User talk:The Emperor of Byzantium
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Fram
[edit]Greetings Emperor. I saw your recent unsuccessful complaint at AN/I against Fram, and thought you might benefit from some extra context.
Put simply, Fram is a very notorious individual in the Wikipedia universe. He used to be an Administrator, but his often aggressive approach to what he laughingly calls mere maintenance and protection of the encyclopedia, was previously the catalyst for a major governance controversy. As in, huge. It is not called Framgate for nothing.
To cut a long story short, after attempts to get ArbCom to do something, anything, about Fram's conduct, had failed, complaints were made to the owners of Wikipedia. They tried to ban him (after proper warnings). I say try, because the volunteers of Wikipedia took great exception to what they saw as an attempt to erode the principle of self governance, and rose up in revolt. The upshot was Fram's case was handed back by ArbCom, and all they saw fit to do was remove his Admin rights.
As you can see, his behaviour hasn't really changed, only his ability to put the force of a block behind it. And you are right to have perceived his actions as unprofessional, and as if they are even personal (sadly, the are not personal, but it is indistinguishable from his habit of latching onto and pursuing his targets to the bitter end, as if he were a one man police force).
As I understand it, you were annoyed by his use of the term bizarre to describe your editorial choices. This is at the mild end of what he is capable of. It is possible your complaint would have failed anyway, simply because Wikipedia in general has a high tolerance for people who are simply rude and don't take the time and effort to be professional, and thus for example don't consider whether the user whose efforts they are insulting might take such a thing very badly (and I wouldn't be happy with that word being used about my work by someone who had never even approached me either). The aftermath being dismissed as noise about a non issue.
As bad that casual disregard for others is, the bigger issue with Fram is as you then saw, namely how he treats people with valid complaints against him. Ironically it is Fram who always takes such things very personally, and lashes out. What he said to you was frankly outrageous, beyond unprofessional, into downright hurtful, targeted abuse. Nobody should have to deal with that on Wikipedia, even if their editing does have issues. Your complaint in that regard, should have succeeded, or else everything that is ever said about what Wikipedia is, admittedly mostly by the owners, is just a lie.
But the specific failure of your complaint AN/I will sadly be less about the general culture, and will instead most definitely have had something to do with Framgate. Since at this time, the community wants no part of hearing any complaints about Fram's behaviour, lest the owners of Wikipedia be proven right, and it is shown he does need to actually be banned, rather than just demoted to regular editor (since it is beyond obvious after all this time, he can't change his ways now). For example, Floquenbeam is the Administrator who took a very loud stance in Framgate against the owners of Wikipedia, resigning in protest, and was then duly promoted back to Admin by the volunteers, to glorious acclaim, once victory had been achieved.
What you do about this, I can't really say. My genuine advice would be to simply leave Wikipedia, because someone with your interests is just going to keep bumping into Fram, and you will never get any help from the community if or more likely when those interactions are toxic. It can only keep harming you, and honestly, even if it caused serious life impacts for you, they genuinely wouldn't really care (past complainants against Fram have retired, long term and very capable editors, people clearly at their wits end, and the general attitude has been, don't let the door hit you on the way out). But I understand that walking away from Wikipedia is difficult, and would feel like you had let Fram win. But the real victory as always, is to refuse to play a rigged game, certainly when you aren't actually being paid to endure such things either.
The only other suggestion I can make, is that you email the owners of Wikipedia and outline in brief but specific terms, with diffed and quoted evidence, that a) Fram was needlessly rude to you, b) when you complained, Fram followed that up with more rudeness, a contemptuous attitude where he cast himself as the victim, and with disgusting personalised commentary focusing on your mental health, and c) even though you took these complaints to the volunteer community, they were greeted with indifference at best, agreement with Fram at worst, and d) the complaint was shut down by Floquenbeam in an apparent attempt to prevent it becoming an examination of Fram's conduct and the establishment of it being an ongoing pattern of behaviour, that has continued even after Framgate.
I can't say you will see any results from that email, and indeed, having been burned badly by Framgate, they may simply ignore it (and not even tell you they ignored it). But for the sake of all his future victims, and to reclaim your own sense of dignity I think, you should at least try, since doing nothing is most definitely how Fram has gotten away with it all these years.
At the very least, if Fram is ever rude to you again, and especially if he does anything worse than mere rudeness, don't react, don't engage on his terms. Simply acknowledge his message, request that he pass whatever issue he has with your editing to another party, and ask him to leave you alone (adding for courtesy, that you have emailed details of his interaction to the owners of Wikipedia). That should be enough to get him to leave you alone, but if it isn't, if he digs in and tries to start proceedings againt you in retaliation, that really should be the sign for you that the best thing for you is to retire. Even if the Foundation does take up his case again, it can take months for them to do anything, and if they do, there's no guarantee the community won't just rise up in his defence again.
Hope this helps.
Good luck!