile is just allowed to continue for as long as the aggressors want, even when it results in conduct violations far worse than those the announcement was meant to remedy. The parallels with the Fram revolt are obvious.
As they never tire of telling people, apparently it is significant to their sense of justice that their ArbCom is made up of volunteers, i.e. they are not evil paid staff, with their secret agendas. Remarkable then, that there seems no individual or collective sense that it might be best for everyone to not make this role appear like a thankless task, where every single mistake is viewed with the maximal bad faith. Back in 2018, there were only eight viable candidates for eight seats. Quite where the optimism that there is an entire new Committee waiting in the wings to replace this supposedly failed body, is a mystery. They get the leaders they deserve.
The strains are starting to show. This Committee is already much reduced through resignations, sackings and absences, and the aftermath of this Ritchie case has seen one more say they are taking a break due to the stress, and another two openly expressing their unhappiness at being the community's punching bags.
Of course, this is just a reset to the toxic working conditions, pre-Fram. The community has always treated ArbCom this way, and as a result they have always struggled to stay motivated and feel valued, their decisions always controversial when they affect popular users.
Their own worst enemy
As with the Fram debacle, much of the ensuing controversy is down to ArbCom's own mishandling of the case, their woeful communication and their inability to predict the reactions of the horrible community they serve. The community were happy to ignore that aspect of the Fram debacle, because it didn't fit the desired narrative of the Foundation being the enemy. With no Foundation to blame this time (although it course some are still trying to claim they are the ultimate villains), they're happy to blame ArbCom for their fuckups. They didn't word the announcement properly. They were wrong to hold it as a private hearing. Blah blah blah. As one person has observed, as if these armchair quarterbacks could do any better. One of the loudest critics is of of course someone who stood for election to ArbCom as the Trumpian drain the swamp candidate, and finished well outside the running.
Fake critics
As happened in the Fram case, the supposed preeminent critic forum, Wikipediocracy, isn't highighting any of the real issues. Their forum is just awash with the same loudmouth Wikipedians, the same tendency to blame the victims, and the same instinct to protect establishment volunteers against the hated Foundation. Wikipediocracy didn't even have a thread on Ritchie until this controversy, which was not surprising, since they don't really concern themselves with exposing the misbehaving volunteers who are the bedrock of the broken Wikipedia community - many like Black Kite are actually valued members of that forum. Their only concern is the evil Foundation, because of course they're the ones really to blame for Ritchie being such a foul mouthed emotionally unstable and generally clueless figure of authority, somehow. They're not sure how, but they'll find a way to blame the blameless and shield their friends from scrutiny, it's what they do.
Abandon all hope
As a couple of the Arbitrators have observed, the atrocious reaction to this trivial matter really does hand all the momentum to those who have been arguing all along that the community is dysfunctional, their Administrators useless if not actively a roadblock to progress, and they have absolutely no legitimacy when it comes to serious matters like harassment. They call for change. Spoiler alert - there will be no change, not without further major shocks like FRAMBAN. This is their culture.
The results are in, the Wikipedia experiment is a failure. The people prepared to volunteer their time and do what is necessary to climb their social ladder to achieve the crucial positions of trust, are not the people with the necessary skills to discharge that trust effectively. They lack the judgement, temperament and attitude required. They are seriously damaged people, looking for something from Wikipedia beyond the meagre satisfaction they can offer.
And the whole consensus model where everybody is in charge just does not work. It's clear that even if they see a problem, which his debatable, individuals are scared to act, our of fear of the mob. Ritchie lasted for as long as he did because it was the done thing among the community to pretend he wasn't a problem, indeed to praise him as one of their best Administrators. They're doing it even now, as if someone could possibly serve as an Administrator after what he has done.
