Post
by CrowsNest » Sat Sep 21, 2019 9:50 pm
Not the most compelling of judgements.
They should have spent more time before the case really thinking of all the ways this could go badly.
Rejecting it was never an option, they couldn't have got away with that, the angry mob would not have stood for it.
Although to be fair, even I am surprised that the publicly submitted evidence didn't even come close to matching the depth and breadth of the private dossier, which is what has really screwed them.
They said it a million times, the dossier is not dodgy, it was a serious piece of work done by people who knew exactly what they were doing. And it said ban. No way to argue that was incorrect, except this rather embarrassing admission by the village elders that yes, the community doesn't really view harassment as harassment, and if the Foundation could find a way to be cool with that, they would be really doing them a solid.
Of course, many in the community do know what harassment is, and that is what got this Foundation process rolling.
In hindsight, it is obvious why people probably didn't put much effort into submitting public evidence - for some that would have been the third or even fourth time they've had to make the case Fram is unfit to serve, and with no guarantee it was going to be taken seriously this time. Arguably merely dresysoppong, in sure knowledge there's a good chance the horrible community will just give it right back to him, is a not very serious response from the people who are supposedly there to provide leadership and guidance and above all, uphold policy.
And although ArbCom said they would protect people's privacy, between their history of leaks, and with Wikipedia Administrators openly calling for leaks in the external harassment site (which should have led to a ban), which was already busy ripping to pieces people based on mere supposition, with Fram's enthusiastic help, I can see why people would be reluctant to take the risk.
There is a delicious irony here. The Foundation took action because they felt ArbCom and the community had already shown itself incapable. They screamed back that they were All Growed Up and They're Not Their Real Daddy Anyway, so the Foundation unwisely let them review their decision. And yet here we are with a pretty weak case, where they can only really partly blame the Foundation, the primary reason it is so unconvincing, is that ArbCom and the community really just can't (and in many cases won't) deal with these highly valued but seriously problematic users properly.
I mean, the clue is right there. If you have to announce a review into how the community handles harassment and private evidence as part of the outcome of a case which supposedly reviewed a charge of harassment based on private evidence, it is obvious someone put the cart before the horse and came up with a sheep.
