Nebraska Dave News and Reviews

Our old friend T.D. Adler (a.k.a. The Devil's Advocate) has posted a long Twitter thread about some recent happennings over at Wikipedia that's starting to make waves. Here's the short version as far as I understand it:

• In a unprecedented move, the Wikimedia Foundation breaks protocol by imposing a ban on a veteran administrator named Fram in spite of his spotless record and do so without giving any explanation or presenting him with the option of appealing their decision.

• This doesn't go over well with the Wikipedia Community, who enjoy their autonomy, and leads to an open confrontation between the Wikipedia admins and the Foundation. Some quit in protest while others reverse Fram's ban in defiance, knowing full well that they'll be (temporarily) stripped of their own admin privileges as well. There's talk of going so far as to ban the Wikimedia Foundation's own Wikipedia account (even if it's largely a symbolic gesture).

• It's established that Fram has a history of criticizing the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee.

• The female chair of Wikimedia Foundation responds to people from Wikipediocracy looking into her connection with the only known complainant against Fram, Laura Hale, invokes the sexism card while supporters of the ban start making claims that the Wikipedia community has a toxicity problem, thus invoking the GamerGate Defense. This doesn't go over well with Wikipediocracy since they hate GamerGate and doxxed two of its supporters years ago.

• Turns out that Fram once got Hale sanctioned for her shoddy contributions to Wikipedia, specifically questionable translations that she ran past a user name Raystorm, a member of the Wikimedia Foundation board whom she appears to have been romantically involved with at some point. (Now why does that sound familiar?)

Anyway, this entire situation is turning into a massive clusterfuck and new developments are always forthcoming.

Breakdown: Censorship +2, Official Socjus +1, Related Politics +1