Topic on Project:Village Pump

Topic closed: Fram didn't care about sysop flag and it was removed; Tim established that pages at Project:Requests have to be used.

On 30 September, Fram was engaging in disruptive edits to Visual editor/status after being warned, and I locally blocked him for a day. His edits after the block, while not as disruptive, clearly demonstrate that he has a POV to push.

Despite all this, MZMcBride thought it was a good idea to give admin rights to this user, when there was no consensus at all in favor. I talked to some other users on IRC (User:Rschen7754, User:Emufarmers, User:Jorm (WMF)) and all were universal in their opposition to this action.

Therefore, I requested a reversal of this action, but MZMcBride defends his action. I still believe it to be improper and I strongly believe the community will concur with me.

I obviously reiterate my concerns here, as I did at m:SRP#Fram@mediawikiwiki.

De-sysop Fram; de-sysop and de-crat MZMcBride.

And desysop Jorm for issuing a topic ban and threat of indef block without any justification, despite repeated requests to do so. I think it is high time that some people from outisde the current MediaWiki admin pool take look at the culture and standards here, and the total lack of civil communication and editor engagement (by most, not all, people involved in this). The current approach of "I"m an admin, I can do whatever I want and block at a whim without the need to justify my actions", coupled with a total lack of policies, guidelines, new editor guidance, ... makes this basically an in-crowd place only, instead of an open wiki, where intruders and critics are very poorly treated.

I don't plan to take any admin actions here in the foreseeable future, for what it's worth.

The previous comment can be taken as evidence that Fram is definitely not suitable for adminship here.

The justification was simple - disruption had to be averted.

No, Jasper Deng, that's not the justification (or this place is even worse than I thought). I was blocked for a few edits (and my talk page access removed without good reason). Correctly or not, done is done. The next day, after my block expired, I made two posts, one on the talk page of Status, to which Jdforrester eventually replied (in an adult manner, actually discussing the contents and looking at the merits or lack thereof), and one on my own talk page. Which of those gave cause to think that I would disrupt MediaWiki? You and a few others seem to have the policy that people here hardly get a first chance, and never get a second chance. What's the point of a one-day block if you are going to topic ban or indef block the editor anyway, no matter how he acts after the initial block has expired?

It's not as if I was some run-of-the-mill vandal with nothing to contribute. You didn't like the way I expressed my points, fine, I get that by now. I didn't like the way I was treated either, big deal. But I made basically correct, pertinent remarks about VE which all the people engaged in the blocking and silencing tried very hard to ignore, and if that doesn't work they want to topic ban me from discussing VE. For what reason? If you can't handle criticism, don't work at a wiki. But I fail to see how silencing the one person that found actual problems will in any way or shape improve VE.

Well, I'll just put it bluntly: you've been already told why your edits are disruptive, whether you like it or not.

I thought a one-day block was enough, but your comments after the block were the reason for Jorm to ask for you to refrain from editing.

Given your agenda, I really do not have faith in your judgement here.

If you want a second chance, act like you deserve one.

Jasper, of the two edits between the expiration of my block and the issuing by Jorm of the topic ban and threat of indef block, which one was disruptive, and how? Was the edit to my own talk page "disruptive"? My, then you are very easily disrupted. So I suppose it was the edit to the status talk page? What was disruptive about it? That it wasn't all laudatory but asked some uncomfortable questions? I hope that that is still allowed here... My "agenda", as you call it, is to have correct information. When you know that an official communication contains errors, then some kind of rectification should be issued. If you don't like my version, fine, suggest another one. But burying your heads in the sand by shooting the messenger may be comfortable inside MediaWiki, but will only weaken your (WMF, devs) position outside it.

Continued incivility was an obvious one - incivility is not excused by incivility. Continuing intent to disrupt was another.

As for the "correct" information, that's not the purpose of Visual editor/status. Do you think it's appropriate to edit a set of official release notes?

Where in those two posts do you see a "continuing intent to disrupt"? You made it clear that I was not to edit the status page, so I posted to the talk page instead, as requested.

But I do love it that correct information is not the purpose of the official release notes. Then what is? PR?

Suggesting that those edits should've been included anyways and telling another user to "fuck off" is what gave me that impression.

The release notes summarize what developers did for that particular release. It does not say how the community reacted to it.

Where in those two posts between the block expiration and the topic ban and indef block threat by Jorm did I tell anyone to "fuck off"?

And the release notes should summarize what the devs did, but if they incorrectly summarize this, like in this case? It is not "status says X, but community wants Y", it's "status says X, but software does notX"

I'm talking about your reply to Jorm.

Release notes are called release notes, not feedback notes, for a reason.

That's what I thought. So, basically, you also admit that there was no justification or reason for Jorm's post? Or how should I interpret your (and everyone's) reluctance to point to the problems in my two posts that actually caused Jorm's post? Claiming that my reaction to that post was justification for that post is actually supporting baiting, which at least on en-wiki is heavily frowned upon. Is it accepted here?

"release notes are called release notes, not feedback notes, for a reason". Thanks for that non-answer. First of all, where are they called "releaes notes"? They are status updates. When a status update is incorrect, why is it seemingly impossible to either correct the update or publish a new one with corrections? Apparently it is completely unreasonable of me to expect you (MediaWiki) to publish correct or corrected information. Let's just, for the sake of argument, accept that the status update is sadred and should never be edited. Why hasn't anyone proposed to add e.g. "Status report MWv19, corrected version"? Is it really such an unthinkable idea? What is so bad about informing people who will receive a software update tomorrow about what will and what won't work in it, contrary to what was first announced? You prefer to keep them in the dark? I really don't get your position here.

I think Jorm also considered your behavior during the block. In any case, I will repeat myself one more time and not once more: thinking that you can get away continuing the kind of behavior you were blocked for is simply... bad.

I honestly am not involved in the development process, but I view the status updates as release notes and comments by developers on that release... from that perspective, it's bad to edit others' comments.

And this is why I still think you're intent on causing disruption here to existing processes.

Yes, I got that you and others consider it bad to edit other's comments, even if those are incorrect, unsigned, unprotected "comments" on a wiki. I thought it was supposed to be a correct page, like a user guide or FAQ, which people normally are allowed to edit.

But, which for some reason you don't seem to get it, I didn't edit it again after my block expired. Instead, I went to the talk page to discuss things there. Changing my approach and taking into account comments and the block is now considered evidence that I was continuing the kind of behaviour that got me blocked, and that I was intent on causing disruption to existing processes? Has it ever crossed your mind that I was actually intent on causing improvements to existing but clearly faulty processes? And that, after the block, I tried to find a way to do so that was acceptable?

From Project:Requests: One thing to keep in mind is that unlike most Wikimedia sites, this site is controlled by the MediaWiki developers, not its own community.

I suppose that means this thread is moot? :-) I don't think anyone currently involved is a MediaWiki developer.

It's technically incorrect. Consensus of the community governs everything. It's just that only developers tend to hang out here.

I got a bit involved in the discussions afterwards. Fram should definitely be de-sysopped and we should seriously consider revoking MZMcBride's bureaucrat flag as well.

It would be helpful if you could provide a rationale for your views.

I think as long as we're making outlandish proposals, we should add "fire Jorm" to the list. :-)

All the users to have commented here so far (myself included) are involved. It makes it difficult to gather an accurate assessment of the situation, for sure.

Fram is an English Wikipedia administrator in good standing with over 148,000 edits. He seems to be a bit frustrated with VisualEditor (aren't we all), but I don't see any reason to de-admin him or de-crat me. This is a tempest in a teapot. Chill out, y'all.

Jasper: in many cases, if you tried IRC, then you tried the stewards, then here, some on the English Wikipedia might call this forum-shopping. I don't think this is accurate, but it has the appearance from the outside, I think.

I never mentioned this in a public chat room, only via PM soliciting others' opinions as to whether I would be right in requesting removal.

Asking stewards to do it was the next step after consulting the users. It's nothing bad.

MZMcBride: I think you're just playing blind to our concerns about Fram's editing here. Someone who runs for an RfA the day after a block will not have a snowball's chance in hell.

Fram is an admin in good standing on the English Wikipedia with over 148,000 edits.

Do you have any reason to believe Fram will abuse the admin tools? If not, what is your issue? Is this punitive?

Adminship on English Wikipedia doesn't mean anything here and you know this. You've granted sysop right to a user who was blocked less than 24 hours ago for incivility and who has less than 20 edits on this wiki. How can you possibly think that this was a good idea, and how can you possibly defend the idea that you are not trolling the user base? Seriously, dude, this is beyond the pale.

It seems kind of strange to me that you were super-aggressive in posting to User talk:Fram and yet you seem shocked—shocked—that Fram might respond by being defensive.

Skimming through User talk:Fram, it seems like bullying on all sides. If we're going to allow admins to behave like this, I see no reason Fram should be excluded.

Honestly speaking, I think Jorm's comment, even if harsh, was justified.

Note that I do not particularly have a problem with being defensive. What I do have a problem is doing so incivilly.

Yes. I feel he would use his access to cause more disruption - I like how he won't do retaliatory blocks, but I fear, because of his gross misunderstanding of how this wiki works, that he will improperly use the access.

Simply put, he's not trustworthy. In fact, him being a sysop on enwiki should never alone qualify him for adminship here. His behavior on the English Wikipedia is also deplorable and in my opinion, unbecoming of an admin anywhere.

Like what? There really isn't much damage you can do on this wiki with the admin toolset, as long as you aren't intentionally being malicious (like trying to nuke everything).

Well, I'm afraid Fram would do exactly that.

I also imagine he would use adminship to advance his disruptive agenda or excuse his incivility.

Jasper, I may be annoying and blunt, but I'm not a vandal. Why would I try to nuke everything (or even only VE or something)? As for "use adminship to excuse incivility", isn't that what people like Rschen did?

I don't like assuming bad faith, but bluntly put, that's our impression. How am I not supposed to believe you will use your status to further your disruption?

Let me ask you: do you really think that if this was the English Wikipedia and you ran for RfA, you'd pass given your current circumstances? This wiki may be different, but the same basic standards for adminship do apply here.

It's hard to judge the standards here for anything, since nothing is written down apparently. And what do you mean with "current circumstances"? If this was the English Wikipedia, I would never have been blocked, I wouldn't have had my talk page access removed, I would have been allowed to edit pages with incorrect information, and I wouldn't have been repeatedly accused of trolling. Would I pass RfA now? No idea. Then again, you are an admin here but your RfA failed on en-wiki, so I fail to see how you can argue that the same basic standards apply, or that someone who wouldn't be an admin there shouldn't be an admin here...

I don't think you get my point (and I hate discussing RfA).

My point is, do you really think your behavior is becoming of an admin?

I don't think anyone's behaviour on my talk page was becoming of an admin.

I don't like saying this, as I'm not an outside viewer, but I believe Jorm's, my, and Rschen7754's comments were all up to admin-level expectations, with the possible exception of calling your edits "trolling". Jorm's warning may seem harsh, but he believed he had to do that to prevent you from doing further disruption. On the other hand, you were extremely combative and incivil, denying that your block was justified - it really had the appearance of en:WP:IDHT.

And the total lack of any of you to actually discuss the merits of my post was not a case of IDHT? "You are disruptive, you are disruptive, lalalalala, I can't hear you". Did any of you, at any moment, try to engage me in a civil, normal discussion? Or did you all come rushing in with pitchforks? Even when I return after my block and edit calmly, civilly, and constructively, I get a topic ban, threat of indef block, and an added "trolling" stamp. If that are admin-level expectations here, then you shouldn't have any fear that I will be an even worse admin.

Rschen7754 at least tried to by asking you to stop, even though "trolling" isn't optimal.

You did not come back to edit "calmly, civilly, and constructively". You were back with the same vendetta you were blocked for.

Given that you clearly aren't listening, and that this is irrelevant to the point at hand, I will not discuss the block any further. After all, Jorm's actions are his actions, not mine.

It is generally expected that you gain experience on any wiki before becoming an admin there. There are plenty of English Wikipedia admins who wander over to Test Wikipedia, Commons, Meta, Wikidata, etc. and expect to automatically get sysop there, just because they hold adminship on the English Wikipedia. They regularly fail RFA, and rightfully so.

The block issue aside, I am unconvinced that Fram is familiar enough with how this site works to retain the admin flag. I obtained my adminship here because of my participation in m:SWMT, and I'll admit that I don't know as much about this site as I do about the other Wikimedia sites I hold +sysop on. But I know enough to stay away from the areas that I have no expertise about.

I don't see that happening with Fram: he has already tried to interfere in an area that he knew very little about, and I see little reason to think that he would not continue to do so in the future. (See also my talk page on enwiki.)

Which area did I know very little about? The status of VE? The faults in that latest status report? The lack of any action when I communicated through the normal channels? I seem to know more about it than all the people who flocked to my talk page. But then again, that's probably the reason that all of them ignored the contents of my edits.

Thanks, I now better understand why you acted here the way you did. It is clear that you came to this with prejudices instead of looking at it neutrally and impartially, like an admin should.

Actually I didn't. Remember, I sympathize with those who hate VisualEditor. And initially I wasn't sure about what stance to take. But I came to the conclusion that your edits were disruptive and required a block to prevent.

I did not talk to anyone on IRC before the block (except Rschen) and when I did talk to others on IRC afterwards, it was to basically obtain a review of my action from others, in absence of a local admin noticeboard.

Yes, I asked you to get such an independent review and you kindly did, that's a thing I appreciate.

Personally, I'd like at least sysop flag changes to be briefly discussed (even just for few hours) or notified after-the-fact on a RfA subpage, so that comments like this by Jasper Deng can take place there; however, this is not policy or even guideline as far as I know (didn't check) so we can't blame the bureaucrat. To the contrary, I didn't like to know of this complaint from Meta: in absence of such a local page, questions should have been asked on the bureaucrat's talk page.

On the merits: I've only seen Fram's name in some self-reverted edits of the last few days on pages I watch, but I see he or she is a 2005 user, presumably sysop since a few years ago, with a clear block log and no flamewars on their talkpage than I can find in less than a minute (I only see a talk peak in November). Considering that we have plenty of local sysops without any experience of the tools usage, 40 sysops without less than 10 actions ever and 67 without edits in the last month, I'm having some problems convincing myself that I should be bothered by this specific flagging (and I'm trying).

This said, I don't really like anyone getting sysop flag on this wiki with less than, say, a couple hundred edits to show experience with the local customs and/or a specific need, so I'd appreciate if Fram could clarify if the flag is actually wanted and roughly why. I read above "I don't plan to take any admin actions here in the foreseeable future"; but of course 1) log actions are not the only reason to have a flag and 2) experienced sysops typically end up getting some experience editing etc. and then helping a bit on any wiki they have the flag on, as byproduct: both things that should make us happy, for the good of this wiki and the activity happening on it.

*sigh* what a mess. As someone uninvolved who's been hearing the *ping* *ping* ing of this discussion going on. And ended up reading this discussion, skimmed Fran's talkpage, contribs, Rschen7754's talkpage, the Project:Requests page, the SRP page, and the initial edit in question. I'll point out a little perspective on what I've read.

((I'm a little slow at writing conversational prose so I'll post this first))

Firstly I want to make this straight. MediaWiki is not a cited Encyclopedia like Wikipedia, it is a documentation wiki for the MediaWiki software and other documentation relevant to it.

Now first, the edit in question. Status updates on projects are essentially messages/comments from the team, they're essentially 3/4 the same as a talkpage message by a user (the 1/4 difference being you might fix some spelling and grammar in a status update you'd usually leave alone in a talkpage comment). They are someone else's words, you do not edit those words to say something else. The original edit was unwarranted. And quite frankly, I can't believe adding something like "There was no time for basic testing, but we'll let the different Wikipedia language versions do that for us." would fly even on en.wp.

On the SRP, I'd like a citation for the claim "For perspective, bureaucrats can grant sysop rights ad-hoc on this wiki, without a RfA; one chose to do so, which is how this happened.". The Requests page talks about there being no formal policy on what prerequisites are required of an admin. But there is an informal RfA process in use right there. And I don't see anything to suggest that a non-dev can have a single 'crat +sysop them and expect it to stick around. Especially not when 2 sysops and 2 'crats object to the +sysop.

For that matter the "One thing to keep in mind is that unlike most Wikimedia sites, this site is controlled by the MediaWiki developers, not its own community" quoted in this topic has been removed from it's context, "Being a developer (someone with commit access who uses it to maintain code that runs on Wikimedia sites) automatically entitles you to at least administrator status, and a long-time developer won't find it hard to become a bureaucrat. If you're not a developer, [...]" on Project:Requests.

Fram is not a MW developer. I see no rationale for him being able to bypass the RfA process. And objections from existing 'crats and sysops sound like a good enough rationale for a -sysop to remove the granted +sysop.

From that same Project:Requests page: "That said, there aren't really any formal policies on what's required: you just have to convince a bureaucrat. Use common sense―if you're trustworthy and your services are in need, there's no reason not to promote you to administrator at least, but don't ask for administrator without giving a concrete reason (unless you're a developer). Being personally known to a developer or having administrator or higher status on a major Wikimedia project are two ways to be deemed trustworthy."

Apparently I have convinced a bureaucrat (without asking for it), so I have met the requirements. And I do have administrator status on a major Wikimedia project (en-wiki); so the final part is met as well. Being trustworthy isn't being infallible, as shown by me and the admins that posted on my talk page.

This doesn't mean that I need to keep the sysop flag or that it can't be overturned, but using the Requests page to argue that I incorrectly have gotten the flag is ignoring those parts of that page that make it clear that the actual granting of the flag was perfectly acceptable.

That entire block the paragraph you quote starts with "Use this page for requests for: [...] Promotion (to administrator, bot, bureaucrat, etc.)". It's a block describing the Project:Requests page and the RfA process. The paragraph on convincing 'crats and administrator status is entirely within the context of convincing 'crats reading an RfA. There is nothing written there saying that a single 'crat can bypass the RfA/consensus process on that very page – where in this case other members of the community would have undoubtedly objected.

[show] [edit]

Use this page for requests for:

• Renaming
• Promotion (to administrator, bot, bureaucrat, etc.)
• Anything else bureaucrats are needed for (is there anything?)

Any new flagging to +sysop should have an associated subpage here, except for staff and well-established volunteer developers, where a developer is someone who has had changes accepted to the MediaWiki core or a MediaWiki extension where the total number of changed lines in the relevant whitespace-insensitive diffs exceeds 100.

One thing to keep in mind is that unlike most Wikimedia sites, this site is controlled by the MediaWiki developers, not the other users in this community. Being a developer (someone with commit access who uses it to maintain code that runs on Wikimedia sites) automatically entitles you to at least administrator status, and a long-time developer won't find it hard to become a bureaucrat. If you're not a developer, you do have to give some good reason to get any privileges; you should not expect to ever be made a bureaucrat; and if you are, you might want to stick to renames and leave promotions to developers. Something like a third of administrators and a quarter of bureaucrats are non-developers, however, so it's not like you shouldn't bother asking.

That said, there aren't really any formal policies on what's required: you just have to convince a bureaucrat. Use common sense―if you're trustworthy and your services are in need, there's no reason not to promote you to administrator at least, but don't ask for administrator without giving a concrete reason (unless you're a developer). Being personally known to a developer or having administrator or higher status on a major Wikimedia project are two ways to be deemed trustworthy.

Asking for transwiki or bot is fine without demonstrating that you're trustworthy, since those can be revoked/reverted at will and don't do much anyway.

And as for this logic of meeting the requirements:

• Did you miss the part saying "don't ask for administrator without giving a concrete reason"
• That whole thing is about the "common sense" of convincing bureaucrats reading your RfA that you deserve to be an admin. Having multiple 'crats object to your adminship doesn't fit in any common sense I've seen.

Btw, we've rejected RfAs from admins on other WMF wikis before. A few I can find.

• Project:Requests/User rights/Brunoy Anastasiya Seryozhenko
• Project:Requests/User rights/.snoopy.
• Project:Requests/User rights/JoanneB

"For perspective, bureaucrats can grant sysop rights ad-hoc on this wiki, without a RfA; one chose to do so, which is how this happened." Well, this is a defacto practice; whether it is the ideal solution of course can be debated. See Special:UserRights/Billinghurst, Special:UserRights/Legoktm, and Special:UserRights/Krenair for examples. (The extra log entry is because Billinghurst accidentally desysopped himself on Meta with steward tools when running a spambot check, and MZMcBride restored the rights).

Got any prior cases by someone other than MZMcBride? A single bureaucrat acting one way doesn't make a de facto policy that can justify that one 'crat doing the same thing over and over.

In any case, I'd like to see this "de facto" practice cease. It's completely hypocritical to give some non-devs an immediate +sysop while other non-devs with practically the same background (actually some even better than this case) get rejected in the RfA process Project:Requests/User rights/Administrator.

Well, one of the cases above was Reedy...

I would be fine with requiring all requests to be on wiki, though it's not up to me, of course.

Could you clarify. Were you saying that one of the +sysops Reedy performed on a non-dev went in without an RfA?

Reedy's +sysop itself was because he's a committer.

Special:Log/rights

As a long-standing admin on this wiki, from my admittedly brief glance through this thread, I don't really see what all the fuss is about.

The people calling for a block and a de-sysopping have made pretty much zero attempt to justify their reasons in this thread. It seems that Fram behaved inappropriately, was punished, came back having (apparently) learnt his lesson. The slate should therefore be wiped clean. Any call to de-sysop or further block him must be based on inappropriate behaviour that has taken place since he was unblocked. So far, despite repeated requests from Fram, no-one has provided any evidence of any inappropriate behaviour since then.

What happened to assume good faith?

The fact that there were even calls to de-crat MZMcBride - a very long-standing community member - is further evidence that this issue has been made into a slightly hysterical witch-hunt!

I support MZMcBride's decision and - so long as Fram continue to behave appropriately - I don't see any problem with welcome his constructive contributions to the wiki, nor his admin status.

The problem is, I do not think Fram has learned his lesson. Furthermore, less than 24 hours is not enough evidence to show it to the point where he can be given administrator access. He still, in my opinion, shows signs of intending to do what he was blocked for.

Call this a witch hunt, but I find this a violation of core wiki principles - consensus. The reason why I'm calling for a de-crat is because MZMcBride has, in the past, shown a systematic disregard for this rule, giving advanced permissions as if they were candy, not always to users I'd fully trust with them.

I'm not, however, calling for another block of him for now, unless he really becomes extremely disruptive again.

"I do not think Fram has learned his lesson". As I said - why not assume good faith? That is how our community works.

Personally, I doubt very much that someone who is "an English Wikipedia administrator in good standing with over 148,000 edits" is going to do anything stupid, like nuking pages. Why would he do that? It would mean an immediate ban from all WMF wikis, I should expect. "I'm afraid Fram would do exactly that", you said, but without any evidence that it was even remotely likely. The way you are handling this whole situation reaction seems completely over the top, and the fact that you make such strong, unfounded allegations about another wiki user is a cause for real concern.

After the block, Fram immediately went to the talk page to request that his edit basically be reinstated, and he made a nasty reply to Jorm on his talk page.

His being an admin on the English Wikipedia does not automatically mean he is trusted here, because this site works differently from the other.

My opinion is that he will continue to pursue a vendetta against VE, as evidenced by his replies here. Judging from how he reacted to my block, I simply cannot rule out the potential for him to abuse the tools - in a manner like, for instance, deleting the status page.

It doesn't have to be direct tool abuse. Giving him sysop sends him the message "what I'm doing is OK and in fact desirable" when in fact I cannot rule out the potential for future disruption from him.

Regretfully, I find myself in agreement with what Jasper has said here. There is evidence that the lesson has not been learned, and Jasper just provided it.

I must have missed that evidence. Which pages have I disrupted after my unblock?

"After the block, Fram immediately went to the talk page to request that his edit basically be reinstated" Diff? Quote? I did no such thing. I requested that people finally looked at the edit and commented on the contents of it, and for that reason posted on the talk page. I literally asked: " which ones are completely or partially incorrect, and why? And why can’t the correct bits not be included, before this release reaches most other wikis?" Asking for commentary and scrutiny, not a request to put it simply back.

"and he made a nasty reply to Jorm on his talk page." Well, yes, what do you expect. You come of a block, try to take into account the comments you got and to act as requested, and you immediately get someone topic banning you, threatening with an indef block, calling your edits trolling, and then asking you to be "respectful" and "civil". I'm sorry, but I can't stand hipocrisy and unwarranted bullying. He still hasn't bothered to justify his remarks here or at my talk page.

As for my "vendetta" against VE, can I just quote my talk page on en-wiki, a barnstar I received in July:

"You deserve about a hundred of these. Fram, thank you for doing so much work in finding and reporting problems with VisualEditor. I wish I could do something more useful in a practical way, like make "Bug found by Fram" be a Bugzilla priority status that outranks all the others, but for now, thank you: thank you for your diligence, for your kindness about reporting irritating problems, for your clear reports, and for your patience while they get fixed. Whatamidoing (WMF)"

I'm trying to help, but I don't blindly support VE or accept incorrect PR statements. I would never delete the status page though, if that's what you are worried about. My "disturbing" edits were out in the open and easy to revert, not an attempt to silence the other side. Oh wait, that seems to be an admin thing here for some...

What's this? No matter how bad you feel, you have no right to be rude and uncollegial, and it says a lot about your patience and judgement.

I do not at all care about what barnstars you received on enwiki. It's irrelevant. The evidence I have to judge you by is your edits here.

Well, my en-wiki status is relevant when it suits you, but not when it doesn't suit you? Right... So you had decided, just from my few edits here, that I had a vendetta against VE? You didn't take into account any edits I had made on en-wiki? And you didn't expect me to know the unwritten and apparently different standards that exist here because I am an experienced en-wiki editor?

Anyway, what about that post you link to is so problematic? Uncollegial? Towards whom? As for patience, this is an urgent issue that had been ignored by many people, including you, for many days. But still, I simply posted my opinion. I didn't edit it afterwards to complain about the delay in getting a response or anything similar. So now making a single post to that talk page, after having been said that that was what I should have done in the first place, is evidence of my patience and judgment? Can you perhaps try to indicate what I should have done after my unblock that could possibly have pleased you? Grovel?

No. I expected trust from you but that does not mean you are automatically trusted. My two uses of your status on enwiki are not incompatible.

I saw your edits to en:WP:VisualEditor/Feedback, and I'm not convinced. In those comments you clearly didn't know what you were doing with the status page, bluntly put.

I see no problems with the linked edit. Jasper - Are you sure you are approaching this issue with due objectivity?

I am obviously not completely objective because I was the blocking admin.

But I find it problematic because it says a lot about his potential to disrupt. The edit would've been reverted if it were itself improper, but I think it says a lot about his general attitude, which I think is disruptive.

Again, I'm not seeing that in the diff you posted. There is nothing in it that draws me to the conclusion that this is a trouble-maker. In fact, the contrary - it seems like a reasonable and constructive post:

• "I made some suggestions in one place, but they seem to be ignored."
• "I am therefore re-posting them in a new location in the hope that someone will take note."
• A number of constructive comments about VE, including test-cases.

Surely, that is the kind of feedback we should be encouraging?

Oh of course I would've not thought this was disruptive by itself if it were his first edit here.

But when making this inference, I synthesized his edits before and during the block. I would've thought he would've long dropped the stick on this.

But no, I see that he is intent on getting his way here and I have no confidence in that.

Again I think we have to agree to disagree because my opinion is one that also takes into account his overall tone towards this and synthesizes it with that edit, while yours seems to always consider the edits in isolation.

Not in isolation (though, to be fair, you provided it as a link in isolation), but perhaps without the baggage that you bring to the situation.

Why was he blocked? For editing where he shouldn't? For the use of bad language? As far as I can see, he has learnt his lesson and neither of these has resurfaced.

It is therefore completely legitimate for him to continue pursuing the same topics as he was originally interested in. We aren't trying to muzzle him, are we? Just to make sure he pursues his interests in a way that is acceptable to our community - and in that post, it appears that he is doing so.

I'm not sure what 'his way' is, but if it is to improve the accuracy of our documentation or software, then that is a good thing, in my opinion. You may disagree with what he is saying, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be allowed to argue his case!

Yes I can confirm that he was blocked for those two offenses.

But his comments here have been less than civil and I just cannot assume he will not attempt to force his edit onto the VE page ("his way"). It's OK for him to argue the case but it also means he hasn't dropped the stick and is likely to repeat this in the future.

I'm not arguing the legitimacy of this edit in and of itself, but the long-term trend it signifies, at least to me.

"I just cannot assume he will not attempt to force his edit onto the VE page"

Why not? That's exactly what we mean by assume good faith!

Personally, I severely doubt that Fram would force his edit onto the page, particularly after this hullabaloo! He may well argue for changes to be made, but that is fine and to be encouraged.

The page in question is hardly un-watched, so even if your fears turned out to be true, it's not as if he could sneak it in under the radar.

Given that we have already established that this whole incident has taken place within "the span of 48 hours" I'm not sure we are in a position to talk about long-term trends! Perhaps there is a stick that you need to drop, too?

This I think is our fundamental disagreement.

Really, I concurred with Jorm that he is basically doing this in bad faith.

The bottom line is that you absolutely cannot rule it out and therefore, he cannot be trusted with adminship.

I've known Fram for longer than this particular incident, and given his past history on enwiki, I'm very skeptical. The history I talk about includes this.

Now you are contradicting yourself:

> I do not at all care about what barnstars you received on enwiki.
> It's irrelevant. The evidence I have to judge you by is your
> edits here.

So, are we taking his standing on enwiki into account, or not? If we are, then surely his barnstars, adminship and 148000 edits are also relevant?

No.

My evidence has primarily been on this wiki, but the reason why I referenced something on enwiki is because it, unlike everything else, affects this, because it says a lot about his attitude (while his adminship and barnstar say zilch).

I'm going to have to get some much-needed sleep now. My final comment will be that I find it extremely incredulous that anyone would even consider giving a user blocked for such disruption so recently any position of trust.

I'm not sure you can cherry-pick like that when you're making judgements about someone's character.

Have a good sleep - hopefully a bit of rest will put things into perspective. :-)

Jasper Deng wrote: "His being an admin on the English Wikipedia does not automatically mean he is trusted here, because this site works differently from the other."

Surely assume good faith means that *everyone* should be trusted here, until proven otherwise. I accept that Fram's behaviour may have given you reason to mistrust him, and I accept that standing on other wikis is not very relevant to decisions made based on behaviour at this wiki, but I find it worrying that your initial position is that people should not be automatically trusted!

"My opinion is that he will continue to pursue a vendetta against VE, as evidenced by his replies here"

As an impartial observer, who has read all the comments in this thread, I see no evidence of a vendetta, or even of uncivil behaviour. I see a lot of aggressive talk from the people who want him blocked, but his responses all seem to have been reasonable. Note that I am talking about this thread only - I have not read any other communications, where he may have acted inappropriately. However, purely based on this thread, it appears that you need to take a step back, cool down, and approach the issue afresh.

Rschen was not initially asking for a block when he made the first comment on Fram's talk page. Fram's comments immediately before my block were also very obnoxious and combative.

His vendetta is to get that "correct version", which I think is quite obvious given his edits to the talk page of the visual editor.

I'm not limiting my evidence to this thread. To give Fram credit, he has been much more collegial when replying to this thread, but I still dislike his general attitude and I cannot have any faith in it.

Sadly, I've seen quite a few English Wikipedia admins who have been blocked on other Wikimedia sites.

That is not my point at all. How many English WP admins have you seen who have nuked other wikis?

I will not give a direct count or examples (because that would humiliate the admins in question), but this is more than an isolated incident. It shows that adminship on one wiki != trust on another.

That is not what I am saying.

"The slate should therefore be wiped clean." Maybe in a different circumstance, but not when the entire cycle has taken place in the span of 48 hours.

A 24-hour block takes 24 hours, and therefore the slate should be wiped clean when the block is lifted, after 24 hours.

No. Just no. That's not at all how it works. When I blocked him, the message is not "you can't edit for now but you will have a clean slate in 24 hours". It is "you can't edit because you were disruptive, and hopefully this will be enough to prevent further disruption." The key word is "hopefully". My block does not guarantee a "clean slate". It does not rule out the possibility of future disruption. Whether he gets his act together is his choice, not mine.

"My block does not guarantee a "clean slate". It does not rule out the possibility of future disruption. Whether he gets his act together is his choice, not mine."

Agreed. By 'slate wiped clean' I mean that you should assume he has got his act together, until there is evidence to the contrary. I do not mean that prior issues should be ignored if further problems come up. Basically - assume good faith!

My original point is that it seemed, from this thread, that after the block there were calls to further block Fram based on his actions from before the block, without any evidence of misbehaviour since the block was lifted. Basically, it appeared that some people were attempting to punish twice for the same crime.

Then I think we have to agree to disagree here, because I think the expiration of the block is his chance to prove that the disruption will not occur again, which I do not think he has demonstrated.

I will repeat that I'm not seeking a re-block for him. I was not the one who asked for another block and I agree that double punishment is simply improper. But I think his comments here cannot allow me to assume good faith with his actions. Basically what you're asking for is for us to pretend as if the block didn't happen at all, and I'm unfortunately just not OK with that.

To me, that sounds like an additional good reason to follow HappyDog's wise suggestion and his note that there is a bit of hysteria here (confirmed by other small signs like ). I think we can freeze all this and revisit the issue in a week.

That would be fine if I thought this were an isolated incident. Some admins on enwiki passed RfA while technically being eligible for an edit warring block.

But I simply think otherwise.

I don't think it's at all appropriate to give someone sysop rights if they've been blocked recently. It is my opinion that Fram's rights should be removed.

A few points:

• Can everyone please calm the fuck down?
• This is a wiki run by MW developers. According to the long-standing tradition, devs are flagged immediately upon request while others have to demonstrate the need in this flag, as well as prove that they will be helpful, not harmful with admin tools.
• From looking at Fram's contributions, I see no countervandalism, cleanup work or anything else that would justify the need for admin tools.
• "Trusted user" is not a reason for sysopping, it's merely a statement that the crat trusts the user being promoted.

+1 to calming the fuck down. The wiki won't blow up if we don't address this immediately.

I find MZMcBride's action in granting Fram sysop status quite bizarre. It is clear to me that Fram does not need the sysop tools here.

Users coming here from English Wikipedia should keep in mind that most editors of this wiki want to spend the least time possible fussing with bureaucracy and more time actually editing whatever it is that needs to be edited, so they can then get back to coding (or whatever else) as soon as possible. Policy may not always be codified - that means you need to spend time getting a feel for the community norms before beginning to make potentially controversial edits. Consider having a look at meta:Bigwikithink (although perhaps that page is too antagonistic for some people's taste).

Implicitly and explicitly saying "we trust you" is a cornerstone of Wikimedia wikis.

Ah, drama! That's exactly what MediaWiki.org is for...not.

Some thoughts on this matter from someone who's been around for a long time and considers themself somewhat senior developer (in case if you're wondering, I'm talking about myself here):

• RfA process/page is, if not an enwiki-ism directly, at least horribly silly. When I first started out here — back in 2007, when there was no LiquidThreads, VisualEditor and the WMF had considerably smaller amount of staff — things were somewhat different. I was quite literally a nobody back then, and with only 29 edits under my belt, I requested admin rights from Rob Church on his talk page. And whaddya know, he granted me those, "out of the blue", as some might say. Like it or not, that's the way this should work in my opinion because this wiki is not and never will be the English Wikipedia. So please take your bureaucratic, drama-filled nonsense somewhere else.
• VisualEditor is one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion on, no matter if they've tried it out or not. That's okay. Fram's edit to the VE status page was badly worded and not appropriate, but again, frustrated people can sometimes do irrational things. It's life, and this is a wiki, so nothing's set in stone and everything can be reverted, as was done here.
• I don't think that Fram was acting in 100% bad faith, trying to harm someone. I have no doubt that VE and its bugs, quirks and other oddities can be annoying, but complaints and feedback about such issues — especially regarding deployment of said software on WMF servers and WMF-operated sites — don't belong to the status update page; these comments belong to the appropriate talk pages and maybe on the inboxes of people "in charge" — for the WMF, these people would be wmf:Staff and contractors, especially the management-level people. I'm sure that while many developers might disagree with the management, they just can't override such decisions because it's not how the world, nor Wikimedia nor Wikipedia, works.

It is my most sincere wish that we ("we" as in "every person reading this and who knows what VisualEditor is") can iron out the bugs and other oddities in VE so that MediaWiki can finally have a working WYSIWYG-ish editor before 2040. For this to happen, even criticism is required. But criticism of the Wikimedia Foundation's political decisions should not take place on a technical wiki's mostly technical page.

Finally, I want to say that for the time being, I don't see any reason for deopping Fram and/or MZMcBride. Sure, maybe the sysopping action took place in the wrong time, but mistakes happen. Fram, however, is an English Wikipedia administrator and should he want to help out here, he's more than happy to. If these kind of conflicts happen in the future, then we may need to consider a different approach, but for now, "live and let others live".

Except, you were in no standing to say "we trust you" because "we", being the whole community, is not supportive of adminship here.

Just because others were given sysop early doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, and I do not like how his adminship on the English Wikipedia is being used to justify adminship here, given how clueless he acted upon his initial arrival here.

It seems like a particular odd way to become an Admin, like a Bishop laying hands on a priest and, Boom!, they become a Bishop.

Don't Editors become Admins on this wiki through consensus? Isn't it inappropriate to give a user tools to use while they are blocked?

Despite Fram's insistence that he won't use tools, he also never asked to become an Admin. So, I can't figure out why MZMcBride took it on himself to grant him this status while there was a heated discussion going on on his Talk Page about whether or not his behavior warranted a block. The timing of this decision is bizarre, it's almost like From was being reprimanded and given a reward at the same time.

This post was posted by Liz, but signed as Nwjerseyliz.

If anything the restraint Fram has shown in light of the responses/handling by Jorm and Jasper Deng in particular does show that he indeed can be trusted (and learns from his mistakes). I'm not entirely sure why McBride opped him in the first place since he really doesn't have much of a need for the tools, but whatever the case, if he doesn't have them and really winds up needing them later he can always just request sysop then.

That said, I would hope that MZMcBride, Jorm, Jasper Deng, and Rschen7754 can also reflect back on this and try to avoid contributing to such an unfortunate situation again.

"I'm not entirely sure why McBride opped him in the first place": I am! MZ tries to grow the community of this wiki and we should be grateful for that, we all know it's a rather high priority. +1 on Jack, in particular "should he want to help out here, he's more than happy to".

A bit off topic, but there are other ways to grow the community besides giving out admin rights here and there

And besides, it is not fair to people who have asked for rights and who have been turned down. For example, Project:Requests/User rights/AGK, who at the time was a sitting member of ArbCom on enwiki, also holding CU and OS. If Fram was given rights with only sysop, shouldn't AGK have been given sysop too?

I do not think giving Fram adminship here is a net positive for the community. If we really don't want this wiki to become enwiki-like (a view I share), the last thing we should be doing is giving adminship to users like Fram.

This is the most useless discussion this page has ever seen. A troutslap for everyone please.

Just a comment from a passerby... @Fram: You can help all the rest of us not to waste the time here, by asking to be desysopped yourself. You said you won't need it. Just relinquish it and we can continue our lives. (Plus shows that you don't have any "evil" intention of bringing armageddon to this wiki)

McBride, for whatever odd reason/timing for his decision, should at most warned, and not desysopped.

Since the reason Fram snapped was because of his action being called "trolling" which immediately turned his action into incivility, the case should be seen in light of the background/provocation. He wouldn't have snapped if not provoked as "trolling" at the first place.

That said, I'm not like going to watch this topic or anything. Off to sleep.

I have reversed Fram's promotion to sysop since it is clear from this discussion that there was no consensus in favour of that action. I have no comment on whether Fram would be a valuable sysop. MZMcBride and other bureaucrats: please follow an RFA process in future and not to do any more ad-hoc sysopping actions, except for staff and well-established volunteer developers. MZMcBride, please indicate whether or not you accept this policy.

Okay.

Can you clarify how to define "developers" within "well-established volunteer developers"?

Someone who has had changes accepted to the MW core or an MW extension where the total number of changed lines in the relevant whitespace-insensitive diffs exceeds 100.

That sounds like it would just encourage an equivalent of editcountitis, pointless bureaucracy even enwp hasn't adopted - like saying "you must make blah content page edits to be a 'content contributor'". But what if they start pages, or do files, or do dispute resolution or npp so that other folks can make content? There are many, if not more, parallels here that go well beyond line count in what makes a developer, because there are many pieces to the development process - such as code review, bug triaging, feasibility testing, rfcs, and mockups, to name a few random things. Line count is an essentially meaningless metric by itself, especially if you are looking for developers who are well-established in the general community.

I agree. If someone is offering to help the community, and needs admin rights to do this, then I'm not sure how the community benefits by making them jump through hoops in order to get them. Some users would inevitably be driven away by this, which is a clear negative, and I haven't seen any arguments about what positive benefit this would bring? This is a wiki, after all, so surely in the very rare cases when a newly appointed admin causes problems, we can just de-sysop them and revert their changes, like for any editor who behaves badly.

Why do we need added bureaucracy, and haggling over exactly how many characters of non-white-space data a person has edited? What actual problem are you trying to solve here?

> I have reversed Fram's promotion to sysop since it is clear
> from this discussion that there was no consensus in favour
> of that action.

I'm not sure there is a consensus against it either. Why not give Fram the benefit of the doubt?

He does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Consensus here was clearly against adminship (about 2/3 of users against it - it is not fair to allow the dissenting 1/3 to filibuster this). This is especially relevant given that 50% opposition to a sysop is enough to remove his/her access on Wikidata, a project that is usually lax with adminship (although RfAs are obligatory for all). Given that Fram has no need for the tools, there's no reason to give them to him.

We already have enough sysops for the most part, so I feel like we do not need to at all relax our requirements. I would have a laxer stance if local bureaucrats could desysop, but because they cannot, an error (like this one) would require sysadmins or stewards to be involved, creating tons of unnecessary drama. If desysopping were much more trivial (not requiring the involvement of stewards or sysadmins), then I would be much more willing to agree with you, although I think this is an extreme case that either way was not a proper sysopping. If adminship should not be a big deal, desysopping should not be, but desysopping currently is (the proposal to allow -sysop for 'crats did not pass).

If people have to jump through hoops for adminship, I think they should - not at the level of enwiki, but a block for incivility should be an automatic disqualification for adminship, especially when it is so fresh.

To be fair, I do not exactly agree with Tim's particular requirement, per Isarra. But I feel like RfA-less sysoppings (can) cause needless drama when applied to non-developers.

Considering Fram explicitly stated he had no need for adminship, I'm not sure it really matters that he was desysopped - yes, that may not have been the best reason to do so, but it also doesn't really seem worth worrying about at this point since as much as anything else there's also no consensus that he can't just request it later if needed.

As it is this matter should probably really just be closed since further discussion seems to only serve to encourage further unhelpful argument from involved parties.

Yes, I would invite this thread to be closed. You can do it if you'd like.

I'm not saying you can't be an admin if you haven't contributed 100 lines of code. I'm saying that if you're a bureaucrat and want to make someone a sysop without following an RfA process, and for personal reasons can't deal with interpreting imprecise statements like "well-established volunteer developer", then go count lines or something. Maybe it's stupid, but that's what MZMcBride asked for.