Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:44, 3 December 2006

A request to the community: I would ask that persons who wish to ask me questions on this page confine themselves to talking to me and not to other persons who may also have asked questions here. If you feel that someone else's comments requires a comment of your own, I encourage you to make that in some other forum, such as that editor's talk page or some other appropriate community discussion forum such as the Village Pump. In addition, if you wish to ask a followup question to someone else's question, I would prefer that you do so in your own section. I find threaded discussions confusing, and I wish to avoid this page turning into a free-for-all. Your cooperation will be appreciated. Kelly Martin (talk) 01:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Question from Daniel.Bryant

1. Your position on admin abuse could be taken as a "revenge" or "tit-for-tat" move, given your recent desysopping at ArbCom. Can you safely say you will always act in a way which will improve the community and the encyclopaedia, and what will you do if some of those involved in the Giano "affair" end up at ArbCom again - recuse, or follow your position with impartiality? Daniel.Bryant 23:55, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I regret that I must correct an evident misapprehension on your part: I was not desysopped by the Arbitration Committee, but instead resigned my administrative privileges entirely voluntarily. I do not agree with, but do not intend to challenge, the Arbitration Committee's determination that I resigned those privileges "under a cloud". I resigned my privileges and discontinued editing because I felt that continuing to hold those privileges or to continue editing would tend to disrupt Misplaced Pages, and my continued participation would therefore not be in the interest of the project. Sufficient time has passed for the community to reach closure (part of why I chose not to participate in the Arbitration and choose now not to challenge its decision, no matter how strongly I may disagree with it) that I believe I can now safely participate in some small ways without such participation being unnecessarily disruptive. The time away also gave me time to reflect on my own feelings and behaviors and adjust my attitudes appropriately in response. My campaign platform, as well as various comments I've posted on my blog (a link to which may be found on my Wikimedia Commons user page), reflect the results of this process, and the astute reader can probably see the change in my moods and attitudes by reading my blog in forward chronological order. In any case, I most emphatically reject the notion that my nomination is offered as an "act of revenge" or as a "tit-for-tat move". I nominated for the position because I believe that I am capable and qualified to act as an Arbitrator for the English Misplaced Pages, and I assume that all of the other candidates have nominated for the same reason. I, of course, have secondary interests, not the least of which is a hope and desire that (no matter whether my campaign succeeds or fails) my platform position would lead to a broader discussion of the responsibilities of administrators and the duty of the Arbitration Committee to police administrator conduct, a discussion which I feel is badly overdue, and to date has been held mainly on "administrator recall" discussions which many administrators, myself included, either refused to participate in or did not participate in in any useful way.

I left Misplaced Pages on my own accord and not as a result of the actions of any particular person on Misplaced Pages. As a result, I hold no specific ill will toward the people who were involved in the events leading up to my decision to leave Misplaced Pages. Like any other longstanding editor on Misplaced Pages, there are people with whom I have less than congenial relations. Like any other member of the Committee, I would work with the rest of the Committee to ensure that I do not introduce any improper bias into the Committee's work, and also to ensure that, through my actions, I do not create even the appearance of impropriety and thereby hamper the Committee's reputation. While I obviously cannot enumerate the circumstances in which I might feel it appropriate to recuse, I will promise to declare any relationship that I might have with the parties of any given case, and if I do not recuse on that case, why I believe that the circumstances do not mandate a recusal.

Three questions from Carcharoth

Thanks for running in the election. Hope these questions are an easy way to start.

These are copies of questions initially asked by John Reid.

1. Who are you?

I am Kelly Martin. Some personal details may be found on my commons user page. This is a very vague question; if there is additional information which you feel you need to know, but which you cannot answer from the available resources, please feel free to ask.

2. Are you 13? Are you 18?

I am actually one, being a unitary being. Oh, wait. You are inquiring about my age. I have, as of December 2006, experienced 37 recurrences of the date of my birth.

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

The Arbitration Committee is not a policymaking body, except to the extent that it is entitled to modify the policies related to Arbitration itself. The Arbitration Committee is only empowered to act as the "hand of Jimbo" in settling user conduct disputes by the nature of its origin. It was never intended to, nor should it, exercise authority over content disputes when those disputes are carried on in a civil, respectful way, nor should the Arbitration Committee interfere in the development of policy on Misplaced Pages.

The Committee is not a substitute for community consensus and should not generally attempt to undermine it. The Committee should, however, not allow the lack of community consensus to prevent it from making necessary decisions to resolve interpersonal disputes, nor refrain from taking decisive action to relieve a disruption merely because such action may not be supported by consensus.

Question from nae'blis

I expect a lot of people are wondering why you've returned from your self-imposed exile from the English Misplaced Pages to stand for the Arbitration Committee elections. Can you expand on what you said in your candidate statement here? If I'm not being clear, your userpage still says you are only going to make edits related to your pictures work on Commons; how would you answer concerns that you will become "out of touch" by not editing more generally as an Arbitrator?

I believe that my lack of extensive ongoing active participation in the project will be an asset, rather than a disadvantage, as an Arbitrator. In my previous term as Arbitrator, I remained active as an administrator while also acting as an Arbitrator. This was problematic for me because, as most active administrators know, such activity tends to draw one into disputes. Being in a dispute as an Arbitrator tends to have a chilling effect on the parties on the other side of the dispute, and also tends to create the potential for at least the appearance of bias on the part of the Arbitrator should the issue advance to arbitration at a later date. By remaining largely aloof to the project, and especially to the community aspects of the project, I will ensure that I bring an impartial, unbiased voice to the deliberations, untainted by whatever political schisms and turmoils are tearing through the community at any given time. Instead, I will be able to review the pertinent matters from a fresh, unprejudiced perspective at the time that they come to the Committee instead of merely bulwarking an opinion formed in advance while monitoring the course of the dispute in the eschewed roles of community member or administrator.

Questions from Anomo

1. I noticed you like some admin veterans have had in the past many accusations of admin misconduct and then they quit or get fed up with the whole thing and act like they were never an admin, but someone unfairly banned who hangs out on Misplaced Pages Review all day. I've seen your blog and the complaints of abuse there, but I have read of people in the past making complaints about you like many many administrators (I am not about specifics and haven't read into the complaints, just that I have seen complaints exist), so the whole switch thing that I've seen from many admins makes me skeptical. Can you put forth arguments to dissuade this skepticism. ... Update: If you google search The Misplaced Pages Administrator Cabal - VGF Forums (the italicized text without the quotes), click the top result, text search that result for cabal and then click that link, it has complaints about you--I can't link to it because it's against the rules to link directly to complaints about administrators. Anomo 05:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It is certainly true that many administrators have left Misplaced Pages over the years. Their reasons for doing so are legion, and certainly some have left because they tired of being constantly accused of misconduct. And certainly there are admins who have been accused of misconduct, both rightfully and wrongly. I don't pay a great deal of attention to Misplaced Pages Review (and certainly do not post there), and so I do not know specifically of any administrators, former or otherwise, of Misplaced Pages who might be in the habit of contributing there, and so I cannot comment on the motives of anybody who is engaged in the behavior you seem to be talking about.

There have certainly been complaints about my own conduct in the past as an administrator. In my opinion, those complaints were not without merit: I have at times acted in a manner which I now believe was not wholly appropriate as an administrator. Were I asked to judge my own conduct, I would likely recommend a short suspension of my own administrative privileges in response to at least a few of the things I have done over the past year or so. There have been times where I have used administrative privilege in anger or haste, without due consideration for whether doing so would tend to cause or increase disruption. That is inexcusable in an administrator. There are other times where I have acted with deliberation to do what I thought at the time was the right thing to do, and had that backfire badly. That is completely excusable in an administrator, as long as the administrator learns from the mistake.

I did look at the site you referred to above (and I am quite curious of your claim that adding links to sites that contain complaints is against policy; I've seen links on Misplaced Pages to my blog, which contains complaints, and nobody has alleged that those are against policy). There is indeed a complaint regarding me in there, but it's rather vague and nonspecific, and I fear that I can't really reply to it except in a very general sense, which I think would be repetitive with my comments above.

So I don't really know what you're skeptical about, or what I am expected to convince you not to be skeptical about. I fear that I find myself confused by your question; I hope my comments above shed some light on the issue you wish clarified. If I have missed badly, please do ask for further clarification.

2. I heard you were going to be a MediaWiki developer instead of doing the bureaucracy stuff here? Anomo 02:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I am, in fact, working on a port of MediaWiki to Java. I also sometimes talk with various MediaWiki developers and other technical people about ways to improve MediaWiki, at the level of the code itself as well as at higher levels of abstraction. I'm quite full of ideas on how to improve MediaWiki; some of these ideas have been posted to my blog; others have not. I am, however, not a MediaWiki developer, at least not at this time. My relative dislike for PHP is something of an impediment in this area.

3. 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 02:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, a block reason of "troll" is inappropriate administrative conduct. Administrators should avoid from using offensive or inflammatory terms in block reasons. I fully support the blocking of users whose actions serve only to disrupt Misplaced Pages or who are otherwise acting in ways that bring detriment to the project substantially outweighing whatever benefit they might bring, but I insist that administrators remain civil in dealing with even the most incivil and disruptive users. Therefore, I would consider Rhobite's block reason in his second block of Thodin to be inappropriately stated (although quite likely accurate), and would (and do) admonish Rhobite for that transgression. Absent a demonstrated pattern of such abuse, however, I see no reason for any sanction greater than a simple admonishment. The punishment should certainly fit the crime; a single mild personal attack against a recidivist disruptive user is not an offense that I am inclined to take too very seriously.

4. What is your view on the practice on Misplaced Pages where a person blanks out text on talk pages (not just their own) 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 02:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It is certainly against policy to remove the comments of others from any talk page other than one's own under most circumstances. It is not my impression that such behavior is widespread. I further believe that editors should not be hounded or otherwise harassed for removing warning messages and the like from their own talk pages; in my opinion editors should be allowed to blank or archive their own talk pages at whatever interval they feel appropriate. Editors are, similarily, not obliged to respond to or leave untouched comments left for them on their own talk pages. What we care about is that whatever disruptive behavior they were warned for ceases. All editors are, of course, obliged to refrain from using misleading or offensive edit summaries, and anyone who makes a practice of doing so should be sanctioned appropriately by administrators or the Arbitration Committee.

5. What is your view on the frequent practice of locking the talk page of someone who is banned to avoid communication with them? Anomo 02:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Users whose sole purpose for participating in Misplaced Pages reasonably appears to be to cause disruption have no right to use Misplaced Pages to communicate or be communicated with. In such situations, the user's talk page may be protected to prevent them from further disruption through disruptive editing of their own talk page. Misplaced Pages is not a free speech forum.

A separate set of questions from Carcharoth

I've been looking at the diagram at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006, which shows the previous arbitrators. You and UninvitedCompany are the only former arbitrators running. UninvitedCompany has talked about the setting up of the Arbitration Committee and his brief time as an arbitrator in the early days of the committee (beginning of 2004). You were on the committee towards the end of 2005.

• Can you confirm the exact dates, and give us some details of your time on the committee and how you came to be on the committee and how you came to leave it?

I don't recall the exact dates, although I'm sure someone has already figured that out and added it to the candidate summary table that is around here somewhere. I recall being appointed in either September or October of 2005 by Jimbo. I went inactive in early January in the fallout of the Great Userbox Purge (which most people will claim I started) combined with a lack of time to give proper attention to Arbitration due to circumstances at work, and resigned shortly before the end of the elections.

• You ran in the January 2006 ArbCom elections. Were you pleased with how you did in that election? How have you improved as a candidate since then?

Obviously I was not pleased with my performance in that election, and in retrospect should have withdrawn before voting began, since I should have realized I was going to be stampeded. The elections were ill-timed in relationship to the Great Userbox Purge and the fallout thereof; my actions enraged a large segment of the community, which reacted by striking out against me the best way they could find: by voting against me. Since then many of the people who voted against me have confided in me that they wished they had not opposed me; some have even asked forgiveness for having done so (which has, of course, been granted).

Whether I have improved as a candidate or not since then is a matter for the community and for Jimbo to decide. I personally think I've learned a great deal in the past 11 months.

• Finally, I went to leave a message on your talk page, to congratulate you on being the last candidate through the doors (at 20 to midnight - talk about 11th hour!), but I found this message: "Messages left here are likely to be ignored. If you wish to contact this user, email her.". If you were elected to the ArbCom, would you begin using that talk page again?

I would imagine I'd probably remove that message, which is really the consequence of having been on a wikibreak for some time, and probably also change the archival settings a bit. I still prefer to receive communications via email, however.

Thanks. Carcharoth 02:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Questions from jd2718

1. You posted your candidacy about 20 minutes before nominations closed. The nomination period was a full month. Why did you choose this timing?

A month ago, I wasn't interested in running for Arbitrator. However, after about a week or so of the nomination process, I sat down to write a blog post in which I planned to endorse several candidates as the candidates I would recommend others vote for (I, of course, had no plans to vote). And I realized that I simply couldn't endorse enough candidates to fill the open seats, as there were at most two, maybe three candidates I felt safe endorsing. There were some who I didn't know well enough to be able to tell one way or the other, while the remaining candidates were all unsatisfactory in my eyes for one reason or another. I ended up not blogging that post, because I didn't think it would be helpful for me to go on about how terrible this year's crop was, not to mention the bad karma that would flow from actually going through the exercise of publicly enumerating the faults of all the candidates who I feel are lacking. So I instead resolved that if there were not five candidates at least as good as myself by the end of the month, I would throw my hat in the ring. My evaluation of the slate as of last evening was that there were still not five candidates at least as qualified as myself. I work a regular day job, with my work day ending at 5 p.m. Central Standard Time, two hours before nominations were scheduled to close. As it happened I had an after-hours support call that I did not finish up until nearly 6:30 p.m., leaving me only a few minutes to fire off the nomination note I had fortunately written earlier in the day, in just under the wire. An extra 15 minutes on that support call and I would not be a candidate.

1. In your candidate statement you wrote: "I feel that there are not enough candidates already running to fill the open positions with acceptable nominees." That surprises me, a bit. I have never voted for Arbitrators before. Leaving out names, what qualities , attitudes, inclinations and experiences do you think would likely make for a good arbitrator? Jd2718 03:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

As a former Arbitrator, I obviously have the advantage of knowing first hand what the requirements are for an Arbitrator. I therefore evaluate each candidate in light of what I know of them as editors and administrators of Misplaced Pages as well as any information I have from my experience with that candidate in other fora (such as IRC), and based on my knowledge or experience of that candidate judge whether they would be likely to work well with the ten currently-serving Arbitrators and would be likely to do and do well the tasks and functions of an Arbitrator. The ability to analyze candidates in this manner is probably limited to those who have previously served as an Arbitrator—of which there are relatively few. I fear that I lack the ability to really set out a set of well-described qualities, attitudes, etc. that describe a qualified candidate. I think I would have a hard time doing so without doing a candidate-by-candidate discussion, which I categorically reject doing. This election is likely to be divisive enough without me throwing fuel on the fire by posting negative remarks about most, if not all, of the candidates in the race.

1. What qualities, attitudes, inclinations and experiences do you think should be incompatible with service as an Arbitrator? Jd2718 17:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I composed answers to the preceding questions last night and am posting them now today. This question was added after I composed the preceding answers, and I have not yet had time to compose an answer to this question. I will do so in the near future; this note merely indicates that I am not neglecting or refusing to answer this question.

Question from Scobell302

When you ran last year, you had over 100 people support you, as well as over 100 people oppose you, and you withdrew early. Do you expect to withdraw early this time, or do you expect to run the entire course? Scobell302 03:25, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I reserve the right to withdraw should it appears evident that I will not reach the 50% support bar required by the election process, as I did last year. Flogging a deceased equine merely adds wear and tear to one's lash without offering any benefit to anyone. I am not, at this time, willing to make a prediction as to whether I will clear the 50% hurdle; I haven't had a chance to talk to a lot of people about this candidacy and so I have no good notion as to how popular my platform will be with the electorate. I am specifically running on a platform that is likely to be unpopular with some powerful people in the Wikimedia political scene, and that could hurt me. On the other hand, the fact that I am willing to take a stand against such people may help me with people who feel that they have been illtreated by those powerful people and see my campaign as a chance to get what they want instead of what they've been stuck with. In any case, I hope that my candidacy, pass or fail, will open a broader discussion into the obligations and duties of administrators, an area which has, in my opinion, been sorely overlooked of late. If my candidacy fails, but Misplaced Pages nonetheless develops policies and customs that reduce the degree to which administrators make editing Misplaced Pages less desirable for our volunteer editors, then my campaign will be a success regardless of who ends up on the Arbitration Committee.

Question from Messedrocker

Hello, Kelly! Does this last-second announcement of candidacy mean you're going to get involved in Misplaced Pages again, particularly the nasty metapedia side? What will make this time different from that other time you were an arbiter? ★MESSEDROCKER★ 05:36, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I have always been involved in the "messy metapedia side"; it's just that for the past few months my involvement has been from the outside instead from the inside. This time, I intend to stay focused on my overall goal here, which is to deal with what I see are the problems in the Misplaced Pages community, and not get distracted into trivialities such as userboxes. One of the differences is that this time around I will not be an administrator (and I do not expect to request CheckUser or Oversight rights even if elected). This means that I will have to rely on others to provide me with evidence that I might otherwise obtain myself, but I'm not really bothered by that. It also means that I will not be tempted into taking care of problems that other people can take of just as well, and that will keep me from getting pulled off-course as well as keep me from getting overly agitated over things that I don't need to be doing anyway.

Policy question

What is Misplaced Pages, what is Misplaced Pages policy, and how is Misplaced Pages policy formed? —Centrx→talk • 10:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Question from Ragesoss

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

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?

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?

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 20:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I personally have never had any intention of voting in these elections. In the last round of elections, as a sitting Arbitrator, I joined with my colleagues in agreeing that it would be inappropriate for any of us to vote in the elections, precisely because of the potential for ill will that might occur should the situation arise where two Arbitrators might be serving on the Committee, where one had openly opposed the other in the election. During my own tenure as Arbitrator it came to my attention that one of the other sitting Arbitrators had (privately) opposed my appointment, and my awareness of that fact definitely affected my attitude toward that Arbitrator. It is my belief that those who are or would be Arbitrators should think very carefully about making statements, and especially negative statements, regarding those who are or might possibly become Arbitrators themselves, as such statements could come back to haunt them some day.

Question from Giano

1: Are you the Kelly Martin who called User: ALoan a "drama queen" for quitting and then returning?"

2: You have been publicly discredited by the present Arbcom, by their "under a cloud comment". Can you explain to us what was furtively meant by "under a cloud" What exactly was it you were doing under that cloud? (Please be aware I know the answer to that question already, but for the benefeit of those who do not please answer)

3: The Arbcom's decision to "thank you" is regarded at best as odd at worst a puerile sop to polite convention. You have accused -Geogre of being a "prima donna", I think the word liar and again here was mentioned too, wasn't it? on the blog you asked Cyde Ways to post on your behalf (or is he another liar too?)

4: On your blog you have bad mouthed wikipedia considerably, (as that Blog was permitted in an RFAR? there is no reason not to discuss it here). So why do want to have anything to do with such an organization.

5: You have had a long time serving on the Arbcom already, what do you think you can achieve now that you have failed to do over the last X years

6: How can you prove to us you are now worthy of trust? Basically, you have shown your true colours, why should we risk trusting you again? What has changed Are you worthy of trust? Giano 22:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Question 7: What has changed Kelly?

Question 8: here is your old friend Cyde trying to get you out of answering some of the the above questions - should such tactics be allowed?