Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:19, 2 December 2006

Questions from Mailer Diablo

1. Express in a short paragraph, using any particular issue/incident that you feel strongly about (or lack thereof) in the past, on why editors must understand the importance of the ArbCom elections and making wise, informed decisions when they vote.

• Elections to ArbCom are very important because the ArbCom is very important for the well-being of Misplaced Pages. For an example of the ArbCom case that affected the whole system of Misplaced Pages governance is Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Giano. This was a high profile case there ArbCom itself was strongly involved as a party. Some evidence was confidential. Both parties have many years of relations with the ArbCom members. In short it was very difficult. Still I think the process was reasonably transparent and the decision was a fair reflections of community sentiments and the basic wikipedia principles.

2. Imagine. Say Jimbo grants you the authority to make, or abolish one policy with immediate and permanent effect, assuming no other limitations, no questions asked. What would that be?

• I do not like the idea of the unilateral policies introduced by some administrative fiat. Thus, I would probably recuse. As a one idea I would like to have some teeth given to WP:RFC or other non-ArbCom dispute resolution. I even have written a proposal WP:RFSL for something like this.

3. It is expected that some successful candidates will receive checkuser and oversight privileges. Have you read and understood foundation policies regulating these privileges, and able to help out fellow Wikipedians on avenues (e.g. WP:RFCU) in a timely manner should you be granted either or both of them?

• As an almost every practising admin I have filled many WP:RFCU requests. I have also used the "Admin's Oversight" - deletion of a particular version of an article because of the sensitive information inside. I think both tools are very important and I would be happy to help the community with them. Checkuser is paramount in the enforcing some accountability of editors in the Misplaced Pages Universe while keeping their privacy and immunity in their real life. It is a laborious and very important job that can be given only to the trusted members of the community. Oversight is somehow less frequent job but this is a job that should be done very fast so a reasonable number of people should have this tool. Oversight cannot ruin people's real lives but can destroy the integrity of Misplaced Pages so it also should be given only to the trusted people.

4. What is integrity, accountability and transparency to you on the ArbCom?

• Integrity of an ArbCom members means that they are to make decisions for the good of Misplaced Pages without regard to their own personal interests, interests of their friends or the intersts of their own point of views.
• Accountability means that they would feel the consequences if their decisions are wrong. All arbcom members are accountable by their good names and the re-elections if they decide to take part in ones. If I will be elected I will be also accountable as an Arbcom member and an Admin open to recall as well as by my good name in the real life (that is the same as my nick).
• Transparency means that the reasons for the decisions and the whole process of the Comittee deliberations should be as open for the whole community as possible. Obviously there are limits on the transparency - some private information (e.g. Checkuser data) are bound to be confidential. Still ArbCom should be as transparent as possible.

5. Humour, a tradition of Wikipedian culture, has seen through several controversies in recent history. This is including but not limited to bad jokes and other deleted nonsense, parody policies/essays, April Fools' Day, whole userpages, userboxes... Do you think that they are all just harmless fun, or that they are all nonsense that must go?

• On one hand, humour can help to solve many conflicts on wiki better than any mediators - it helped people to see bigger picture. On the other hand. we all belong to different cultures. A nice joke for some editors is a blunt grave insult for others and simply a nonsense for the thirds. I think we should never allow any sort of humour in the mainspace. Jokes in the other spaces are permitted but are somehow censored - anything abusive or insulting is not welcome - better miss a couple of opportunities to crack jokes than to upset a person. I will live to my word and so I will skip the fine "In Soviet Russia" joke I intended to put in the end of this answer.

Questions from User:MariusM

1. I noticed you are one who apply double standards here in Misplaced Pages. You didn't block an user who broke 6 times the 3RR. The case was already reported at Administrators noticeboard Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive145#Misplaced Pages.E2.80.99s_double_standards.3F. Was this only because you liked that user political opinions of supporting Russian expansionism, or there were other reasons for your actions?--MariusM 23:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

   The 3RR blocks are not intended to be punitive they are intended to stop the revert wars. The article was protected so the edit war was already stopped and there were no reasons to block the user. For exactly the same reason I have not blocked you while a 3RR report on you was just next to the report on User:William Mauco. Is it because I am supporting Romanian expansionism, or there were other reasons for my actions?

   Misleading comment, Mr. Bakharev. In 3/4 November it was only the other user who broke the 3RR, and he did it twice , . I had an old 3RR report against me from 24 October, when I was not blocked as I was in a content dispute with the other user, who also had an other 3RR report against him in 23 October. We both were pardoned at that time, but in 4 November were other 2 breaking of the rules by him and none by me. Old report against me was not next to the new reports against User:William Mauco. You can not block me in 4 November for a mistake I did in 24 October (anyhow, after that mistake I refrained myself to edit Misplaced Pages for 24 h). I had some disputes with Mauco in WIkipedia, and score is 6-1 for him (he broke 3RR 6 times, I broke once, none of us were blocked). I understand the decision to forgive both of us in 24 October, I don't understand the decision of 4 November. This kind of decisions are an encouragement for edit warriors.--MariusM 01:02, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

   Lets keep it straight. I was asked by a new admin to look if the edit warring on Transnistria warrants full protection. I have looked and decided to protect it and start a discussion on the talk page instead (the discussion started on the talk page is IMHO quite productive). Then I notice that your names (the main warring parties) appeared on the 3RR list and put No Result there as the article was protected . I thought I have let both of you out but it looks like I let Mauco out twice. But it appears not to be the case. Sorry about it. Anyway, I would certainly not block you if it were you in that situation. I do not believe in punitive 3RR blocks, only preventive ones and the article was locked Alex Bakharev 03:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

2. In January 2006 you self declared that you are "a representative of a Russian POV" . As a member of Arbitration Comitee you will still be "a representative of a Russian POV" or a representative of NPOV?--MariusM 14:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

   I invested a lot of time into the P:RUS and feel partial to the editors there. Thus, I would obviously have to recuse from all the disputes involving Russia or frequent editors of the portal P:RUS. Regarding my failed attempt to clean-up the Transnistria article and mediate the conflict between User:Node ue and User:Bonaparte in January 2006, all editors has their own points of views, the neutral point of view (abbreviated NPOV) of articles grows out of the fair disclosure and recognition of editors possible bias and their desire to seek compromise and take into account all the points of view of involved editors. Failure to do it often lead to disruptive editing and the first step to achieve some NPOV is to honestly recognize your own bias. I still fail to understand the hysteric our friend User:Bonaparte threw up then I did it. It is the first time (and only time) then I met such a hostile reaction in all my wikilife Alex Bakharev 05:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Questions from Newyorkbrad

Welcome to the race and good luck. Newyorkbrad 01:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

1. A standard question I am asking all the candidates. What can be done to reduce the delays in the arbitration process?
2. If elected, do you anticipate doing any writing of the actual ArbCom decisions? If so, do you have any writing experience that would be relevant to this particular task?
3. You state that you "intend to be an arbitrator open to recall." As far as I know, "arbitrators open to recall" is a thus far nonexistent category. How do you envision this process working, and how would you avoid a situation in which recall could routinely be sought be any party or parties unhappy with the outcome of their case?

• Thanks for your nice words. Now answers:
• 1. There are two ways:
  • A) make the ArbCom hearings more efficient,
  • B) settle more cases out of ArbCom.
• I think we could achieve A) by trimming some fat out of the ArbCom procedures (e.g. limit the time for deliberation on the Workshop, etc.). It also will be more efficient if there were less "inactive" arbcom members, so if I elected I would try to be either an "active" arbcom 90% of the time or retire at the next available elections. In my humble opinion the most effective way to make Arbcom more efficient is B) - settle most of the cases out of Arbcom. I am currently trying to start a discussion on that by writing the WP:RFSL that is a proposal for the RFC with teeth. The active proposal Misplaced Pages:Community sanction can achieve the same results if used more often. Alex Bakharev 03:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
• 2. Yes, in all my wiki-roles I never assumed a position of a sinecure, so I expect to do the writing. On the other hand, I do amazed by the talent of User:Fred Bauder in writing decisions. I will try, but cannot promise to start with this level of skills.
• 3. If you look on my User:Alex_Bakharev/Recall it intentionally written the way to make it difficult for a disgruntled troll or vandal to start the proceedings, on the other hand if there is a strong community feeling that I do something wrong it should be easy for them to recall me. The process will look very similar to my Recall from the adminship but with some tune-up: N users in good standing having more than M edits, no long blocks and probably not involved in a current ArbCom case should sign the demand for my resignation. If in a week twice as many editors with the same qualifications will ask me to stay, then the case is closed. Otherwise I will open an RfC against myself. If there is a 50% majority to dismiss me, then I will retire at the first scheduled Arbcom election. I do not think these rules are that easy to game, but if there will be a community consensus to dismiss me it would work as a breeze. I would not retire immediately but wait for the next elections because even a single missing member seriously handicaps the ArbCom ability to work. Since the three-tranche system of Arbcom elections it would mean that if dismissed early I will sit only 1/3 of my term.

Questions from John Reid

Q: 1. Who are you?

A: A "research and development engineer" dealing with simulation of polymer processing. I was born in Russia, worked in Illinois and finally settled in Australia. Some detailes of my bio are on my Userpage

Q: 2. Are you 13? Are you 18?

A: As a matter of fact I am 43. My 17-years old son sometime edits Misplaced Pages as an IP number.

Q: 3. Should ArbCom arbitrate policy disputes or any other matter outside user conduct issues? Why or why not?

A: I think ArbCom is something similar to the High Court in the Common Law countries. It does not set the laws but settles conflicts and establishes precedents. E.g. Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/AndriyK#Reversal_of_irreversible_page_moves established that Moved pages which have become irreversible by adding to the page history of the redirect page may be moved back without the necessity of a vote at Misplaced Pages:Requested moves. This rule was established by analyzing a particular dispute. After the precedent is established we have a useful rule for handling such moves

Question from Ragesoss

In the Misplaced Pages context, what is the difference (if any) between NPOV and SPOV (scientific point of view)?

• WP:NPOV is a well established and described policy. Honestly, I do not know what is SPOV. Obviously if the mainstream science consider something as an established fact it should be stated in the article. But NPOV is much wider than that. Many important statements are inherently some body's opinions: is French cuisine is better than Italian? are Republicans better than Democrats? - all such statements should be attributed and balanced. There are also unsolved mysteries. We do not know for sure if O.J. Simpson is a murderer or if the String theory is true. Finally we have some problems of the religious believes. From the scientific point of view Jesus Christ was probably a Jewish philosopher born in around 5 b.c.e and executed around 30 c.e.; with not much of a reliable information in between. From that point He certainly was not a son of God as the mainstream science does not recognize such a thing. Obviously we could not censor the relevant articles from all the other info. Views of theologians on Jesus are important (and even more important than the views of historians)

Question from Sam Blanning

In your candidate statement, you say that you are open to recall under certain conditions.

1. Do you believe that all administrators should be open to recall?

   I do believe that we should have a simpler procedure to de-admin and re-admin people as it was no big deal. This is especially important then we appoint new admins. People believe that we would probably stick with the new appointees as admins forever even if they would be proven to be unsuitable but did not do something egregorious; so voters apply extremely high criteria. The same time ArbCom is very reluctant to de-admin people as the arbitrators know it would be next to impossible to re-admin them through RfA again. So far the idea of Admin recall was a mixed success. Only one admin was recalled and instead of fighting in some sort of a De-admin process he just step down and was re-adminned via RfA in a few months. No deadminship process emrged yet. So far it looks like the recall option is not causing an epidemic of actual recalls as it was predicted. Thus, we could use it wider.

2. Do you believe that all arbitrators should be open to recall? --Sam Blanning 23:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

   I would like to see first if it creates an undue pressure on the arbitrators. If yes, it is not an option, if no, then we could consider it. Only an experiment could tell

Question from Giano

Members of the current Arbcom were recently openly discussing people involved in an Arbcom case on the IRC Admin's channel. What are your views on that, and on Arbcom confidentiality. Giano 17:21, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• I think it was a bad idea. Admin's IRC is forum accessible only to a fraction of Wikipedians and in fact used only by a fraction of admins. They seems at a time to act as a group. The conversation there can be seen as the group trying to influence the desicion of ArbCom or alternatively as an interested arbitrators asking for astroturfing on the Arbcom workshop. It is much better to discuss things onwiki (the talk page of the case appear to be the place) or discuss it privately on the Arbcom mailing list. By saying this I of course not imply that if an arbitrator who uses IRC for his admin duties is asked "How's is such and such case", then the said arbitrators should log off from the IRC immediately. Obviously saying in effect something like "The case is difficult, but I would rather not discuss it here" is entirely appropriate.

Questions from Badbilltucker

Thank you for volunteering to take on this task, and for putting yourself through having to answer these questions. For what it's worth, these particular questions are going to all the candidates.

1. I've noticed that a total of thriteen people have resigned from the committee, and that there is currently one vacancy open in one of the tranches. Having members of the committee resign sometime during their term could create problems somewhere down the road. What do you think are the odds that you yourself might consider resigning during the course of your term, and what if any circumstances can you envision that might cause you to resign? Also, do you think that possibly negative feelings from others arising as a result of a decision you made could ever be likely to be cause for your own resignation?

• I have stated that I am open for recall so it should not only be my desicion. Also if I feel that istead of been an asset for the Arbcom I become a liability then I would resign myself. At any rate I would do my best to wait for a new ArbCom elections - the rules of the ArbCom are such that any missing member hurts a big deal, on the other hand I don't see any harm if on an election there will be not 5 but six seats for the grab. Saying this I should mention that I am not that easy quitter, thus, a group of editors trying to get rid of me by attacks or slander would probably fail unless supported by the larger community.

2. There may well arise cases where a dispute based on the inclusion of information whose accuracy is currently a point of seemingly reasonable controversy, possibly even bitter controversy, in that field of study. Should you encounter a case dealing with such information, and few if any of your colleagues on the committee were knowledgeable enough in the field for them to be people whose judgement in this matter could be completely relied upon, how do you think you would handle it?

• There is the WP:NPOV policy that says that all notable views are to be represented and attributed. There is nothing ambiguous about that. What is discussable is if a minority view is of such a tiny minority that should not be included at all, or if it is notable enough to be included. Arbitrators are not supposed to be experts on everything but they are supposed to be able to evaluate the Evidence provided by the parties if the minority view is discussed in reliable sources, mention in Encyclopedias, etc. In almost all cases it appears to be a reasonably easy job. Alex Bakharev 22:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Questions from AnonEMouse

Warning: Most of these are intended to be tough. Answering them properly will be hard. I don't expect anyone to actually withdraw themselves from nomination rather than answer these, but I do expect at least some to seriously think about it!

The one consolation is that your competitors for the positions will be asked them too. Notice that there are about one thousand admins, and about a dozen arbcom members, so the process to become an arbcom member may be expected to be one hundred times harder. (Bonus question - do you think I hit that difficulty standard?) :-)

1. A current Arbcom case, Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy is concerned with the decision of whether or not a proposed policy has consensus or not, and therefore whether or not it should be a policy/guideline. Whether or not the Arbcom has or should have the power of making this decision is hotly disputed. Does Arbcom have this power? Should it have this power? Why or why not?

   I think if we have a conflict between editors whether a consensus was reached on a policy and all other mediation efforts fail then it is the matter for Arbcom. These conditions seem to be the case for the conflict over WP:CHILD so I would support accepting the case. I also want to note that there might be legal reasons for the Wikimedia Foundation to accept such a policy even if there is no consensus in the comunity over the issue, but this is the matter for the WMF and its legal officers. Arbcom should only decide whether there was a community consensus over the policy.

2. Similarly, a recently closed Arbcom case Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Giano barely dodged the possibly similar issue of whether the Arbcom can, or should, determine whether Bureaucrats properly made someone an administrator. (Discussed, for example, here). The current arbcom dodged the question (didn't reach agreement one way or the other, and ended up leaving it alone by omission), but you don't get to. :-) Does the arbcom have this power? Should it?

   It did not dodge the issue - see Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Giano#Failure_to_achieve_consensus. It quite plainly said that the consensus was not reached. The section may be considered as a polite warning to the bureaucrats closing the controversial nomination.

   Another issue is that Carnildo was not desysoped despite all the controversy over his appointment. It was discussed on the workshop of the case and I think the decision was right - it was not Carnildo fault what his request was closed an unusual way and his administrative behavior is to be reviewed by the Arbcom soon anyway.

3. Various arbcom decisions (can't find a link right now - bonus points for finding a link to an arbcom decision saying this!) have taken into account a user's service to the Misplaced Pages. Several times they have written that an otherwise good user that has a rare instance of misbehaviour can be treated differently than a user whose similar misbehaviour is their main or sole contribution to the Misplaced Pages. Do you agree or not, and why?

   Yes, I agree. Our task is to build a "reference source like the humankind never seen before" not to school users in good manners. If contributions of an editor grossly overweight the harm he or she causes it would be absolutely stupid to get rid of them or severely handicap their editorial abilities. Obviously the harm of a bad behavior by a star author may include his bad example for the less briliant editors (it is more easy to learn a specific way to game the system or make a personal attack than talents, knowledge and thousands of hours of volounteer work).

4. If you agree with the above point, which service to the encyclopedia is more valuable - administration, or writing very good articles? For example, what happens when two editors, an administrator and a good article writer, come into conflict and/or commit a similar infraction - how should they be treated? Note that there are relatively the same number of current administrators and featured articles on the Misplaced Pages - about 1000 - however, while relatively few administrators have been de-adminned, many former featured articles have been de-featured, so there have been noticeably more featured articles written than administrators made. This is a really tough one to answer without offending at least one important group of people, and I will understand if you weasel your way out of answering it, but it was one of the issues brought up in the recent Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Giano, so you can imagine it may come up again.

   Honestly, I do not see this as a bomb. Admins are suppose to behave by a stricter sets of rules than the ordinary users. Secondly, admins are sort of expandable - just lower a little bit standards for RfA and we would soon get hundreds of new admins. There is no simple way to accept more brilliant editors - we already allow everybody to edit our wiki (just not everybody can manage to be brilliant). Thirdly, a desysopped admin can still do useful pseudoadmin work - revert and report vandalism, discuss AfD, check images for copyvio, discuss policies, help with arbcom workshopping, your name it. Their work will be handicapped by the lack of the tools but still is possible. Not to mention that the free time can be used for writing the articles. Banned editors cannot edit. Period. Obviously all I said above does not mean that a microscopic problem with an admin is worse than a regular vandalism by an editor, but if things are equal the question is no brainer.

5. While some Arbcom decisions pass unanimously, many pass with some disagreement. I don't know of any Arbcom member who hasn't been in the minority on some decisions. Find an Arbcom decision that passed, was actually made that you disagree with. Link to it, then explain why you disagree. (If you don't have time or inclination to do the research to find one - are you sure you will have time or inclination to do the research when elected? If you can't find any passed decisions you disagree with, realize you are leaving yourself open to accusations of running as a rubber stamp candidate, one who doesn't have any opinions that might disagree with anyone.)

   Lets consider e.g. Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Aucaman. I think it was absolutely unneccessary to put User:Khoikhoi on probation, he in good faith was trying to mediate a conflict between warring parties. I am quite happy that he was finally rescinded .

6. It has been noted that the diligent User:Fred Bauder writes most of the initial Arbcom decisions -- especially principles, and findings of fact, but even a fair number of the remedies. (Then a fair number get opposed, and refined or don't pass, but he does do most of the initial work.) Do you believe this is: right; neither right nor wrong but acceptable; or wrong? When you get elected, what do you plan to do about it?

   Well it is the Misplaced Pages way - people who has talents to do a job they just do it. It maybe unfair to Fred Bauder who obliged to do more work than other admins; it may be also unfair to the electorate: people may expect similar influence of all the arbitrators but in reality Fred influenced the decisions stronger than any other members of the Arbcom. The obvious remedy would be to write some drafts myself if elected. I am not sure if I could manage to beat Fred in this but I will try.

7. For those who are administrators only - how do you feel about non-administrators on the arbcom? Note that while "sure, let them on if they get elected" is an easy answer, there are issues with not having the ability to view deleted articles, and either not earning the community trust enough to become an admin, or not wanting the commensurate duties. Or do you believe that non-administrators are a group that need representation on the arbcom?

   I think non-admins in Arbcom should be rare exceptions. Non-admins are handicapped as Arbcom members - e.g. they cannot read history of deleted articles. More importantly how the community can trust somebody with Checkuser, Oversight and decisions to ban established good-faith users but not trust them with the delete and block buttons. I would suggest that non-admin should go through the RfA first and then apply for Arbcom, not the other way around. Obviously, there should be exceptions but I fail to see one at the moment.

AnonEMouse 14:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Question(s) from Dakota

If elected to the Arbitration Committee will you continue active editing? Will you not lose interest in contributing to articles. Will you be available to any users who seek your help or advice.

--Dakota 06:01, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• Certainly, I have not lost interest to the article writing or became inapproachable when became an admin, why should I loose it if elected to Arbcom?

I asking because of the increased workload that must come with the task. Thank you for the satisfactory answer.--Dakota 14:07, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Question from Ezhiki

Hi, Alex. Glad you decided to run and good luck! Now, for the question: What is you personal opinion of Misplaced Pages:Community sanction? What do you think are its main benefits and/or downsides? What, in your view, are the signs distinguishing "community ban" from "angry mob lynching"?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Hi, Ezhiki. Nice to meet you. I like the Misplaced Pages:Community sanction very much. It is a great extension to the Community ban. The Community ban was a great policy that allowed to deal with many disruptive users out of Arbcom way. It was probably the single most important law and order policy in the last year. Still there was a paradoxical situation - we could community-ban a user but could not impose probation or mentoring or ban from specific articles or 1RR rule without Arbcom. As the Arbcom is always backlogged and perceived as an extremely slow ans ineffective there was pressure to use community blocks instead of more adequate sanctions to correct users behavior. I think if at the time we could apply community mentoring and 1RR instead of community blocks we would not loose User:SuperDeng.

• The community sanctions are fast and effective but may be abused. If a lesser prominent user is about to be banned not many of the WP:AN might notice or scrutinize the proposed ban. So, theoretically, an admin who has a conflict with a user may sneak the ban through the WP:AN without people noticing. It might be a good idea to have proposed community bans to be announced on a special, less busy panel. That way it would be easier to more people to notice it. The other danger is that deciding fast we can overlook important details and approve unfair sanctions. I think we should make most of the decisions after an RfC or other WP:DR are filled, so to see both sides of an argument, only the most obvious cases should be decided instantly. The third way the process can be abused is that the agreement of all one thousand admins is required. If just one admin for whatever reason decided to protect a disruptive user then the opinion of all other 999 admins does not matter, the user is immune to the community persecutions (the case of a pet troll). In my project WP:RFSL there was a mechanism to insure that at least five admins have scrutinized the solution and a single admin could not hold the community sanctions. On the hand it might be over-formalized and unwiki. I am still waiting for people's comments. Alex Bakharev 02:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Alex, thank you for your detailed write-up. I, however, have a follow-up question, based on my original one and on AnonEMouse's question #3. It's going to be a tough one, but since you handled the previous two with aplomb (even though I personally disagree with some of your points), I hope you'll be able to answer this one as well.

Suppose, we have an extremely productive editor who is considered to be so uncooperative that the community sanctions policy is invoked and the user is banned from Misplaced Pages. The user decides to appeal with ArbCom. How would you handle such situation? Would you rather save an invaluable editor or would you respect the community decision and dismiss the appeal? I am interested in your actions in the frame of existing policies, not from the proposed RFSL policy point of view. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Feel free to take all the time you need to answer this question. I realize it's not an easy one.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Ezhiki, sorry for the delay, I have not noticed your question. I am not completely understand your question. According to the current wording of WP:BAN Community bans must be supported by a strong consensus and should never be enacted based on agreement between a handful of admins or users, recently it was stated even stronger that Community ban means that no admins would want to unblock the user. So far I am an admin, suppose I do not support the ban. By the old version of the policy it meant that the community ban is automatically null and void. (I once invoked that clause stopping the Community Ban against User:SuperDeng). Now the policy is stated more strictly, I guess my opinion against the opinion of the other 1000+ admins does not break the strong consensus. But if the user is really so invaluable contributor it should be easy to persuade other admins, (e.g. you :) ) to oppose the ban. Then there is no valid community ban and no community decision to respect. There might be other community actions (e.g. Community imposed mentoring) or indeed the case should go to Arbcom. On the other hand if I tried to explain my position to many administrators and nobody agree to oppose the ban, then, yes, Arbcom should respect the community decision (and I obviously should recuse anyway as too involved). There might be the third possibility there is no administrators' consensus to block the user, but most of the admins were not aware of the discussion on WP:AN or the discussion was to short and missed important fact, etc. Obviously Arbcom has all the rights to check if there is indeed the strong consensus among admins other the ban (see me answer on the q1 of AnonyMouse).

• What I was trying to argue

Question(s) from maclean

Do you have dispute resolution experience in any of the following areas: Misplaced Pages:Mediation Committee, Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal, Misplaced Pages:Third opinion, Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment, or Misplaced Pages:Association of Members' Advocates? If not successful with the Arbitration Committee, will you seek a position with the Mediation Committee?

• I have participated in a number of WP:RFCs. For an example of a recent example see e.g. Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Halibutt. I was dragged into a couple of cases mediated by the Misplaced Pages:Mediation Committee and Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal. As an editor and an admin I was trying to informally mediate hundreds of disputes, many successful. My own experience shows that in the most cases the "formal" mediation is no more efficient in solving the disputes than the informal mediation. The main reason is that all the formal non-Arbcom mediations cannot enforce their decision. They are based on the assumption on the trust that both parties feel to each other and to the mediators. Now if the parties are both looking for a compromise and assume the good faith of each other, than they usually able to solve their disputes themselves or to find somebody they both trust to help them out. If a party do not look for the compromise it would just ignore the results of mediation and the mediation will fail. If a party does not trust their opponents they would assume they could not win - they either loose the mediation or their opponents would ignore it anyway. In that case why should they agree for the mediation? In my own opinion for the easy cases a mediation by an uninvolved admin, or by WP:AN/I, WP:PAIN, etc. are often more effective - at least the mediator has some teeth. Discussion on the relevant Project and Portal pages is often very effective too - opinions of the fellow project members are often quite valuable for the potentially tendentious editors. For the most difficult cases only Arbcom is really the answer. Because of this I am not looking for a position in the Mediation Committee. I have enough opportunities to be involved in mediation already the same way as I have a lot of opportunities for the vandal fighting without been a member of the CVU. This is my own personal choice, I have a deep respect for the official mediators and know that they often achieve success against all the odds, and I certainly do not want to denigrate their work, but the answer is No.

Question from JzG

Open-mindedness and the ability to revise one's own position in response to new evidence seems to me to be an important factor in considering ArbCom cases. Can you please provide an example of a situation where your initial judgement of a situation turned out to be wrong, and show how you dealt with it? Guy (Help!) 14:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, my initial judgement is often wrong, but I am reasonably flexible in changing my opinion. As an example lets have my initial encounter with User:E104421. In fact I was referred to him by a WP:AIV report: an IP was blanking the tails off the Turkish-related articles and edit warring (violating 3RR despite warnings) on a number of articles related to the Turkish defense forces. He was removing apparently sourced information and revising the strength of the forces to the smaller numbers. What would be your judgement? My judgement was that this is an anti-Turkish vandal probably related to a group of editors in conflict with the Turkish editors (Russians? Greeks? Armenians? Iranians? who knows?). I have blocked the IP for vandalism and 3RR violation. In a few minutes I saw the same edits by a newly registered account of E104421. What would you do? I blocked the account as well and wrote quite a stern message about the circumventing blocks via multiple account. Everything appeared clear. Then I got a few emails form E104421, did my research and found that I was completely wrong. The blanking was not a vandalism but a result of the infamous Googlebar bug. The "sourced" material he was objecting to was only sourced to a personal site of his opponent (a sock of a permabanned user) and the data were obviously absurd as it would be obvious to anybody who has got any idea about the real might of Turkish forces (I didnot). Finally he did not circumvent the block, the edits of the registered account were made before the IP was blocked. And, of course, the user was a newbie who was not fully aware of wikipedia rules. I have unblocked him and did some little mentoring. Currently E104421 is one of my favorite "Turkish" editors. He is an obvious supporter of pro-Turkish point of views in the multiple edit wars but one of the most moderate and sincerely looks for compromise. As far as I can tell he is not mad on me.

Questions from Torinir

I'm asking these questions all applicants:

1) How would you handle a situation where an error of judgment has occured, especially if evidence is provided to confirm that the position is incorrect?

• Obviously, bring my sincere apologies and fix the error if it is possible. If my error is sufficiently grave I should step down.

2) If a decision of yours, while technically a correct one, would knowingly be unpopular en masse, how would you present your decision?

• People en masse are not stupid, if the decision is a correct then it might be sufficiently explained so to be made popular. I will try my best to explain why the decision is correct.

3) Place each of these policies/guidelines listed in order of precedence (to you) starting with highest priority. There is really no right or wrong answer. I'm interested in seeing what you would normally look at first when assessing an article.

• All the policies work together many of them does not make sense without each other. What link in a chain is more important? Many of your policies are actually more concrete version of the others: WP:NPOV is a detailed explanation of the WP:NOT (Not a soapbox), WP:NOR is a consequence of WP:NPOV (putting your own unpublished research gives an undue weight), WP:V is a narrated form of WP:NOR, WP:RS is an explanation for WP:V, WP:BLP is a special case of WP:V and WP:RS. WP:C is a legal requirement that the society put on Wiki, usually we can retell the story (or even redo or substitute the image) to satisfy this requirement for a worthy subject. Finally WP:N is just a technical rule showing that the subject is interesting to at least a few of active editors. If the number of wikipedians are significantly expanded, then WP:N can be revised. Thus the results is:

WP:NOT

WP:NPOV

WP:NOR

WP:V

WP:RS

WP:BLP

WP:C

WP:N

Hypothetical from John Reid

• Content dispute on Article X. Editor A ignites war with rude comment on User talk:B. New editor B sees this and reacts but A sneaky reverts himself before anybody else notices the instigation. Rude comments on Talk:X. Rude comments between Editors A and B on each other's talk. Admin C blocks A and B for a day. 12 hours later, Admin D sees the sneaky revert and unblocks B and, for good measure, extends A's block to 2 days. Admin C sees the unblock, doesn't understand/agree with the block sum, reblocks B and extends his block to match A's. He comments in good faith on User talk:D.

Admin D sees the reblock and reads the comment that reveals C's ignorance, reunblocks B, and leaves message on AN, explaining the sneaky revert. C reblocks again, leaves message on User talk:D complaining of 0WW violation. D replies on User talk:C, explains the sneaky revert, and unblocks both parties. Admin E (up to now uninvolved, stay with me here) comes to User talk:B to follow up on unrelated Article Y discussion; sees B complaining mightily but incoherently about being blocked. E reads through talk on X, A, and B and sees a lot of rudeness, blocks both editors for a day.

Editors M, N, P, and Q, friends or partisans of A and B, object loudly on talk to every turn of events; C blocks some of them, D blocks others. Meanwhile, C and D are trading insults on talk and Admin F finally steps in and blocks them for a week. Admin G unblocks everybody. Admin H discusses the situation offwiki with Admins J and K; H posts to AN with the stated intent to block all involved parties for 24 hours for violations of CIVIL and NPA. J and K endorse; H implements the blocks, which expire a day later. The case winds up at ArbCom.

I've already written my answer in detail, encrypted it, and uploaded it to a userpage. I'll give you a week to think about this case before revealing my solutions. 08:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• I think there is obviously no one right solution for the provided data. Consider a simpler question: "what to do if a user A posted a rude comment on talk of B?". The answer may range from "nothing" to "permablock user A immediately" - we just do not specified how venomous was the comment. In your case we do not how venomous were all the comments, whether anybody of them been in a similar situation before, whether any of the admins involved had their own interest in the situation, etc. The argument started with a misunderstanding the "sneaky reversion" was a sort of recognition that the comment was wrong but this half-hearted apology was missed by B. It progressed by miscommunication between the admins. It looks pretty awful that no admins going into the fight communicated with the previous admins or attempted to mediate the conflict (or asked for mediation) before using the admin tools or inflaming the situation. It looks like everybody involved are guilty, they all are hot headed and trigger happy. The remedies are actually dependent upon involved people recognize they were wrong in this tempest in the teapot. If they all understand they were wrong and ready to bring each other apologies then the situation is solved, no blocks or other repressions should be issued, some of them probable should be warned (A,B, C,D, M, N, P, Q about the civility; all admins about wheel warring and trigger happiness). If some parties feel they are rightious and will repeat their behavior at the first available pretext, then the remedies should be stricter: involving probation, civility parole, 1 revert parole, etc. or even deadmining and bans.

Question from Sugaar

How would you deal with abuse of authority by administrators, meaning by this application of blocks as punitive measures and use of blocks in unclear PA cases, as per WP:BLOCK. Would you protect the sysop no matter what or would you defend policy above all? In other words, what do you consider more important: strict discipline or strict application policy? Thanks.

• I think the most important is pragmatism. Wiki is run by volunteers and we cannot expect military discipline from the editors (and since I received in my University some training as a senior lieutenant of the reserve of Soviet Army, I have a very strong doubt in usability of military discipline for Wiki). Users have all the rights to grumble about other editors and admins so far as the grumbling is not disruptive. On the other hand admins should be protected from trolls and attempts to game the system. Alex Bakharev 22:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Question from Srikeit

You were involved in an edit-war with another user, following which you protected the page in question and blocked the user you were disputing with. You later gave an explanation which I personally find very unsatisfactory. Can you please explain your actions in this incident?

• Yes, on 13 July 2006 I have locked the article Lazar Kaganovich to the version of my "opponent" Rastishka (talk · contribs) and started an RfC on the matter of dispute (see Talk:Lazar_Kaganovich#Poll_on_wording_on_Responsibility_for_Holodomor) the RfC continued for one week. Nobody including Rastishka himself voted to support his version, ten editors (including me) supported the other version. I think the results of the RfC show what type of the edit conflict it was. After the end of the poll I have unlocked the article and implemented the consensus changes. It more or less solved the conflict. Even in hindsight I do not see how my actions were wrong.

• Two weeks before this I had blocked Rastishka (for three hours and 31 hours) for the violations of the 3RR on that article in the edit was against the consensus (the second violations minutes after the first block expired). Obviously I immediately posted the block on the WP:AN to review (see ). User:Jeffrey O. Gustafson reviewed this block and found them to be right. In hindsight it would probably be better to ask some other admin to act on the 3RR violation but the day before these blocks I left a 3RR report on the same Rastishka and nobody acted on it and it was important to show this user that 3RR is indeed an electrified fence. His violations of the 3RR were simply a byte for other users involved in the article.

• The message to User:Dmcdevit you cited was connected to his blocking of a number of editors over the edit warings on Ukrainization article. There were two editors pushing the same edit rejected by consensus for months. I was not involved in the edit warring but the article is on my watch-list. I could not interfere as an admin as the case is significantly more complicated there as the case is Kaganovich/Rastishka and I was partial to this dispute (many of the participants are my wikifriends). The dispute was continuing for a few weeks with two of the consensus-breakers often spending their 6 reverts in a few minutes, while the larger community was reverting them; the next day the situation repeated, etc. Dmcdevit decided to block one consensus-breaker for one week, warn the second one and block a number of opposing editors for 24 hours. Most of them had clean block-logs and were very productive users proud by their contributions to wiki and they had reverted the article only 3-4 times during a week (not a day). I wrote to Dmc that I do not think these 24h blocks were warranted since at the time the only way to enforce consensus (short to Arbcom) were such reverts and put as an example my experience with Rastishka/Kaganovich. I want to remind readers that it was before the creation of the WP:DE policy that is designed to address exactly that situation.

No Question from Mustafa Akalp

Sorry I could'nt find any question to ask. I watch closely you in different areas of wiki.No need to ask any more, I just wish goodluck for you. Must 15:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks, Mustafa

Questions from Anomo

1. I have read on several websites (they even gave links to block logs) of Misplaced Pages admins who do things like indefinitely blocking accounts who have not edited for months, there was no CheckUser anything, no reports, and the admin didn't give any reason, just put personal attacks as the block reason (e.g. saying "troll"). Basically such cases seem done beyond punative, but just out of bullying. I saw at least ten of these, but so far I can only find one here . I don't feel like digging for hours, as I just want to ask your opinion of whether you support or oppose such admin activity because it's clear most support it. Anomo 11:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• I do not see the benefits of blocking inactive accounts and there is a small possibility that it would prevent the user to return as a good-faith user. The only legitimate use of this is if the user uses many throw-away socks and there is a reason to believe he still monitors his old account. The Checkuser is not the main evidence in the sockpuppeting cases, the contributions are. Checkuser can be easily gamed by open and semi-open proxies and it can give false positive if users study at the same Uni or share the same provider. In the case of the throwaway accounts, checkuser simply not practical.

2. What is your view on the current policy often called "kicking them while they're down" of deleting the user and talk pages of people who are blocked? Anomo 11:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• I am not aware of such a policy. If the user/talk page benefits the task of creation the encyclopedia, then it should be kept. If not, then it should be deleted. We are not in the busyness of free web hosting.

3. What is your view on the practice on Misplaced Pages where a person blanks out text on talk pages because the text mentioned something wrong the person did or defeated them in an argument? The text blanked usually has no reason given. When there is a reason given, it's only a fake reason. In rare cases, the text is not blanked, but the entire talk page is archived including discussions hours old, blanking it out. Anomo 11:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Are you talking about the User own talkpages? The main purpose of a talkpage is to communicate a message. Thus, a user is entitled to blank any message on his talk page after he read it. It is rude but wikilegal. The only possible exception is the vandalism warnings and even this is a subject of hot discussions.

4. What is your view on the frequent practice of locking the talk page of someone who is banned to avoid communication with them? Anomo 11:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Obviously it depends on the edits by the banned user to his talk page. If he puts good faith suggestions to article editing the talk page should be available for editing. I personally unlocked talk pages of User:Molobo and User:Anittas. On the other hand if the talk page is used to attack other users, to troll, as a personal blog or in any other non-encyclopedic purposes if should be locked. A blocked user has his right to request block review via {{unblock}} template but if he continued posting the same unblock template many times after rejecting his appeal by different admins the talk page should be locked to prevent this abuse. Many users and 99% of admins has the E-mail option enabled, the blocked user can communicate with them even if his talkpage is locked.

I have seen where there is heated debate and someone they will archve the entire talk page of an article, including discussions hours old (sometimes minutes), just say archiving and the talk page is empty. This seems to be growing in popularity. What is your view on it? Anomo 03:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

5. Why do you feel in the past when in a conflict in ArbCom between non-admins and administrators that ArbCom has always sided with the admins? Anomo 11:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• I do not think it is true. E.g. in the important Giano case Arbcom supported the position of "editors" against "administrators"

6. Do you think there should be an age requirement for ArbCom? Anomo 11:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• No, it will be just a useless Instruction creep.

Question from Dfrg.msc

In one sentence, what will you bring to the Arbitration Committee? Dfrg.msc 23:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• I intend to bring respect to the productive contributors and my understanding of their needs.

Voting in the elections

Hello, the ArbCom elections are coming up very soon and I was wondering if you would give your public assurance not to vote or comment on other candidates. I think this will help keep friction to a minimum. Imagine how ugly it would be if two people who vehemently publicly attacked and opposed each other both ended up sitting on the ArbCom together. I think, in the best interests of decorum, these kind of conflict of interest issues should be avoided. --Cyde Weys 20:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)