Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 11:06, 30 November 2008

This utility is for asking a question of a candidate. Editors who are eligible to vote may also ask a question, via one of the following methods:

1. Ask a general question: post a question on that link. All candidates will then be able to copy the question over to their Question page and will respond as they see fit.
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General questions

Question from Ultraexactzz

Good luck with your candidacy. UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 15:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

1. If you had to describe the ideal role of an Arbitrator in one word, what would that word be?

   Arbitrator :-)

Questions from Giggy

1. a/s/l?

   Reply

   30s; male; Australia.

2. What is your opinion on the apparent divide in editors who focus primarily in mainspace, and those who focus primarily in project space? What would you do to help ease conflicts that come as a result of clashes between these editors? This is a deliberately open ended question.

   Misplaced Pages is big enough for everyone who is focused on building an encyclopedia.

3. What is your opinion on the mass reversion of useful mainspace edits made by banned users?

   Reply

   Mass reversion is not ideal, especially when it involves useful mainspace edits.
   If careful inspection of a few edits indicates that the remainder are highly probably problematic as well, then it is simpler to not waste time on the banned user - valued contributors do not need to be spending hours cross checking every edit.
   There have been times where a new contributor has made many good edits intermingled with many bad edits. Even if they are banned in the process (and this is what happened in the case I thinking of), it is worthwhile going through each edit carefully. This is because it is "our" Wiki, and if the user has left the building, we need to be sure that the matter has been resolved.

   OTOH, if all edits by a sock of a banned users edits are good, and there is not some ulterior motive which is a major concern, then there is a good chance that the sock should not have been blocked. The rule of thumb is that good edits come from good contributors, and questions should be asked when good contributors are banned.

1. Pick one arbitration case opened in the last year that contains a final decision with which you disagree. How do you think the case should have been handled, what different proposals would you have made, etc.? Again, somewhat open ended.

   Reply

   There are many final decision that I dont agree with; there will always be many that any person can disagree with. Most cases wont be respected by all, and almost all will make a sizable section of the community unhappy. So I am going to pick one I know a bit about, and think is interesting from a case management point of view:

   SlimVirgin-Lar arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

   As a bit of background, I was brought into this case as an innocent bystander very late in the piece by the parties who are all fully informed of my involvement - one party was not initially aware, but I sought permission to tell them so that they were not blindsided when/if they found out later.

   As I was not on arbcom during this private case, I'm almost certain that I dont have the full story, and I am not sure how much of this is still private anyway - details have been slipping out of late. To avoid having to read a million talk pages, I'm assuming it is all still confidential.

   At the outset, there was an obvious need for a large chunk of this case to be private, so that is how it started. There have been two rather predictable outcomes of this:

   1. Everyone has deniability - all arbs and the parties can say they didn't receive or read an email, or that it was inadequate.
   2. No accountability - activity/responsiveness levels between parties and the arbs is not visible to the community which would mean it is kept in check. Consider that with the Omnibus case the community was quite vocal about the problems it saw in the way the case was being managed by the committee.

   As a result the community has no idea what went on, and therefore cant evaluate the ongoing discussion about the case and the issues that sparked it. i.e. events from a year ago are still not resolved.

   I think that a good half of this case could have been a normal open case, with a very tight scope to avoid undesirable disclosure. Most of it required sensitive treatment, and carefully phrasing, but not complete and utter privacy. Much of the evidence relates to actions on the wiki and the mailing list. At the close of the case, the dissatisfied parties were asking for all of the evidence to be put into the public arena despite their initial desire to keep it private.

   Irrespective of whether the case should have been kept private for its duration, there are plenty of very important facts and figures that should have been publicly disclosed as they had no reason to be kept private. Having many of these facts on an Evidence page would have reduced the deniability, giving the community a much better idea of what happened and why. There might be cases where the community doesn't need to know any details, however this case was largely about the public acts rather than private ones - the community has a hazy idea of what happened, and it is being left to the parties to fill in the blanks - not surprisingly different people are putting more faith in one party or the other, and very few in the community are of the opinion that the committees findings are sufficient. This is one case where a more detailed findings of fact section would have gone a long way to closing the matter with a bit of finality.

   While I wont comment on the remedies (I am disinterested in that form of suicide), and cant suggest some findings of fact that I would have put forward due to privacy, here is an exact excerpt from my own email sent to arbcom-l on October 26, where I suggested findings of facts that should be added for the sake of clarity:

   It would be helpful to add a finding of fact that says exactly when the Arbcom was first aware of this, and when the Ombudsman commission was first aware of this. And who raised it, where that doesnt breach privacy. If there was a resolution of sorts to this issue _prior_ to the July ANI spectacle, it would be nice to know when that landed as well, and who was informed. The "Lack of statement" finding of fact is a bit weird if this matter had been already given to Arbcom and the ombudsman commission.
   
   I hope that arbcom sees itself as a mechanism of untwisting the "truths" and presenting as full and complete an account of incidents as is possible or necessary to resolve matter in a way that all reasonable parties know in their heart that it was a good outcome.
   
   This case is falling short of that by a long way.

   And the case was closed four days later without any improvement, and the underlying problem lingers, and will likely need to be either reopened or squashed.

2. Please select and describe what you consider to be your five "best" contributions to Misplaced Pages.

   Reply

   Answering quickly as I am running out of time ....

   1. Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Academic Journals - project I and a few others launched; it is very slow moving, especially as I have spent most of my time this last year on Wikisource
   2. Backing Australia's Ability, Research Quality Framework, Systemic Infrastructure Initiative - articles about an Australian government policy initiative.
   3. Venetian literature - translated from it.wp in order to help people assess whether there is sufficient literature to support a Venetian Wikisource project
   4. Factory Records catalogue - list; I love lists
   5. People's Press - disambiguation page - most of the pages listed there also created by me. Did I mention I love lists?

3. Will you be voting in this year's arbcom elections? Why/why not?

   Reply

   Yes; I will be casting my votes for every candidate on day 1. If I am not elected, I want to feel satisfied that I did my bit to pick the right people for the job, as I will have to live with the results.

Thank you and good luck. Giggy (talk) 02:45, 6 November 2008 (UTC) Questions added via the global question list.

Questions from Sarcasticidealist

I'm repeating a couple of questions I asked on User:MBisanz's excellent voter guides; those of you who answered there can feel free to copy and paste your answers from there.

1. To what extent do you believe that Misplaced Pages policy is or should be binding and prescriptive?

   Reply

   Policies that implement Wikimedia Foundation resolutions should be binding, and usually are strongly enforced. However policies on Misplaced Pages are a best-effort attempt at recording what is expected of the community, but at any time the wording within the policy is not explicitly endorsed by the community.
   Users should take care to follow policy closely, and if it doesnt make sense in a situation, or if they find it conflicts with what others are suggesting, they should seek clarification before boldly disregarding it. Only if someone is absolutely sure it does not apply should they ignore the rules, in which case they accept the consequences if it is shown that their edits where not in line with community expectations.

2. What is your view of the presence of former Arbitrators on the main Arb Comm mailing list?

   Reply

   My instinct tells me the main Arb Comm mailing list should be restricted to sitting arbs only.
   The ex-arbs can submit RFAR statements, evidence, and do workshopping just like everyone else does. They can also inform the committee privately of any specific historical arbcom-l private discussions that the committee should review.
   The committee should make good use of the historical discussions that have occurred on the Arbcom mailing list, and seek clarification from ex-arbs when needed, however the committee needs to focus on the future rather than the past.
   Update: Apparently, there is an arb only mailing list, and it isnt hosted by WMF. How curious. Stay tuned; I'll let you know what I find..

3. At least one candidate has committed to being "open to recall" in much the same way as administrators in Category:Administrators open to recall. What is your view of the wisdom of this, and do you see yourself making a comparable commitment?

   Reply

   I cant evaluate the wisdom without seeing the commitment that was made; please link me up! My view of recall in general is that it is messy - I would prefer that we create a "policy" of sorts that provides some clear approach for handling situations where any arbitrator should stand down.

   I have given my commitment at #Question from AGK

   I have thought a little about the power to depose at #rootology-power-depose

I echo both the thanks and the best wishes of the above questioners.

Questions from Celarnor

1. What limits, if any, do you perceive in the ability of the Committee to write remedies with effects beyond those involved in a given case (.e,g, types other than those outlined in Arbitration policy, having an effect beyond "User X is subject to penalty/restriction Y")?

   Reply

   The committee should stay within the policy, and the Arbitration policy should be improved by the community as required.

   There have often been remedies that rule over a class of articles, effecting any editor that strays there, intended to broaden the net to also cover editors who only arrive after the case closes. This helps address situations when the parties are known to create sockpuppets, and where the nature of the dispute is firmly rooted in the real world and is not going to go away, like international disputes where it is highly likely that a new user will be of one persuasion or the other, and will edit war just like most of the others of either persuasion. One benefit of including editors who have yet to edit is that it results in less attempts to frame a new user as a sock. If the editing restrictions apply to new users as well, the "duck" test doesnt need to be invoked so often - it was often being used to bite new users. Restrictions of this kind are a necessary evil, however the community needs to develop a mechanism for dealing with disputes of this kind. Alternatively, the arbitration policy needs to be brought into line with practise if the community wants the committee to keep tackling these disputes.

2. What, if any, non-written obligations do you believe a member of the Committee has outside of their immediate duties on the committee?

   Reply

   Keep their nose clean.

   Make sure it is clear which hat they have on.

   Avoid throwing their weight around.

Question from LessHeard vanU

This follows from the various attempts this year at addressing the means by which Administrators can be desysopped, none of which has gained sufficient traction.

1. Given that the ArbCom already has the powers to investigate the conduct of Administrators, and to decide to withdraw access to the sysop flags, will you be willing to more readily accept Requests for Arbitration in respect of concerns raised generally on an administrators use of their tools than that has apparently been the case previously. Would you indeed promote the more frequent acceptance of such cases. If not, why not? LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:47, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

   Reply

   If a requested case involves concerns relating to the use of sysop tools, I would be more inclined than normal to carefully review the situation before rejecting it. Other means of dispute resolution tend to not work when an admin and non-admin are on opposite sides of the table, and the committee can help ensure the matter is properly heard. Administrators need to be held to a higher standard, and part of this is that admins should be accepting of constructive criticism, and know how to manage it. If this doesnt happen, and the matter ends up at RFAR, that is already a bad sign.

   It is important to note that the current policy says that only in "severe or acute abuse of administrator privileges" should the admin be desysoped. I think the policy should probably be expanded to include "repeated" abuse, as the bar should be lower each time an admin abuses their tool.

   In summary, I will accept these cases quite readily, but I will not be encouraging desysop for first offences where the result didnt break the wiki or bring it into disrepute.

Thanks for considering the above, and all the best in your endeavour.

Question from Carnildo

1. How many hours a week do you expect to spend on arbitration-related activities?

   Reply

   As many as it takes. At least 40 hours per week in the first year. Whenever possible, I will be trying to devolve time consuming tasks back to the community, or giving more responsibility to new functionaries. We need more people taking the load, so arbcom can focus on the disputes.

   While I have not been as active here on Misplaced Pages over the last year, this has been because I have spent a lot of time over on Wikisource, building the community there. Over the last year I have put in at leat 40 hours per week into Wikisource, and I now feel comfortable that I can pull back from that, and allocate that time to Misplaced Pages.

   I have also touched on this at #Question from AGK

Question from WilyD

1. During the Sarah Palin protection wheel war, a very contentious point was whether it was appropriate for admins to take actions against other admins for misuse of their admin tools (or possibly just generally). While the block I issued in that case became moot when MBisanz filed for arbitration, similar situations are bound to crop up. So I ask two related points:

1. Is it appropriate for an admin to block another admin over a regular editing issue? Are there any special considerations? If it is not appropriate, what kind of sanctions would you issue as an arbitrator?

   Reply

   It is permitted, but it is a really bad idea unless there is credible problems being caused (e.g. disenfranchising users) and other approaches are not working. An administrator should follow the same processes as if they were blocking another user - warnings, ANI, RFC, etc. Sanctions for blocking an admin without community support might depend on the stated or obvious motives for the block, whether there was community involvement at all, and whether the blocking admin listened to any feedback and possibly undid the block. If it seemed to be an overly enthusiastic first abuse of tools, a warning should suffice. If it seemed to be vindictive, without remorse, without heeding community sentiment, or accompanied with unacceptable comments, a temporary desysop would be appropriate sanction if it was the first actionable abuse of the tools. If repeated, a permanent desysop should be the default course of action.

2. Is it appropriate for an admin to block another admin over misuse of their administrative tools? If so, when? If not, what kind of sanctions would you issue as an arbitrator?

   Reply

   I havent closely checked the current policy, but I think it is permitted, and I think it should always be permitted, under Ignore all rules and cross your fingers you are right if no other policy applies. Administrators shouldn't even consider blocking an administrator for the tool usage unless they are prepared to explain in length at WP:RFAR why they thought it was appropriate, and they had better hope that their action reduces drama rather than encourages. If an admin is absolutely sure that their block is going to de-escalate the situation, they shouldnt dont do it, as it is unlikely to help - it raises the stakes very high very quickly.

   Acceptable reasons would include "compromised account", "deleting the main page", "gross and ongoing abuse of tools", "repeatedly outing a user", and any clear breaking of the law; in all these cases there would need to be a real and present problem or overwhelming consensus that it was the right thing to do -- the committee will not accept a case if the community has already decided that the action was appropriate (unless there is some foundation policy or law that was broken, etc).

   This is a situation where the action should be judged based on its effect rather than excessive consideration of the motivations or the justification. John Vandenberg 10:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Questions from PhilKnight

1. In what situations would you recuse yourself? Obviously, I'm not asking for a generic answer, but instead I'm genuinely interested in what subject areas, or conflicts involving which users, you would recuse yourself. PhilKnight (talk) 02:20, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

   Reply

   Speaking broadly, these are the situations that I can think of where I would be very inclined to recuse. In these cases, I would not recuse if it was clear that all parties involved were desiring my involvement.

   1. Any case related to Armenia-Azerbaijan.
   2. Any case that involves members of Wikimedia Australia chapter.
   3. Any case that involves admins of English Wikisource.
   4. Any case that involves the principle members of the Academic Journals project who I have interacted with quite a lot.(currently it is these and David Eppstein)

   Any case where I have been involved in the arbitration with the parties prior to being appointed to the committee.

   So .. if you dont like me, pay your dues to WM-AU, do truckloads of work on English Wikisource, or create lots of stubs on the missing journals list. :-)

   While this seems like a long list, it is probably only about 100 editors, and I'd hope that most of them are unlikely to end up at arbitration anyway. Part of the reason I would be recusing is that I am likely be wanting to work with them as a mediator rather than an arbitrator.

2. Imagine there is a case involving an editor who had been pushing a scientific racist viewpoint, and then another editor describes them as racist. Then an uninvolved admin blocks the second editor for a personal attack. How should this be handled?

Questions from Thatcher

1. The Arbitration Committee handles a wide variety of complex situations on the private mailing list, some presenting moral and ethical dilemmas that never come to the full attention of the wider community. How would you handle some of these situations?

A. A checkuser forwards to the Arbcom mailing list evidence that a large number of vandal accounts share a single IP address and a single user agent with an administrator. After internal discussion, the IP address is blocked Anon only, ACB, under the theory that since the IP is a workplace, it might be shared, but that if the admin is the vandal, he will "get the hint." The admin takes a short unannounced hiatus, then returns as if nothing had happened. Right call or wrong call and why? Does the kind of vandalism make a difference?

B. A checkuser who is an active editor of a particular article or topic sees a new user acting suspiciously like a previously banned user. What should the checkuser do?

(a) Run the check himself. After all, he is the most familiar with the banned user's editing patterns, and if the account turns out to be an unrelated editor, there is no privacy violation as long as the checkuser does not discuss the findings with anyone.

(b) Ask an uninvolved checkuser to evaluate the need for a check, and then run the check if needed. Avoiding even the appearance of a conflict of interest is worth the delay and inconvenience.

(c) Write your own answer.

C. User:Smith is banned after a long series of behavioral problems including harassment of User:Jones, which Smith continues on his personal blog. A checkuser presents evidence that Smith has returned as User:Smythe. His editing is without incident and he is avoiding Jones. The Committee decides to ignore the Smythe account. Some time later, Smith emails the Committee, disclosing the Smythe account and pointing out Smythe's good edits, and asking to be unbanned. However, he has continued to post negative comments about Jones on his blog, and Jones objects to allowing Smith to edit under any account name. What should be done?

2. In private discussions about a pending arbitration case, there is a split between a group of Arbitrators who want strong sanctions and a group that want mild or no sanctions. Is it better to propose a middle of the road decision that everyone can sort of support, or to write a proposed decision with both the mild and severe remedies and have an open vote? What should happen if neither the mild nor severe remedy gets a majority? Does public disagreement improve or impair the Committee's credibility?

3. Just as there are consequences for taking action as an Arbitrator, there are consequences for inaction. The mailing list receives 70-100 messages per week. I do not believe it is humanly possible for an editor to remain fully engaged in whatever aspects of Misplaced Pages they currently enjoy, and also be fully engaged in the business of the Arbitration Committee. If you do not fully engage in the mailing list, you might miss a legitimate ban appeal, or the chance to comment on an important private matter, or an important policy discussion. If you skip an Arbitration case or two in order to spend time writing articles, you might later discover that the decision had provisions you find incorrect or objectionable. How will you balance your regular wiki-work with participation on Arbcom? If you opt out of some matters to avoid having all your time consumed by Arbcom, what will you do if those matters are resolved in an unsatisfactory matter?

Reply

There is no particular part of Misplaced Pages editing that I enjoy, or feel a calling to do. I would like to write a featured article, but I would rather create another 100 short article in the course of my daily activities which often leave me with a pile of information that needs to be put somewhere. A large percentage of the topics that I watch are due to giving third opinions and involvement due to dispute resolution. The only objective that I have really taken a keen interest in is to write encyclopedic stubs for the "missing journals", and it is daunting enough that I just plod along with it, and others are doing more than me in that department. I have twice flushed my watchlist, starting from scratch, even removing the wikiproject I started without realising it for a month. If elected, I will flush my watchlist again.

The hardest part of my decision to run for Arbcom was accepting that I would not have much time for the English Wikisource project, where I am the second highest contributor. However, despite having nominated over half of the admins on the project, I have not run for 'crat on the project, so I have no responsibilities there. The community is thriving, and the leadership is in good hands. In just the last few days, English Wikisource has caught up to the French Wikisource, so .. "mission accomplished".

If elected, my sole focus will be Arbcom, and for stress relief I will do a little over on Wikisource.

If I choose to not participate in a case or a discussion, I will be accepting the decisions made. Most outcomes are unsatisfactory to some, and I am no different; revisiting decisions means there is less time to devote to disputes that are already under consideration. If the community asks me to review a past decision, I will if my plate is relatively empty, or the problems presented to me about the case suggest it is more important. I will not be the champion for a cause, as I would prefer to have the community develop and discuss the request first - I will attempt to simply provide answers that assist the community initiate a clarification request or a new case. If nobody is able to initiate a request for proper review at WP:RFAR, the matter is best left closed.

4. Have you disclosed your real name and employer? If not, are you prepared to have that information involuntarily disclosed? Would such involuntary disclosure impact your service on the Arbitration Committee?

Reply

I have always edited using my real name. For my job lately, I have mostly accepted short term contracts, or longer term "monitoring" contracts. Most of the companies involved are aware of my participation in Misplaced Pages, Wikisource and the Wikimedia Australia chapter, and are quite supportive. Typically my professional engagements are related to libraries, universities, research, etc. I generally choose not to disclose the specifics of my professional engagements to my Misplaced Pages contacts in order to limit unnecessary annoyance and interference; however, involuntary disclosure would not impact my service. My working arrangements for next year have been tailored around having sufficient time for ArbCom.

Questions from Newyorkbrad

1. Bearing in mind your individual skills and interests, your familiarity with the arbitration process, and your other on- and off-wiki commitments, which of the following tasks will you be prepared and qualified to perform regularly as an arbitrator:

(A) Reviewing cases, carefully analyzing the evidence, and drafting proposed decisions for consideration by other arbitrators;

(B) Reviewing cases, carefully analyzing the evidence, and voting and commenting on proposed decisions drafted by other arbitrators;

(C) Reviewing and voting on new requests for arbitration (on WP:RfAR) and for clarification or modification of prior decisions;

(D) Reviewing and helping to dispose of appeals from banned or long-term-blocked users on the arbitrators' mailing list;

(E) Drafting responses to other inquiries and concerns forwarded to the committee by editors;

(F) Running checkuser checks (arbitrators generally are given access to checkuser if they request it) in connection with arbitration cases or other appropriate requests;

(G) Other arbitration-related activities (please explain).

2. Please review the current arbitration policy at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration policy, as well as the proposed updating and revision of the policy that I posted a few weeks ago (based in part on some input from the ArbCom RfC over the summer) at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration policy proposed updating and the later draft posted by arbitrator FT2 at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration policy proposed updating/FT2. Do you have any comments on the proposed changes? Are there any changes you would support to the policy, or to ArbCom's current procedures, beyond those proposed there?

3. Although the committee was quite busy when I joined it in January, and there have been a few high-profile "mega" cases in the past few months, in general the Arbitration Committee's caseload has been lower during the past three months or so than at any time since the committee was created in 2004. Please share any thoughts you have on this situation, including its causes and whether it is a good or bad thing.

Questions from Mailer Diablo

1. Say you are given the power to implement or abolish one policy on Misplaced Pages by fiat, with immediate effect, no questions asked. What would that be?

2. Hence or otherwise (of Q1), should ArbCom be in the business of creating new policy, amend an existing policy, or abolish any policy as a result of any outcome of a case? If so, should the community be consulted on such matters beforehand?

3. Should IRC fall under the jurisdiction of ArbCom? If so, how do you think it should be governed?

4. "Change We Need" and "The same old Washington that's broken" is a favourite mantra for candidates running for office, and that includes this election. Would you, and how would you reform ArbCom? And how can editors be sure that you will stay true to your promise?

Questions from Rschen7754

Arbcom questions 2008 - these will be asked at the December 2008 elections and scored on a hidden rubric, which will determine my level of support.

Note that some of the questions were recycled from 2007, but have been trimmed down. I will evaluate these and a few other characteristics based on a (private) rubric to determine my level of support.

1. What is your view on the length of time that it took for the case Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Highways 2?
2. a) What is the purpose of a WikiProject? Do you believe that WikiProjects b) can enforce standards (such as article layout) on articles?
3. Do you believe that parent WikiProjects have the right to impose standards (such as article layout) on child WikiProjects? (Case in point: WP:USRD and its state highway projects)
4. Does canvassing include a) project newsletters or other forms of communication or b) IRC?
5. a) In terms of vandalism and good faith but horrible edits, where do you draw the line? (scenario: an editor makes a mess of articles that cannot easily be fixed). b) Should blocks, protects, and / or rollbacks be in order?
6. An editor has made few to no productive edits to articles on Misplaced Pages. This user has not broken policies per se, but is hard to deal with, giving "smart aleck" remarks, ignoring consensus, ignoring what administrators tell them, etc. What are your views on this situation?
7. An editor does not have the intelligence required to edit Misplaced Pages. (does not understand English, doesn't get how to edit, etc.) What should be done in this situation?
8. a) What justifies a community ban? b) Do the circumstances described in questions #5-7 justify a community ban?
9. (This question will be scored only on the basis of your honestly completing it, regardless of the answer) What are the current problems with the Misplaced Pages community?

Thank you. Rschen7754 (T C) 06:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Questions from Maxim

1. What is your stance on wheel-warring? What do you define as wheel-warring? As an arbitrator, how would you respond to a case surrounding a wheel war?
2. What is your opinion on letting the community desysop admins?
3. What is your opinion on adminbots? The bot policy was updated to allow adminbots to bypass RfA, going only through BRfA, and fully-automated unapproved adminbots were required to be approved via BRfA. What is your opinion on handling unapproved adminbots? What is your general opinion on high-speed admin tools, which are not fully automated (like Twinkle)?

Questions from rootology

Hello, thank you for running for the AC election! Good luck, or our sympathies are with you, depending on certain points of view! I'll be asking everyone these same questions.

Questions:

1. In regards to the massive "omnibus" case Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV/Proposed decision, do you think bundling it all together was helpful to Misplaced Pages? Why, or why not?

Reply

For those that are unaware, I was the clerk on this case for quite a while. My guess is that they merged them in order to address the growing problem with Vested Contributors, however the committee did not give any clear direction to the clerk or the community that this was the case. There was no obvious scope or objectives - lots of people had their own objectives, not all of them good, but there didnt appear to be any boundaries.

When RegenerateThis (aka Tony Sidaway) added himself to the case, I put my foot down and said "First explain why you need to be a party," in order to prevent it turning into a pile on, which would dilute the case further and also to protect Tony, because the case pages were already filling up with nasty stuff that was unlikely to be resolved anyway. "I did not want people to assume that they can start digging up dirt on Tony until it was clear that everyone thought it was a good idea." Several members on the committee opined about whether Tony could add himself, and what that may or may not mean, but didnt address whether he should add himself, nor did they consider that being a party means the community typically then goes and digs up whatever related evidence they can find. (As an aside, .. my efforts to protect Tony were somehow used as the basis for an accusation that I had a grudge against him when I later reinstated a short block that someone had thought was appropriate, but felt uncomfortable doing themselves as they were too involved.)

Big pissing matches dont help. If anything this case ensured every bit player had their gloves off when I blocked RegenerateThis; the result at ANI was shocking, and RFAR/SlimVirgin-Lar was spawned because the issues were not resolved months before. And .. it appears that "SlimVirgin-Lar" may still have legs.

In the end, this case ended up reinforcing the "Vested Contributors" problem, as it has allowed specific individuals to dominate the committee's time, at the expense of others.

Arbcom works best when it deals with specific issues. Each dispute is different, and needs to be carefully evaluated on the facts of the matter, and what is best for the parties and the project. John Vandenberg 17:12, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

2. On the same aforementioned Omnibus case, the question came up here of impartiality in voting by the seated Arbiters. It was shown there that a seated, voting arbiter in the case was unwilling to support "subjective" findings that all the users were valuable contributors to Misplaced Pages, even ones who have created multiple Featured Articles (to the point of being leaders on the all-time list for most Featured Articles, ever). Should someone be seated as an Arbiter, unless they are always capable of being impartial in cases they choose to not recuse from? Why, or why not?

Reply

It is bizarre that he couldnt support the notion that all of these contributors were valued; they clearly are, and it is not even subjective to say so - it is patently obvious. It would be only subjective if there was some credible evidence which indicated that a cost-benefit analysis was needed. In the case of these five, that level of inspection isnt required - they have all been part of creating this project.

Maybe he thought that it was necessary for the FM FoF sentence "However, he has taken relatively few administrator actions in recent months." to be on record, but even then he should have proposed an alternative wording which just said that.

If an arbitrator is not able to be impartial, they should recuse. If they cant know when to recuse, it is either because the case turned out quite differently than they expected without them fully realising it, or the community elected the wrong person.

3. What are your thoughts on the idea of the English Misplaced Pages community controlling Arbitration Committee policy, and the AC following the framework of policy that the community sets out for them in how to conduct business?

Reply

Absolutely! Isn't it already like that?

This is one policy where I would expect that nobody is bold; all changes should be discussed widely as it will effect people who may unexpectedly find themselves needing to follow it.

Any major changes should probably be implemented at a specific period of the year, June/July would be a good time, and they should probably be approved by a majority of the crats and arbs as even very good ideas sometimes need to be postponed or rejected.

4. What are your thoughts on the idea of the English Misplaced Pages Arbcom elections being totally owned by and controlled by the community of editors? As in, as how it is on other language Wikipedias--elections are done as straight votes/consensus, with the leaders being seated based on that alone, subject solely to the will of their peers.

Reply

I've seen concerns that the Arbs and even the Ex-Arbs may be influencing the "Jimbo decision" making process, which is a concern if it is true, but I doubt this is likely to play a big role. I dont mind the idea of Arbs/Ex-Arbs/Crats have some control in the process, but if they do it should be open and they should veto the nominee before the election begins rather than after.

5. Do you think an Arbiter should be placed on the Committee without a clear endorsement/supporting majority vote of the community they will be serving during the election? If yes, why? If no, why?

Reply

We expect 70% support for sysop, but 50% for arbs?? We should require much higher support - around 70% support looks to be appropriate based on the 2007 results. This would reduce the field a little, and but would ensure that a broad cross section of the community trusts them.

6. You get to set a mandate, one sentence in length, for policy on how the Arbitration Committee will work--it could be AC policy, AC elections, AC responsibilities, mandates--anything and everything. No one can overrule this change, not Jimbo, not the other AC members, not the WMF board (so long as it's legal, of course); no IAR exemptions, and it is the Law of the Land forever in AC matters. What is it, in one sentence of 15 words or less?

Reply

Before accepting a case arbitrators must publicly compose a description outlining a binding scope.

This template is currently non-functional due to T39256.

7. Please rank these in order of whom the Arbcom serves and answers to, in order from first to last (the party who should have the most power over the AC goes first, the one who should have the least power over the AC goes last:

a) The Community

b) Jimbo Wales

c) Arbiters/The Arbitration Committee

d) The Wikimedia Foundation

Feel free to explain your ordering choices and your rationale behind them, if so inclined.

Reply

I dont understand what you mean by "power"; feel free to clarify what powers you are interested in. There are a number of powers involved. Power to elect, dictate the policy and depose are three that come to mind. In each of these, the order differs slightly, and where possible the power should primarily rest in the hands of one. Your earlier questions deal with who should hold the power of the election and policy, and the power to depose sticks out as being the most important - the most powerful. I rank the power to depose as follows:

1. The Wikimedia Foundation
2. Arbiters/The Arbitration Committee
3. The Community

The community always has the Right to fork, and this in turn means they have a reasonable level of control over the Foundation (i.e. fear of forking). As a result, in the interests of stability, the power to depose should be vested in the Wikimedia Foundation. This means that if there is a problem with an arbitrator or the whole lot, the power devolved to arbitrators can be removed, by force if necessary by disabling of accounts. Any committee member should also be able to be removed by the committee (a simple majority should be sufficient), and this would be a good method of opening up a seat if someone goes awol.

The committee is morally obligated to serve the community that elected them, however they are legally obligated to ensure the community abides by the law and the WMF resolutions. As a result, I rank the duty to serve as follows:

1. The Wikimedia Foundation
2. The Community

I have intentionally left out options that do not apply. As far as I am concerned, Jimbo's power should only be by way of the Foundation, or whatever position he wishes to be elected into. However he is still a crutch that we occasionally lean on; we need to improve our governance so that we lean on his less as time goes on.

Thank you, and again--good luck. rootology (C)(T) 00:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the interesting questions. It is a bit past 4am here, so I will save and review the answers in the morning. John Vandenberg 17:12, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Question from Davewild

1. Do you support reducing the length of Arbitrators terms to under 3 years, and if you do and are elected, how will you go about trying to get this implemented?

Thanks. Davewild (talk) 09:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Questions from roux

This question is to gauge your general thoughts on how civility applies as a general principle across WP. Please read the proposals here first.

1) Which conceptual statement(s), if any, in section A would you support or oppose, and why?

2) Which proposed restriction(s), if any, in section B would you support or oppose, and why?

2) a) If you oppose all proposed restrictions, but view low-level civility as a concern: what restrictions, if any, would you propose as alternatives to those outlined in section B?

Thank you for answering, and best of luck with the election. 22:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Question from Iridescent (sort of – see remarks below)

This is actually a question suggested originally on Misplaced Pages Review; however, I think it's an intelligent – and in the current climate, significant – enough question to warrant asking. – iridescent 01:14, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

1. Would you accept appointment by Jimbo if you were not one of the top candidates (that is, someone else was passed over so that you could be appointed)?

Questions from Lar

Note to respondents: in some cases I am asking about things that are outside ArbCom's remit to do anything about. I am interested in your thoughts even so. Note also that in many cases I ask a multi part question with a certain phrasing, and with a certain ordering/structure for a reason, and if you answer a 6 part question with a single generalized essay that doesn't actually cover all the points, I (and others) may not consider that you actually answered the question very well at all.

1. Is the English Misplaced Pages's current BLP approach correct in all aspects? Why or why not? If not, what needs changing? In particular, how do you feel about the following suggestions:

   a) "Opt Out" - Marginally notable individuals can opt out, or opt in, at their request. If it's a tossup, the individual's wishes prevail, either way. George W. Bush clearly does not get to opt out, too notable. I (Lar) clearly do not get to opt in, not notable enough.

   b) "Default to Delete" - If a BLP AfD or DRv discussion ends up as "no consensus" the default is to delete. A clear consensus to KEEP is required, else the article is removed.

2. Given that it is said that the English Misplaced Pages ArbCom does not set policy, only enforce the community's will, and that ArbCom does not decide content questions:

   a) Is question 1 a question of content or of policy?

   b) ArbCom in the past has taken some actions with respect to BLP that some viewed as mandating policy. Do you agree or disagree? Did they go far enough? Too far? Just right?

   c) If you answered question 1 to the effect that you did not agree in every respect with the BLP approach, how would you go about changing the approach? Take your answers to 2a and 2b into account.

3. It has been said that the English Misplaced Pages has outgrown itself, that the consensus based approach doesn't scale this big. Do you agree or disagree, and why? If you agree, what should be done about it? Can the project be moved to a different model (other wikis, for example, use much more explicit voting mechanisms)? Should it be?

4. Please discuss your personal views on Sighted/Flagged revisions. Should we implement some form of this? What form? Do you think the community has irretrievably failed to come to a decision about this? Why? What is the role, if any, of ArbCom in this matter?

5. Misplaced Pages was founded on the principle that anonymity, or at least pseudonymity, is OK. You do not need to disclose your real identity, if you do not wish to, to edit here. You are not forbidden from doing so if you wish.

   a) Do you support this principle? Why or why not?

   b) If you do not support it, is there a way to change it at this late date? How? Should it be (even if you do not support it, you may think it should not be changed)?

   c) With anonymity comes outing. Lately there has been some controversy about what is outing and what is not... if someone has previously disclosed their real identity and now wishes to change that decision, how far should the project go to honor that? Should oversight be used? Deletion? Editing away data? Nothing?

   d) If someone has their real identity disclosed elsewhere in a way that clearly correlates to their Misplaced Pages identity, is it outing to report or reveal that link? Why or why not?

   e) Do you openly acknowledge your real identity? Should all Arbitrators openly acknowledge their real identity? Why or why not? If you are currently pseudonymous, do you plan to disclose it if elected? (this is somewhat different than Thatcher's 1C in that it's more extensive)

   f) Does the WMF make it clear enough that pseudonymity is a goal but not a guarantee? What should the WMF be doing, in your opinion, if anything, about loss of pseudonymity? What should ArbCom be doing, in your opinion, if anything, about loss of pseudonymity?

   g) If an editor clearly and deliberately outs someone who does not wish to be outed, what is the appropriate sanction, if any? Does the question differ if the outing occurs on wiki vs off-wiki? (this is somewhat similar but different from Thatcher's 1D)

6. Stalking is a problem, both in real life and in the Misplaced Pages context.

   a) Should the WMF be highlighting (disclaiming) the possible hazards of editing a high visibility website such as Misplaced Pages? Should some other body do so?

   b) What responsibility, if any, does WMF have to try to prevent real life stalking? What aid, if any, should the WMF give to someone victimised. Balance your answer against the provisions of the privacy policy.

   c) If someone has previously been stalked in real life, what allowances or special provisions should be made, if any?

   d) What special provisions should be made, if any, to deal with stalkers who are using Misplaced Pages to harass victims? Consider the case where the stalkee is a real life person and the harassment is done by manipulating their article, as well as the case where the stalkee is an editor here.

   e) Where is the line between stalking or harassing an editor and reviewing the contributions of a problematic editor to see if there are other problems not yet revealed?

7. A certain editor has been characterised as "remarkably unwelcome" here, and the "revert all edits" principle has been invoked, to remove all their edits when discovered. In the case of very unwelcome and problematic editors, do you support that? What about for more run of the mill problem editors? What about in the case of someone making a large number of good edits merely to test this principle? Do you think blanket unreverting removed edits is appropriate or would you suggest that each edit be replaced with a specific summary standing behind it, or some other variant?

8. What is the appropriate role of outside criticism:

   a) Should all discussion of Misplaced Pages remain ON Misplaced Pages, or is it acceptable that some occur off Misplaced Pages?

   b) Do you have a blog or other vehicle for making outside comments about Misplaced Pages? If so what is the link, or why do you choose not to disclose it? Why do you have (or not have) such an individual vehicle?

   c) Please state your opinion of Misplaced Pages Review and of the notion of participating there. Please state your opinion of Wikback, and of the notion of participating there. Why did Wikback fail? Describe your ideal outside criticism site, (if any)?

   d) Do you think it appropriate or inappropriate for an editor to participate in an outside criticism site? For an admin? For an Arbitrator? Why or why not?

   e) Do you have an account at an outside criticism site? If it is not obvious already, will you be disclosing it if elected? Conversely, is it acceptable to have an anonymous or pseudonymous account at such a site? Why or why not? Assuming an arbitrator has one, some folk may try to discover and "out" it. Is that something that should be sanctioned on wiki? (that is, is it actually a form of outing as addressed in question 5? )

9. Does the English Misplaced Pages have a problem with meatball:VestedContributors? Why or why not? What is to be done about it (if there is a problem)?

10. What is your favorite color? :) Why? :) :)

Questions from Heimstern

1. Nationalist and ethnic edit wars: It's widely accepted that edit warring and POV-pushing along national and ethnic lines is one of the bigger problems at Misplaced Pages. Do you have any thoughts on how to solve this problem? For example, should the Arbcom be more willing to issue sanctions, such as bans, topic restrictions and revert restrictions (and if possible, maybe comment on when different types of sanctions are appropriate)? Should the community, particularly administrators, take on more of the responsibility for this problem? If so, how?
2. Civility restrictions: Civility restrictions imposed by the Arbcom seem to frequently prove divisive among administrators enforcing them. Frequently, one administrator feels the user in question has been uncivil and should be blocked, while another disagrees and unblocks shortly thereafter. Should the committee seek to change this? If so, how? Different restrictions? Different wording? Using them less frequently or not at all? Is there anything you would change about the committee's approach to the civility policy?

Questions from User:NuclearWarfare

1. What percentage would your vote have to be before you would accept an appointment from Jimmy Wales?

2. Would you support any system of recall similar to the administrator's one (with possibly tougher restrictions for any Arbitrator?

Questions from UninvitedCompany

1. Can you summarize briefly the kind of editing you've done at Misplaced Pages?
2. Can you summarize your education and your professional background?
3. Can you summarize your involvement in other on-line projects and communities, including the identities under which you have participated at those communities?
4. Can you summarize any non-routine involvement you've had in disputes here or on other WMF projects, under this or any other username?
5. Do you have any significant allegiance to any political, national, advocacy, or faith-based organizations? If so, do you see any potential conflict of interest?
6. Can you describe any other leadership roles you now hold or have held in the real world?
7. Have you publicly revealed your actual name and address? Do you plan to do so if elected? If not, how do you plan to respond to any threats you may receive to publicize this information?
8. Do you have any friends, family members, or other people close to you IRL who edit Misplaced Pages? What are their user names and their relationships to you?
9. Other than the wiki itself, where do you discuss Misplaced Pages matters (e.g. IRC, mailing list, meetups)?
10. What constituencies do you imagine that you would serve as a member of the committee? Do they all carry equal weight?
11. What kinds of cases do you think the committee should accept? Refuse?
12. How do you believe the committee should address problematic behavior that takes place off-wiki but affects conflict here?
13. What kinds of arbitration remedies do you believe are most effective (e.g. Bans, editing restrictions, article restrictions, other "creative remedies")?
14. Do you have any specific plans for change to the arbitration system or the project as a whole that you would seek to carry out as a member of the committee?
15. Which past or current members of the committee do you admire the most? Why?
16. To what standard of proof do you believe the committee should work?
17. What are your feelings regarding the Wikimedia Foundation, its governance, officers, board, and employees?
18. To what extent do you support the work of the OTRS team?
19. Do you have any plans to publicize information that the committee has kept confidential in the past?

Questions from TomasBat

1. In general, which of these 2 concepts do you regard as higher priority? The concept of "user" as another human being or "what's best for the encyclopedia"? (would you be 200% fair and patient to a relatively new good faith user at the expense of commiting to something that you know will most probably, at an overall, not benefit the encyclopedia?)

Question from MBisanz

1. In the past there have been issues with arbitrators who did not reveal their real life identity onwiki, being harassed offwiki with the threat of revealing it. If you have not revealed your identity publicly and were threatened with someone revealing it with the intent to harass you, how would you respond? If your identity is already public, feel free to ignore this question.

Questions from Pixelface

1. Please list all the arbitration cases (accepted by the arbitration committee) where you were listed as an involved party. (I am speaking of closed cases as well as active cases). Do you think the remedies given in the case(s) were helpful in resolving any disputes?
2. Please list all the arbitration cases (accepted by the arbitration committee) where you, acting as a non-member of the committee, have provided a statement, or evidence, or /Workshop material. Do you feel it was worth your time in each case?
3. Please list all the requests for arbitration you've made. (If you can't remember them all, please describe some of the ones you *do* remember).

Questions from Badger Drink

1. It is important that members of an "small but powerful" group such as ArbCom be able to offer criticism, and to admit that no person - neither themselves nor their fellow members of the Committee - is perfect. Nor should it be assumed that one's fellow members are sensitive waifs, unable or unfit to handle criticism - even public, on-Wiki, criticism. Choosing to always err in favor of preserving harmony in the workplace will inevitably lead to a workplace less deserving of harmony in the first place. With this in mind, looking over the Closed Case Files, such as they are, it becomes more and more evident that the ArbCom is not always right. Can you give an example or two of recent (i.e., within the past two years) cases (opened, rejected, or even clarifications) where you feel the ArbCom, to put it bluntly, screwed the pooch? If you were a member of the ArbCom at the time of this pooch-screwing, what would you or could you have said or done to make matters better?
2. What are your thoughts regarding the OrangeMarlin case?
3. This final question may be frustratingly broad - and might be superceded by smaller, more focused questions on individual aspects of the incident. But let's just get a broad overview for the time being: What are your thoughts on the bombastic RFC/AC? Are there any issues raised within that RfC that you find particularly prudent?

Question from BirgitteSB

Due to concerns over the way a non-public case was handled I once suggested some minimum standards for such cases . Which follow slightly clarified:

• Have at least two arbitrators develop comprehensive presentations of evidence in isolation.
• Allow all parties concerned to review at least the portions of the evidence presentations regarding their owns actions before any decision is reached.

I believe such standards will not only lessen the drama surrounding such cases, but are also necessary to have any confidence in the quality of the decision reached. In public cases the evidence presentations are usually left up the community and seldom is any one presentation comprehensive. However the scrutiny of the larger community is generally sufficient to tease out the weaknesses and strengths of the multiple presentations. Since private cases are necessarily denied this scrutiny it is imperative that evidence presentations are much stronger than in public cases. So I believe it is necessary for an arbitrator to collect the submissions of evidence into a comprehensive presentation even though such a thing is not done with public cases. Having two arbs put together presentations in isolation is an check on the subconscious bias of "finding what one is looking for." Allowing the parties to review the presentations concerning themselves is a final check on any misunderstandings, and a commonsense measure to build confidence in the whole process. How well do you agree with these suggested practices as I have outlined them?--BirgitteSB 19:54, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Questions from Kristen Eriksen

1. In the course of ascertaining whether editors have violated our verifiability policy, arbitrators may be called upon to determine questions of source reliability. Should certain peer-reviewed journals be considered reliable sources when they are published by otherwise respectable organizations, but engage in a practice of lending credence to fields of endevour and subject matter widely held in disrepute by the scientific community? As an example, consider the journal "Homeopathy" , which is published by Elsevier, but which regularly carries positive experimental results for homeopathic preparations.

2. What is the intent of our policy that WP:NOT#CENSORED? How does the presence or absence of content covered by that policy affect Misplaced Pages's utility, reputation, and acceptance amongst the academic community and the general public?

3. Consistent with our neutral point of view policy, what relative weight should be given to popular views and scientific findings where the two strongly conflict? For example, consider the finding of this study, and the previous research cited therein, that, in the United States, children seeing their parents naked or having sex did not result in adverse effects on their physical or psychological health. Most residents of the United States would strongly disagree with such a conclusion -- it is quite likely that we could, with sufficient effort, locate appropriate surveys or other reliable sources as to this state of popular opinion.

Questions From ϢereSpielChequers

For the following questions please don't count any cases that you were involved in, or if you'd been on Arbcom would have recused yourself for reasons such as friendship with a participant.

1. How many arbitration cases have you fully reviewed (or participated in as an Arbcomm member)?
2. In what proportion of the unanimous decisions in those cases did you agree with the decision?
3. In what proportion of the split decisions in those cases did you agree with the majority decision?
4. How well do you think Arbcom's procedures would handle the situation where new evidence comes to light after a decision has been made?

ϢereSpielChequers 00:05, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Question(s) from LtPowers

• There seems to me to be a significant portion of the community that has lost, or is beginning to lose, trust in the ability of the Arbitration Committee to fairly and effectively adjudicate cases. Do you agree with that basic assessment? If so, what do you think might be the major factor contributing to this attitude, and how might you attempt to modify ArbCom procedures and policies to regain that trust? (Note: I recognize that many of the disaffected are simply apathetic or permanently cynical on the subject, and nothing ArbCom could do would restore a trust that was never there to begin with. My question relates to those members of the community who might be persuadable if their specific objections were addressed.) Powers 13:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Individual questions

Questions asked individually to each candidate may be placed here.

Candidate

Questions about the candidate may be placed here.

Questions from Will Beback

This template is currently non-functional due to T39256.

This is a standard set of question I'm asking everyone. Best of luck in the election. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 11:09, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

1. Have you used other accounts this year? Are those accounts disclosed or transparent?

Reply

I have never used any other accounts. I have created a few accounts to prevent them being available to be used abusively.

John Vandenberg 01:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Questions 2 & 3 appear below

Candidature

Questions about the candidate statement, or other aspects of the candidature, may be placed here.

Question from AGK

1. I confess myself to being impressed by your candidate statement. Forgive me, however, for asking one important follow-up question: what steps will you take to reassure the Community that you will honour all aspects of your statement? For example, do you plan to be "open to recall" as an Arbitrator, in the event you are unable to honour the time commitments you have made? Good luck with your candidacy. AGK 23:12, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Reply

"Honour" is the key word here. I may not be able to achieve every objective, but I intend to put in an honourable attempt. I have tried to put forward objectives that I can personally undertake without requiring the committee approval, and that are measurable. If I fail to achieve an objective, I will give a full account of why - we should be an agile project - non-agile roadblocks need to be discussed openly.

I do not intend to be open for recall. I consider it to be a brain-dead concept, but it has legs so I respect that people feel it is needed in certain cases (some people might feel more comfortable having defined recall criteria, some voters might be swayed by the existence of recall criteria). For arbitrators to be on recall is especially silly in my opinion, as the drama would overtake the wiki. On English Wikisource, we have an annual reconfirmation process, and what a "mandatory site-wide recall process" which allows a reconfirmation to be called at any time. Simplicity is best; something like that should be implemented here. I believe that this is an evolutionary stable system for all roles of responsibility.

What I will offer as reassurance is that if another sitting arb asks for me to step down, via the arbcom-l mailing list or on wiki or even on their blog, and doesnt retract it after a bit of vigourous discussion, I will do so with as little drama as possible. I would expect the same of any other arb; they need to be accountable to each other, and to the community. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

I have made a number of rather large changes to my life recently that should mean that I can sustain the energy required for the job. If I cant keep up the energy required, and another candidate in this election was pipped to the post but has the requisite community support, I will give them my seat with pleasure.

If someone feels I am falling short, come and chat with me.

John Vandenberg 23:43, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Question from NuclearWarfare

1. I found myself very interested with your very well-written candidate statement. One issue that you did not go into that deeply that I felt that you perhaps should have was your " due to a messy affair, which has since been settled amicably." I wondered if this was a public event that I was just unaware of, or a private matter that has stayed between the parties. If it is the latter, how would this affect your Committee work?

Reply

It was a bit of a spectacle. I didn't cover it in my candidate statement in order to keep it under the limit, and I was expecting someone would ask. Thanks :-)

In the course of my clerking the Omnibus case, there was a early scuffle between me and arbitrator Jpgordon about whether Tony Sidaway/RegenerateThis(and other nicks) could add himself as a party to the case without any further explanation provided. Here is the log of the page in question; and this was discussed at on the case talk page.

Fast forward a month, I blocked Tony Sidaway and much blood was let. The discussion at AN/I went very sour, sparking the SlimVirgin-Lar case. Jpgordon requested that I resign at my talk, I complied with the request, and got a bit cross at the arb.

There was no response from Josh at the time, but he did approach me about it recently. Also, he supported the arbcom decision to drown me in oversight work. ;-)

As Jpgordon has resigned from arbcom, I do hope that he will take an active role in checkuser or oversight duties, as I think that ex-arbs are going to be vital in the coming year - the committee is going to need the additional manpower if we are going to raise the bar.

John Vandenberg 05:40, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Editing

Questions relating to Misplaced Pages editing practises and policies may be placed here.

Questions from Will Beback 2

This template is currently non-functional due to T39256.

Questions 1 appears above

2. Is it appropriate for editors to create joke accounts, role accounts, "personality" accounts, etc., to have fun or to make a point? Should socks be allowed to edit policies, engage in RfCs and ArbCom cases, or seek positions of trust in the community? Or should undisclosed alternate accounts be used only with care in limited circumstances?

Reply

I dont mind multiple accounts being used to have fun, but not to make a point. If at any time the fun is at the expense of others, that is not cool. The "expense" should be broadly interpreted. If you can reasonably predict it will cause problems, dont do it. If people object to it, don't do it.

Where transparency is desirable, or if the edits are done in an area that could confuse newcomers (e.g. positions of trust), the user should keep it simple and not use alternate accounts that are not clearly disclosed. In jokes are good, but not when there are people who are not "in" who will be confused or concerned.

Alternate accounts that are not disclosed should not edit policies, and they should have extremely good reasons to participate in RfCs and conduct themselves in an impeccable manner whilst doing so.

fwiw, I think I have made one joke edit by an undisclosed sock; I cant find it now, and in hindsight it probably isnt all that funny so maybe it is better I dont find it. I think it occurred at either Giggy or DarkFalls user page, and I am pretty sure they knew it was me. Bystanders may have raised their eyebrows, but it was overtly a joke edit.

John Vandenberg 01:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

3. Aside from the easy-to-spot vandalism, a large percentage of disruption to the project comes from a relatively small number of harder-to-spot users engaged in POV pushing, trolling, etc. After their first incarnation they keep coming back as socks and causing problems. (We call them socks but they seem more like ghosts: still haunting the place after their departure and just as hard to eradicate.) How can we minimize the impact of banned users who won't go away? How can we improve the handling of sock checks and blocks?

Reply

Great question, and thanks Tip for selecting it as one of my first to answer. To begin with I have given my own views which stray a little from the question, but I do outline some preventative measures. I'll add more about possible structural improvements later.

It is important to gain an appreciation for why they keep coming back, or asserting their POV. This is part of WP:AGF. We should attempt, as much as humanly possible, to believe that all users are rational people, and intending to be worthwhile contributors. If they are rational, it follows that they are haunting the place because of an inner calling that they have. The analogy of a ghost haunting the place is very apt - I like it. Understanding their mission is the first step in setting them free, and in turn preventing further disruption to our project.

If the person is misinformed, and the related Misplaced Pages articles do not adequately cover the territory, that is an area that we can improve! As an editor, my approach has often been to "out-research" POV warriors. When providing second and third opinions to editors who have taken on the difficult job of managing an article that is being haunted by a POV warrior, I often strongly recommend that they limit the use of the undo button and recommend that they outclass these people: fill in the blanks, write auxiliary articles, and improving the sourcing. This approach engages, and possibly antagonises, the POV warrior :- along the way they start to demonstrate whether they are interested in the truth, or whether they are going to completely ignore it. It is not uncommon for POV warriors with nationalistic motivations to cave in to the truth on one article, only to move onto the next perceived problem, perhaps using a new sock. This results in slow process for the good content developers, as their efforts need to be responsive to wherever the current debate is, and are aggravated by lots of unnecessary talk and reverts. What makes them more aggravating is that these people tend to work as a group, supporting shared beliefs until they no longer make sense to do so.

If the facts are as plain as day, and a "POV warrior" resist careful explanations, then they probably have placed their faith in people who have told them information to the contrary, meaning that they are unlikely to ever believe someone else. They are not interested in changing their worldview in the light of good information. This is sad.

Long-term Wikipedians usually have a knack for quickly locking onto POV warriors and trolls, and block and forget. I don't have a problem with this - it is a pragmatic approach. However, it is all too easy to "tag and bag" these users. Usually they can be productive if guided. Sadly, these people are usually banned outright on Misplaced Pages without recourse, or if they are unblocked, they are not sufficiently guided to avoid the prior problems.

The long term approach is to assist them to solve their own underlying problem, or to divert their energy to something that they can peacefully and productively work on. Many of the socks that haunt the wiki are due to our own practises of ejecting people too quickly and roughly. This turns them into adversaries, and they come back with guns. However, Misplaced Pages has bigger guns and a reactive energy shield that works, so persistence results in escalation. Misplaced Pages often feels like the death star in the way it handles people who dont quickly learn the ropes. Peace comes from diplomacy.

We should be more active in encouraging "topic banned" users to work on that topic on Commons and Wikisource, where POV is irrelevant, or on Wikiversity, where their POV can be explored. Topic bans should be handed out much more frequently, as a corrective means, however they currently have too much stigma attached to them. Maybe they need a new name for them. They are currently viewed as the last step down the path towards a ban.

Finally, there are also many irrational people in the world, and Misplaced Pages is not the place for them either, but there is no much we can do to improve on our death star approach to dealing with them.

John Vandenberg 02:46, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Question from Rspeer

Sorry about not getting this in the general questions.

In your view, how does the notion of scientific consensus relate to the Misplaced Pages notion of NPOV? Is science a point of view, or is it a way of finding the neutral point of view? Does it differ based on the topic of the article? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 02:17, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Reply

Scientific consensus is the most important "view" on natural science topics, however I dont like to call it a "point of view".

Instead, it is easier to understand by saying that the scientific method it is a process of eliminating points of view, leaving behind a reliable explanation of the physical world consisting of facts, theories and hypotheses.

On Misplaced Pages the NPOV requires that we also cover other views, however they should be clearly labelled, and the various scientific consensus (often different fields of science have very different ways of expressing themselves - different nomenclature, etc) are brought to the forefront in the article. Each alternate view needs to be given appropriate weight in the article, and sometimes that weighting is determined by the wider public awareness and the politics of science. In these cases it is also useful to be clear why an alternate view is being given so much real-estate in the article.

Where there is broad scientific consensus for a single explanation, that is neutral, and due weight in an encyclopedia means that the other views are not wanted. We need to take the high road here - we are not a newspaper nor are we bound by circulation figures.

I have assumed that your question is primarily concerned with natural sciences; I'll try to expand my answer if you intended it to be broader. Literary topics obviously dont usually need much scientific input. etc.

John Vandenberg 13:58, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Administration

Questions relating to Misplaced Pages administation may be placed here.

Committee

Questions relating to the role of the committee, and position of an arbitration committee member, may be placed here.

Questions from synergy

1. How do you feel about the Arbitration RfC?

   A. So many good ideas! That RFC has over 0.5 Mb of text, and over 2000 edits. The community wants the arbitration process, and the committee, to be improve. That much is clear. We now need to implement some of the suggestions.

My preferred approach would be for Arbcom, or a working group working with Arbcom support, to distil that RFC into a comprehensive report outlining which improvements are going to have a fighting chance of helping, and be acceptable to most. Then the community can discuss and selectively endorse the recommendations that they think will be helpful.

There are a few reasons behind my desire to see a written report come of this:

1. While the majority of wiki-process is developed over time, and can be tweaked at any time, arbitration process and policy needs to be a "rock". Any non-trivial changes to the Arbitration process and role of the Committee need to be adopted by both the Committee and the community, and the wrinkles ironed out with the support of both in spite of any teething problems.
2. The processes and policies involved are now important enough that they need to be understandable by people who are unfamiliar with the inner workings of the community.
3. Proposals to change the process also need to be well described and understood before they they can be properly reviewed.
4. We need a mediation and arbitration handbook for dummies, and reporters, that helps parties learn the ropes quickly.
5. Some of the more outlandish suggestions, e.g. ArbCom Lite, should be seriously considered, and those may need to be recommended only for a trial basis, with a review phase before they become part of the standard process and policy.

John Vandenberg 01:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Questions from FT2

These are some questions about WP:CLUE and insight, focussing on a role as a member of Arbcom. Research is allowed and encouraged.

1. There is clear agreement that all is not well, in all ways, at Arbcom. Many users standing will be hoping to change that, as many did last year. What aspects work well, and what are the core changes you feel would help change the ones that don't?

Reply

To be honest, I can really know answer that directly, as I dont possess a good enough understanding of what is going on behind the closed doors. We only see the effect, but not the cause, so it is hard to put a finger on the problems, and it is even harder to determine what good is done by arbcom, as I assume it often happens without a public action/edit to show for it. And even when the good is done "onwiki", there is never a song and dance about it. Everyone moves on quickly when there is nothing to complain about.

I hear the grumblings and feel the rumblings, and in the last year Arbcom has done a lot of various things that have been met with dissatisfaction from the community, as they have in previous years, and odds are on it that they will for years to come.

• The process, when followed, works reasonably well. However each case seems to follow a unique course. Sometimes this works out for the better, but it usually leaves the parties with doubts along the way, unless the party is a wiki-aholic and used to working on shifting sand, and knows how to push back when needed.
• The committee as a body with residual knowledge of historical disputes is also a necessary aspect. This should also mean that they have extra foresight, which means a lot of additional tasks are thrown in their lap.
• The cases progress well when the committee assists in the workshopping, but not when they add unexpected items fishing for support from one half of the community when they know the other half doesnt agree.

If I was to guess and put my finger on a single problem, it would be that the workload is too heavy for the sitting committee to carry. I know that there are communication problems within the group, and I am told by parties that the committee does give enough/timely feedback, leaving them in the dark at times. I also know that the ex-arbs are not looking for opportunities to carry the additional load. The scope and length of the cases has been truly bizarre. But I attribute most of these visible effects to the workload imposed. The committee needs to devolve responsibility to other people as much as possible, so that they can focus on the cases. The committee needs to rigorously discuss the cases coming before them in private or in public, to ensure that the scope is well defined before the case opens, so that the community is empowered to build evidence that is appropriate without picking at old sores. All this takes time; time they appear to not have, or is being misused on other activities.

This template is currently non-functional due to T39256.

Copied from the first draft of my candidate statement

Whilst on the committee, my mission for reform within the committee and arbitration process will be to:

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Encourage participatory democracy.
The arbitration committee has taken on too much authority, overburdening themselves, putting themselves up for the great fall, and causing many people in the community to quake in their boots when committee member waltzes in. It is now up to the committee to stop, turn around, devolve responsibility, and encourage and assist the community to set up better wiki management for the non-arbitration tasks that are in their workload simply because they are the only current elected group that is endorsed by WMF to make decisions. With less "other stuff" to do, the committee can spend more time focusing on arbitrating, and stop trying to define right and wrong.

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Fire the slackers and the lurkers and people whose term is up.
Each year, more people are added to "ex-arb" list, who can keep their bits and place in the power structure. I'll be honest: I dont know what effect this has on the ability of the sitting arbs to do their job properly, however I do know that it is good to shed dead skin every once in a while. I do not wish to simply remove ex-arbs if they are helping, however they do need to be allocated a part of the workload that is not case related. After obtaining a good feel for the inner workings, and in consultation with the sitting arbs, I will write a report for the community summarising traffic levels on the private lists (arbcom-l/arbcom-l/other?), aggregated in various ways, including breaking it down by list member in order to indicate activity levels. The community will be encouraged to define what they want to know, and to discuss the results openly. Obviously the report will be limited to what is fit for public display. I envisage this type of report to the community will become a quarterly bulletin.

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Require that arbitration cases have a clear scope before they open.
Arbcom cases go haywire when they are not well defined. This is primarily a community problem, but it is also the responsibility of the committee. The community often throws meaningless comments supporting or opposing an RFAR that hasnt opened. This initial period should be for the people involved to define their grievance, and for the community and arbcom to agree on a scope. Where no scope can be established, there is no case, and it should be rejected until the community can put together something that can be arbitrated.

I expect that these changes will ensure that the committee does more arbitration, does it quicker, and does it with a greater level of community support.

2. Two questions, or two sides of the same question. Your choice.

   a) Arbcom involves matters that Arbitrators may decide need to be kept out of the public domain, for various reasons that vary between privacy breach and avoidance of harm, to reducing disruption. You-personally-may come under suspicion from some users regarding such matters if you do so. It is unlikely that you will be able to do the job properly without offending a range of users, and unlikely you will be able to always explain your actions as an admin might in a range of circumstances. Thoughts?

   b) As the community has become more versatile in handling everyday forms of disruptive conduct, Arbcom cases have tended to cover a higher proportion of cases where privacy is a significant issue, and cases where there are factors involved that some will argue cannot be fully disclosed due to privacy, WP:BEANS or other effects that would be harmful to the project. At the same time the community wishes greater levels of disclosure, and some will demand it, often without regard to harm (which they may not be aware is a possibility if their requests are met). Communal benefit, or user safety, may be at risk in some of these. And yet you are also there to do right by the project and community. You will be a decision-maker in the question of what to make public, and indeed, when to not even explain why something will not be made public (because of concerns over consequences or fairness). Thoughts?

Reply

I personally lean towards open governance, but also hope that the committee has members that lean the other way in order that the committee considers each situation from all angles, and balances these concerns in a way that the community can respect, which requires good communication. I look forward to the challenge. John Vandenberg 22:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Question from Ral315 for the Signpost

4. What is your opinion on confidentiality? If evidence is submitted privately to the Committee, would you share it with other parties in the case? Would you make a decision based on confidential information without making it public?

Reply

Confidentiality is vital for personal security and well being. It is a basic principle of humanity. People become worried about what may come of what they say to one person. They may also fear to speak up when it would be appropriate if there is a genuine prospect of vindictive retaliation or harassment. However, often confidentiality is a guise for a lack of accountability.

In the real world we learn to distrust people who gossip, and we doubt their motives. The opposite is also true. As we become familiar with a persons or organisations respect for confidentiality, we tend to rely on them to do the right thing. If they make a mistake with the right intentions, we usually forgive them depending on the ramifications. Once lost, it is hard to regain.

Arbitrators must neutrally handle many cases where these come up routinely. It is especially important that they respect privacy, to not gossip, and they should be wary of any incoming correspondence that appears to be gossip.

If a piece of evidence could have been submitted for public scrutiny, it should be; if it is submitted privately instead, the obvious question is "why?". In this case I would recommend that the sender post it publicly, redacted/refined and possibly posted by a clerk or arb if that would help. If there isnt a good reason to keep it private, then it should not be hidden from wider eyes. If that is unacceptable to the submitter, then it needs to be treated with caution, and may sometimes need to be disregarded if there is no supporting evidence, or cannot be verified via some other means.

If evidence shouldn't be public, I would attempt to ensure that all parties are aware of the evidence provided to the committee, perhaps in a condensed format or with the submitters name redacted if there are credible concerns, such as retaliation. However in some cases (harassment being the classic one) this may not be possible, since even to refer to the matter might identify the victim of it. Sometimes it is unavoidable that a judgement call is going to be needed, though. Another example would be a persistent sock-user (Poetlister and Archtransit being canonical examples) where to disclose everything is to tell them how to avoid detection of their latest possibly harmful activities.

Personally, I have always sought confirmation before passing on private information/correspondence, stating who will be receiving it and why I feel it is necessary, even when I have submitted evidence privately to Arbcom. That will not change. I also feel that no arbitrator should ever make decisions that bind someone, based on evidence that only I have seen; I can understand if someone doesnt trust all of the committee, however a majority should agree with any conclusions, or at worst, one or two additional sets of eyes are needed.

John Vandenberg 15:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Question from harej

Assess this statement: "The Misplaced Pages Arbitration Committee exists to promulgate the good times." To what extent is this statement valid, and to what extent should things change to reflect this statement? --harej 01:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Reply

That statement is over-simplistic, and not really helpful to evaluate the Committee's role which is to deal with a wide array of the complex cases. It would be fantastic if "good times" came from their involvement, but the nature of the role means that people often end up walking away with bruises and/or scars. Ideally this would not happen, and there is room for improvement; a greater appreciation of the parties needs and motivations will help. Often parties focus on what is wrong and who is to blame, rather than telling the committee what they want achieved from the arbitration, and work together to define suitable methods of obtaining it. In these cases, Arbcom should step in and tell the parties how to usefully participate if they want an amicable solution.

It is wonderful when people have a good time while editing, that is not Misplaced Pages's responsibility and Arbcom shouldn't be swayed by that. Having fun is the responsibility of each individual editor, and the community at large. If you are not having fun in one area of Misplaced Pages, or you are lacking a sense of accomplishment due to edit wars, etc, do something else, or try a different approach.

See the comments at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Alastair_Haines/Workshop#Editing environment condusive to a great encyclopedia.

John Vandenberg 01:20, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Previous arbcom cases

Questions regarding previous arbitration cases or clarification may be placed here.

Questions from Ncmvocalist

1. This question pertains to the current request to amend the Matthew Hoffman case decided in 2007. Assume you are part of the Committee, and just returned from a wikibreak. You are presented with that request and other statements/comments/replies that are currently viewable. (a) Do you consider this case to be distinct from other cases - if so, how? (b) Would you support a motion to vacate the case? (c) How would you have voted on each of the current motions and why? (d) Would you have made an alternate motion proposal - if so, what would it be? Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Reply

I dont understand you query in regards to this being "distinct" from other cases. Please clarify you question if my answer does address what you had in mind.

I would not support a motion to vacate the case. If it needs fixing, it should be done. If the people involved do not want a public mess in order to have it fixed, it can be done privately, with a final draft provided to the community for comment.

Blanking the case would have been acceptable to me, and I would have been quite flexible with the wording that accompanied the blanking, however I would not have supported any wording that undermined the validity of findings of fact that appeared to be well founded upon my review.

I dont feel it is beneficial for the committee to require that the user obtains arbcom permission to seek reconfirmation. Wherever possible the committee should empower the community to do the right thing, and let it make mistakes. This was not an occasion for the committee to shackle the user to them.

So ... I would have opposed any motion that required the user come back to arbcom, and I would have proposed one or more motions that involved them seeking adminship via RFA in the regular fashion. Some of the optional clauses I would have suggested in alternative motions are:

• a specified RFA threshold of 75% or 80%
• the nomination must disclose the prior sysop account
• the nomination must explain that the circumstances of the desysop.
• the RFA should wait at least 12 months from the desysop.

If the user truly had no desire to seek their sysop tools again, I would have put forward a motion to strike (or remove?) the previous remedy and add a note to indicate that the person no longer wishes to be a sysop, so there is no further remedy required at this time.

John Vandenberg 11:04, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Other

If you are not sure where your question belongs, drop it here, but it may be moved later on.

Questions from Al tally

1. Who in your opinion should decide who is granted CheckUser/Oversight rights? Community, or a group of 15 people in a super-secret discussion that no-one is allowed to see? Bear in mind, every other Wiki without an ArbCom conducts CU/OS elections publicly, without any issues. Your opinion please, not what so-and-so policy says.

Reply

As an aside, I was unanimously elected as a first successful Checkuser, alongside Pathoschild, by the English Wikisource community. There was a prior election also involving Pathoschild that did not obtain sufficient votes due to the size of the community at that time.

Also, your question isnt quite right, as there is a lot of variety in how the WMF wiki elect CU/OS even when they do have an Arbcom, and usually the method chosen has an elect of "tradition" to it. When revising our process, and it is definitely needed, we should undertake a review of the other methods, and adopt many of the good points.

As you will see from my candidate statement, and other answers, I strongly believe that the Arbitration Committee should be primarily focused on the job of arbitration, and that they should be pushing anything that can be public into the public. That holds true for the discussions, and the "power".

In order to overhaul this process rapidly, the following is rough basis of what I will be attempting to implement:

• A set of core competencies are written up, probably drawing on the ones defined by the German Misplaced Pages, to define a good candidate.
• Candidates submit their name either publicly or privately, and there is some initial discussion in the Committee.
• Under each core competency, the committee members endorse or oppose, with a simple majority (or net four?) being all that would be required to have "passed" each competency. If the candidate has passed 2/3 or 3/4 of the core competencies, the nomination would proceed.
• The election for OS/CU should be roughly similar to the elections for 'crat; maybe the threshold needs to be higher, or the process a bit different, but that is a community decision to make.
• Finally, and this step can be removed if the above process works well, every sitting arb committee member has a final veto right that they can exercise if there are substantial issues that arise during the public election.

After six months, a review would be good, and further incremental improvements should then be the responsibility of the community. John Vandenberg 22:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

2. See this oppose vote on SirFozzie's RFA, from 2007. I laughed when I read it, because he's opposing something that sounds just like ArbCom. '...the idea that that small, insular group of editors that frequent the page (including the nominator)' 'are the "community" and can achieve "consensus," adding substance-less votes to what should be consensus discussions on bans' . Quite amusing, coming from a former arbitrator. Anyway, my point is, Community vs. ArbCom Decisions. Can the community overrule an ArbCom decision? Can the community choose to ban someone without going to ArbCom? (From what I can determine from Dmc's message, he doesn't like the idea the community can ban people, but would rather a "small, insular group of editors that frequent the page" do it instead).

Reply

The community should not overrule the committee; vote carefully! That said, the committee should not have their fingers in every pie. The committee is there for when the community either cant settle on a solution, or there is community approval that a situation calls for the committee to take over. As a result, the committees decision needs to be accepted, or appealed in an orderly fashion. At this time I dont think we need a separate appeal process other than the amend/clarify/etc process, but it might be necessary to instigate a process and a separate review panel.

The community can choose to ban someone without need for the committee. The idea of community bans is a scary one - pitchforks and all that - however it happens all the time. I dont have any experience with WP:CSN (which may support Dmc's statement that it was an insular group maintaining it), but the general idea was a good idea, perhaps poorly implemented or managed. WP:RfBan is a good work in progress, as it re-inforces the WP:RFC process rather than duplicating it.

3. Former Arbitrators - should they lose CU/OS privs, and access to the Mailing list? After all, they resigned, so aren't interested in doing the work. Therefore, they have no need for such rights. If you resigned, would you surrender such privs?

Reply

Refer to my candidature statement, and reform objective "Fire the slackers and the lurkers and people whose term is up." in my reply to FT2's first question.

In addition I would like to say that I had to forcefully surrender my access/privs of being a clerk against the wishes of everyone who controlled those privs - and I still have access to the IRC channel - I made use of this once to inform them that there was a clerking task that needed doing immediately, as I didnt feel comfortable doing it. I would have been just as happy to find that my access had been removed, in which case I would have sent an email to their list.

John Vandenberg 00:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

4. Recall - if the community have an issue with your use of CU/OS, or actions as an Arbitrator, what effective way can they address this? (Taking it to ArbCom is the wrong answer, by the way).

Reply

Refer to #Question from AGK, and #Question from NuclearWarfare.

Good luck with the election! Al Tally 19:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. John Vandenberg 00:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Question from Ling.Nut

• I'm asking this of everyone; it didn't occur to me to ask 'til after the "general questions" were closed. This also isn't a vanity question intended to pump my essay. I'm hoping for thoughtful responses.
• Would you please read the (very, very, very short) essay at User:Ling.Nut/3IAR and indicate how much you agree or disagree with its points? If it helps at all, the essay was originally written as a response to an admin who insisted that I was not permitted to make my talk page a redirect to my user page. He did so even though there is (or was at that time?) no rule or guideline to this effect, and far more importantly, even though my actions were harming neither the encyclopedia nor any of its editors.
• Thank you for your time. Ling.Nut 15:33, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Reply

Interesting, but there are at least two problems.

You are missing a zeroth law, which would place the community above the individual - i.e. an admin sometimes needs to do an action which is not good for another Wikipedian, but is in the best interest of the community.

Inaction is permitted on Misplaced Pages, as we are not robots: we are volunteers. We are allowed to pass the buck, if we wish to, in a large range of scenarios.

John Vandenberg 17:20, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Follow-up questions from FT2

Thank you for your first answers, broadly on yourself and Arbcom.

These are some questions about your skill at Misplaced Pages dispute resolution:

1. Flexibility:

   a) What experience do you have at a range of Misplaced Pages dispute resolution "styles", and in estimating how users may react to a given response? (This is a fairly essential skill in deciding whether to play hard or soft, direct or mediated, give another chance, discuss further, draw a line, or "try something new" in a case.)

   b) Please outline your track record at choosing remedies that are effective, but not overly-excessive, in a sample of difficult cases.
   (Note:- in a lot of cases, a remedy may potentially be "multi stage"; that is, take a step, see what effect it has, return to it if needed. This may include watching or warning first times, taking a tougher line later, or deciding it's an acceptable risk if they act up again, since action could be taken in future if needed. Although mild, it's a valid approach. I'd be fine if you use it, and what you do when it fails.

   c) Please show some cases you gave a seemingly difficult user a chance to reform (when others were skeptical), and where you drew a very hard but fair line on a problematic user.

   d) Please highlight a project space matter where there was much divisive opinion but where other administrators (on both "sides") listened to you, and you helped focus or resolve it.

2. Conduct under pressure:

   a) Please point out a case you took a stand that was not universally popular, knowing you could face retaliation or rebuke.

   b) Please point out a matter where you were badly attacked, accused, or heavily provoked, but remained in line with "best practice" conduct, yourself.

   c) Please point out a dispute where you faced people trying to redirect the matter to a side-issue (soapbox, hobby horse, etc) and your response was to avoid the "invitation" of distraction, and to keep the focus on the main target.

   d) Please point out a serious dispute which occupied your attention for between 2 weeks and several months, and which shows your sticking power and handling in the context of protracted disputes.

Like the previous questions, they are intended to be searching. Feedback will also be provided. Thank you. FT2  04:00, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages Arbitration Committee Elections 2008