Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram: Difference between revisions

*{{comment|Note:}} <s>One of my personal concerns is the bigotry displayed in someone related to WMF making a comment {{tq|...suggesting that Belgium has no culture...}} (per the email). This could have easily been rectified by WMF doing an internal investigation, but according to the email this was never done. Seriously, that is not okay. >:/ {{EC}}</s> &#8211;<span style="font-family:CG Times">[[User:MJL|<span style="color:black">MJL</span>]]&thinsp;[[User talk:MJL|‐'''Talk'''‐]]^{[[WP:WikiProject Connecticut|☖]]}</span> 20:02, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

*:I'm striking my statement until we know more. [[mailarchive:wikimedia-l/2019-June/092829.html]] gives me pause. {{ec}} &#8211;<span style="font-family:CG Times">[[User:MJL|<span style="color:black">MJL</span>]]&thinsp;[[User talk:MJL|‐'''Talk'''‐]]^{[[WP:WikiProject Connecticut|☖]]}</span> 20:33, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

*I would absolutely say that's related. I think it goes very much toward showing that this is not an isolated mistake, but rather may be indicative of a substantially deeper problem within T&S and perhaps the entire WMF. Especially serious are the allegations that the WMF sanctioned someone at least in part because he stood close to people to compensate for a hearing impairment, and mistreated people who had autism. (The latter especially hits home; I'm autistic myself.) If those things are true, they violate not only the WMF's own stated policy of nondiscrimination, but very possibly the law. In the US, that would be the [[Americans with Disabilities Act]] and many concurrent state regulations, and I'm sure European countries have analogous regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability. The fact that Trust & Safety did not apparently see fit to investigate and follow up on these very serious concerns show that this may not be an isolated instance of misjudgment, but rather point to a serious problem with the leadership and culture of that team (and makes a mockery out of any idea of them attempting to mitigate potential legal problems). Anyone who has been in management ''anywhere'' knows very, very well that when someone claims discrimination, ''you damn well better take that seriously''. Blowing off discrimination complaints can be a very, very costly mistake, and does not uphold the WMF's fiduciary duties to those who donate to it. Paying for a preventable discrimination lawsuit would not be a good use of donor funds, to say nothing of the PR. [[User:Seraphimblade|Seraphimblade]] <small>^{[[User talk:Seraphimblade|Talk to me]]}</small> 20:29, 19 June 2019 (UTC)