Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:35, 7 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 about 5:30 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.

2. 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.

3. 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 think this question is answered as well as it can be by my answer to the question above. I am reluctant to answer in more detail because, again, my answer would likely require that I make a candidate-by-candidate evaluation of the other candidates in the election, and I would prefer to avoid doing anything that might create ill will.

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)

Misplaced Pages is a free-content general-knowledge encyclopedia. One of the important things here is to note the many things that Misplaced Pages is not; in this context, the most important of these is that Misplaced Pages is not an experiment in any particular form of governance.

Misplaced Pages policy represents the general consensus of the community and is most accurately reflected by the common practices of that community. The written policy documents are not the policy; they are attempts to describe the policy and may be incorrect. The actual policies are very situationally specific and require interpretation in almost every situation; therefore, people are likely to reasonably disagree as to what policy requires in any given situation. This is one of the situations in which the Arbitration Committee may effectively "make policy": by resolving a dispute as to what policy actually requires in a given situation. The important thing to take away from this is the understanding that Misplaced Pages's written policy documents are not positive statements of law, but instead (even for core policy like "neutral point of view") descriptive documents describing past practice and reasonable expectations of future practice that may change as the community finds it necessary to do so. The other important thing to note is that changing the descriptive documents does not change the policy; thus, editors who attempt to change policy by changing the policy documents are sadly misguided. It is not possible to change policy merely by editing a policy document; the community's common practice needs to be changed before those documents can be altered to reflect it.

Question from Ragesoss

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

The "neutral point of view" (NPOV) requires that all articles in the encyclopedia be written in a manner that does not favor any particular point of view over another. The scientific point of view is a particular point of view that presumably has application to articles about science. For many topics, the scientific point of view will cohere to the neutral point of view, because the scientific point of view is the only generally accepted source of information about that topic. However, in some topics, most notably those about the so-called "pseudosciences" (such as astrology), certain religions, and topics where scientific thought is considered to be in conflict with widely-held religious belief (such as evolution), the scientific point of view is not the only widely accepted source of "truth" on those topics. In such cases, especially where no single viewpoint commands a majority of those holding an opinion, it is important to give due concern to reporting not only the opinions held by scientists, but also to the opinions held by significant groups in the public discourse. When there is significant public discord on a topic (no matter how foolish that discord might appear to be), Misplaced Pages must dispassionately report on the disunity of opinion and on the competing strands therein, instead of selecting one strand as the "right" version and downplaying or ignoring the others.

This probably comes to a head most significantly on topics related to evolution, since there is a near total-conflict on the topic between certain religious groups and the scientific community. Here, I think, the important thing to remember is that Misplaced Pages is not a battleground. I have seen evolution advocates and creationism advocates decide to make war on Misplaced Pages over the content of these articles. And it is my opinion that the role of the Arbitration Committee in such cases is not to decide that the scientific point of view is correct, or even that it is should be given first billing; rather, the role of the Arbitration Committee is to determine which parties in the dispute are comporting themselves in accordance with Misplaced Pages's policies, and sanction those who are not. If the advocates for the scientific point of view comport themselves rudely and disruptively, while the advocates for creation science comport themselves politely, the creation science people will be the ones left standing and allowed to write the article. (The lesson here is, "Be civil; your opinions will go further if you do.") It is my belief that, through the course of civil discourse, a presentation of the competing points of view can be constructed that is acceptable to all civil participants in the discussion. It is the duty of the Arbitration Committee to eliminate the uncivil participants so that the discourse may move forward and reach a satisfactory conclusion in the end. On the other hand, it is definitely not the duty of the Arbitration Committee to decide which participants are in possession of the "truth". People who seek to take such conflicts to the Arbitration Committee in search of a ruling that their point of view is the true one are apt to be disappointed.

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 would likely resign if circumstances develop such that I feel that my continued presence on the Committee would do more harm to Misplaced Pages than benefit, or if my personal circumstances were such that I could no longer effectively serve as an arbitrator. That's rather open-ended, and I really don't have any good examples of circumstances that would satisfy the first option above, and I'd rather not think about the possible situations that could lead to the second option above. However, if appointed I would seek to serve out the duration of whatever term I am appointed to.

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?

The Arbitration Committee is explicitly not empowered to make decisions regarding content. I would there oppose the Committee taking up any question regarding the accuracy of article content. The Committee's obligation in such cases is, at most, to recognize that there exists a disagreement amongst reliable sources, and upon having done so to require the editors working on that article to appropriately bracket the disagreement, with appropriate citations to reliable sources supporting each point of view that is part of the disagreement.

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?"

Unfortunately, I cannot recall this incident. It would be most unwise for me to speak in detail about an incident that I cannot recall; therefore I regret that I can neither confirm nor deny your allegation. I have certainly said things in the past that I now regret; if I have specifically called ALoan a "drama queen", that would be something I would regret having done and would apologize to him for having done so.

Kelly, if I may help, a few minutes in ALoan's contributions and a Google search resulted in this diff. Sorry for jumping into another person's section against your wishes. -- nae'blis 09:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

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)

I did not participate in the arbitration which resulted in the Arbitration Committee's finding you mention above. I am not privy to what meaning, if any beyond the common, the Committee meant by "under a cloud" and certainly cannot provide any explanation for why they chose to use that language in ther decision. If you wish for a clarification of that language, I suggest you ask the current members of the Committee for an explanation. I regret that I cannot provide you with more information as to what the Arbitration Committee feels justifies that finding. For the record, I do not feel "discredited" by their finding.

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?)

Personally, I appreciated the thanks of the Committee; it is just and appropriate from time to time to recognize those who toil to the benefit of the project. I do not share your opinion of their action and am disappointed that you feel the way you do, and I sincerely hope that your opinion is not widely held. I would encourage the Committee to continue to recognize editors and administrators who make useful and valuable contributions to the project, when it seems appropriate to them to do so.

I fear I must correct a mistaken assumption on your part; I did not ask Cyde (or anyone else) to post anything to Misplaced Pages on my behalf during the time I was absent from Misplaced Pages. Cyde approached me and asked me for permission to use content from my blog on Misplaced Pages, which I granted; I did not inquire extensively as to the details of his intentions.

None of the links you refer to above appear to refer to any identifiable person on Misplaced Pages by name. I choose not rise to your challenge to discuss the qualifications of another candidate in this election; I have given reasons why I would prefer not to do so in a previous answer. If you have concerns about the conduct or character of another candidate, I would suggest you pose questions regarding those concerns to that candidate, and not to me.

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.

My blog has, at times, been critical of Misplaced Pages. I make no apologies for that; there is no thing wrong with criticizing Misplaced Pages. It is, in fact, one of the main purposes of that blog. There is certainly no reason why Wikipedians cannot be critical of Misplaced Pages or its processes. As noted on the list of things Misplaced Pages is not, Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox; my blog, on the other hand, is a soapbox, and furthermore it is my soapbox, and it is my privilege and perogative to stand upon it and shout opinions from it to whoever may choose to listen. For more commentary on my blog and its relevance to this election, please see my comments to Daniel.Bryant, above.

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

I regret that I must again correct a misunderstanding on your part. I only served on the Arbitration Committee for three months. I do not consider that to have been a very long time, and I do not believe that many other people would, either. In any case, I hope to achieve a change in the culture of Misplaced Pages, specifically toward a culture which embraces a greater degree of accountability and civility than is currently practiced in Misplaced Pages.

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)

From the tone of your questions, I think it's unlikely that I could say anything that would cause you to trust me. I regret that you lack trust in me. Personally, I believe that I am worthy of trust, but of course you are not required to believe me. If you don't believe that I am trustworthy, then I would advise you not to vote for me.

Question 7: What has changed Kelly?

I regret that this question is too vague and open-scoped for me to even begin to essay a response.

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?

I've read Cyde's comments referenced above, and see nothing particularily inappropriate of them. Cyde, as with any other editor, is certainly permitted to initiate a discussion on the conduct of another editor as long as he does so in a civil manner, and I see nothing uncivil in his actions in asking for community comment. Some of the subsequent comments and actions do seem to me to have been inappropriate, but I have only made a cursory review of the situation. Consistent with my policy of remaining aloof (as discussed in my comments to nae'blis), I do not intend to familiarize myself further with the situation, unless (of course) I am appointed to the Committee and the matter becomes the topic of a Request for Arbitration.

To lay to rest any mistaken notions of cabalism, please note that Cyde's actions were not only not at my behest, but took place even without my knowledge. I was not aware of them until you mentioned them on this page. Previously, I specifically asked Cyde to refrain from involving himself in the policing of the pages related to my Arbitration candidacy, because of the perception of an association between him and myself. I have requested that Durin act as a moderator on these pages, and I hope that he will set aside our past differences and accept this role in the interest of Misplaced Pages. I believe that Durin's reputation for impartiality and eventemperedness is well-established in the community, and due to our past disagreements it is hardly likely that anyone would believe that Durin is biased in my favor.

I am also cheered by the fact that Geni, acting in his role as an election coordinator, appears to have requested that commentators on all candidate's pages observe terms similar to those I have requested observed on mine, and has acted on his own to enforce the terms I have requested observed. I believe that adherence to the terms set forth by Geni will help to keep this election from becoming as ugly as some people have predicted. I do know that I will be doing everything in my power to keep this election civil, and fervently hope that all other parties will do the same.

Question 9: Here are your supporters removing questions from this page. Selective editing seems to follow you about, why is this?

This question was added after I began composing my responses to the preceding questions. I will respond to it at a later time.

Questions from Geogre

1. You resigned from ArbCom before and engendered massive ill will. Was this because of a bad action you had made, or was it due to the character flaws of others or because of your own character?
2. If you have acted inappropriately in any of these circumstances, have you taken actions to correct the mistakes and/or made peace with the offended?

   (This answer is to both questions 1 and 2.) I did indeed resign from ArbCom previously, in January, 2006. My reasons for doing so were discussed in my answers to Carcaroth's questions, above, and I refer you to my comments there. I do not believe that my resignation from the Committee at that time was inappropriate, especially since I did so after extensive consultation with Jimbo, during which he and I agreed that my resignation was in the best interests of both myself and of Misplaced Pages. If anyone was offended by my resignation, I am not aware of that, nor do I believe that my resignation engendered any significant degree of ill will.

3. You have said that your failure in the last election was due to the userbox war, but you seem to have been the only one to have failed because of that userbox war. Was it merely being an admin that caused such hostility, or were there any actions on your part that might have led people regard you as untrustworthy? If the latter, have you taken measures to avoid such future actions? If the former, have how are those people assured now?

   I have not analyzed the voting in the January elections in sufficient details as to decide who may or may not have "failed" as a result of the userbox situation, so I can't comment on your statement that I was the only one to fail as a result of those circumstances.

   I believe that the hostility that led to in my poor showing is the consequence of the violent reaction of a small but vocal portion of the community to my decision to delete about two dozen userboxes all of which either incorporated nonfree images or contained offensive or divisive content. I note that all of the userboxes I deleted would be now deletable under current policies, which means that my actions merely indicated that I predicted the direction of Misplaced Pages policy better than those objecting to my actions. I was then subjected to a virtual lynch mob of people (many of which have since either left Misplaced Pages or been banned from Misplaced Pages, although none at my hand) objecting either to the deletion of the userboxes themselves, the "unilateral" method of such deletion, or the manner in which I responded to complaints about the deletions. I still believe that the deletions themselves were appropriate, but I could have handled the complaints better than I did.

   Since I am no longer an administrator and do not intend to seek administrative privileges, there is no risk I will delete anyone's userbox, or any other such content. There is therefore no risk of a repetition of such an incident. However, I have always maintained and continue to maintain that the bulk of the disruption and the resulting "ill will" (as you put it) was due to the unwillingness of a vocal minority of the community to accept and follow established Misplaced Pages policies regarding nonfree images and civility in userpages, and not due to my attempts to enforce those policies. I have come to realize that the enforcement of user conduct policies needs to be performed in a forceful but polite manner, and since I am apparently not very good at that in the heat of the moment, I will not be doing so in the future.

   Arbitrators are rarely, if ever, required to act in the "heat of the moment"; Arbitration is a deliberative process, and merely by enforcing a personal rule of not responding to anything without having slept on it (or, at the least, eaten on it, which is the case here) will ensure that I do not make the sort of unfortunate excited utterances (such as my infamous "fuck process" comment made to Grue (I believe it was) during the early stages of the userbox debacle) that likely accelerated matters extensively. The careful observer will note that I have not responded to any question on this page with less than several hours lead time. This is deliberate on my part. I have been writing my responses, saving them on my computer, and then coming back to them after at the very least several hours, reviewing them, and then posting them. I have also solicited comments from others I trust before posting. I would continue to do this with respect to all but the most trivial of Arbitration-related statements. (As it happens, there is actually relatively little need for this in Arbitration itself, but it can become an issue in commentary tangential to the process itself, and it is here that I would be on the most guard to avoid excited utterances.)

4. Is "ArbCom your mother, whether you know it or not?" Is ArbCom in control, as you have stated before? If so, do you seek to be in control, or will you work to decrease this paternalism?

   I find myself very much taken aback by these questions. I have repeatedly said that "Arbcom is not your mother" (there is even audio of me saying this), and to the best of my knowledge have never claimed that ArbCom is your mother. I also do not recall having said that "ArbCom is in control"; I have long held that the Arbitration Committee is merely a dispute resolution body and is most decidedly not in "control" of Misplaced Pages policy, process, or really anything else. And I have long tried to encourage the community to resolve its disputes without requiring the "paternal" assistance of the Committee (which is where my oft-repeated statement, "The ArbCom is not your mother", comes from). I would be quite surprised if you can find an actual instance of me saying "The ArbCom is your mother" in a context other than one where it was clearly intended as a joke, and I wholly disavow that I have ever held, advocated, or forwarded the positions you attempt to attribute to me with your questions.

5. Are you currently on Misplaced Pages? Have you done anything at all to get rid of the cloud that you "left" under? Have you been conciliatory in any way toward those you called "prima donnas" and "liars," or do you believe that users should never apologize, should use off-wiki fora to denigrate and attack users (under the assumption that those cannot be submitted as evidence of incivility)? As an arbitrator, would you encourage people in dispute to go to blogs and call their opponents names and then to "return" without taking any measures at all to apologize or assure those persons of future even handedness, calm, and productive cooperation?

   I am currently editing Misplaced Pages casually and infrequently; see my comments to nae'blis above on my philosophy on that issue. As I stated in my comments to Giano, I do not consider myself to have "left under a cloud", and therefore do not acknowledge the existence of any such cloud or of any need for me to do anything to get rid of such a cloud. I think going to a blog to post comments of a "soapbox" nature is preferable to doing so on Misplaced Pages, and if a user can blow off some steam by posting comments that would be inappropriate on Misplaced Pages on their personal blog, and thereby avoid creating a disruption on Misplaced Pages, then yes, I would recommend that course of action. I do not tend to keep grudges; however, if appointed, I would of course recuse in any circumstance where past conflict would tend to call my neutrality or impartiality into question.

6. Above you "accept" the thanks of the Arbitration Committee. However, you also say that you do not agree with their saying that you left under a cloud. Should subjects of arbitration be the ones to decide which parts of the decision they have to "accept," or is it actually binding upon all -- per your previous statement that ArbCom "is your mother?"

   The Arbitration Committee is not infalliable; it makes mistakes. I believe it made one in that case by incorrectly deciding that I had "left under a cloud". I also believe it made one in the way it handled the highway naming arbitration (and I told them so at the time). The Committee also mismanaged the Stevertigo case. I am fully entitled to hold the Committee's determinations in contempt, and refuse to pay them any heed, as long as my behavior is not in conflict with their requirements. The only behavioral requirement the Committee has imposed on me is that I may not request my administrative privileges back without going through the Requests for Admin process, and I have no intention of violating this stricture as I have no intention of seeking adminship again. In short, the Committee does not mandate agreement, but it does expect compliance, and I fully intend to comply with the requirements of the Committee in this regard.

7. You say that you "would" apologize for calling ALoan a "drama queen," if you could remember it, but the issue you seemed to regard as so hateful in the comment you cannot recall is that ALoan left and returned. How is your departure and return substantially different?

   I've spent a lot of time searching my contributions to try to find the insult to ALoan that you and Giano have referred to, and I just can't find it. Could you give me some pointers that might help me locate it? I fear that I am not very familiar with ALoan's editing history; if you were to ask me I would not have remembered, prior to Giano's mentioning it, that ALoan had ever left and returned. Even so much as a timeframe to look at would be helpful. I would very much like to put this issue behind us, so your cooperation would be appreciated.

Kelly, (and apologies for jumping into another person's section against your wishes), it was during the dustup in September, and currently lives in Archive 68 of WT:RFA. I left an exact diff above under Giano's comment. -- nae'blis 09:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Geogre 14:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

A follow up from jd2718

Above I asked "Leaving out names, what qualities , attitudes, inclinations and experiences do you think would likely make for a good arbitrator?" and also "What qualities, attitudes, inclinations and experiences do you think should be incompatible with service as an Arbitrator?" You answered, in part: "As a former Arbitrator, I obviously have the advantage of knowing first hand what the requirements are for 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."

1. Well, I was in part looking for some measure of your judgement, but also, as a new editor, looking for advice on how to make support/oppose decisions (though I have a much better idea today than I had 4 weeks ago). Would you care to comment?
2. What would the ArbCom lose if you were not elected? Specifically, what skills, attitudes, experience or abilities would be missed?
3. For this election, sufferage is based on having 150 edits by December 4, 2006 and 3 months as an editor as of October 1, 2006. Geni proposed lowering the edit count to 100 here. What are your thoughts on qualifications for participation as a voter in ArbCom elections? Or do you think, perhaps, that another method of selecting Arbitrators should be used? (I am not asking about candidates voting; that has been asked and answered) Jd2718 17:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Questions from Newyorkbrad

Standard questions I've asked most of the candidates:

1. What can be done to reduce the delays in the arbitration process?
2. If elected, would you anticipate participating in the drafting of the ArbCom decisions themselves? If so, do you have prior writing experience that would be relevant to this specific task?

Additional question tailored for this candidate:

1. You stated in your statement that one reason you are running is because you believe that of the other candidates, fewer than five would be acceptable members of the Arbitration Committtee. I respect your disinclination to address that view on a candidate-by-candidate basis, but perhaps you could respond if I put the question thus: What qualifications do you believe you have that the bulk of the candidates do not?

Information from Bishonen

After the stringent removals at your request of threaded comments on this page, I don't quite know how to offer the information you ask for about "drama queens", but I'll try this. I admit I'm not asking a question. You posted this comment on September 5, informing ALoan that people tied up in their own importance like him aren't wanted here. Note the edit summary. Now you say you don't know ALoan's editing history. That's kind of obvious. Let me summarize: ALoan is a hardworking and modest FA writer who was deeply upset by the Carnildo affair and who left . Bishonen | talk 00:56, 4 December 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?
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?
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?
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.
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.)
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?
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?
8. Note, though formally the above question was targeted at admins only, as a former and long-time admin I would like you to answer it as well. Should you win, would you expect to get back admin status and abilities?

AnonEMouse 14:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Question from Elaragirl

My questions are short, but tricky.

1. Which is more important in determining the outcomes of an ArbCom case: the spirit of policy, or the result which would do the least harm to Misplaced Pages?

2. You say you are running for ArbCom, in part, to reduce admin violations. There are some people in this community who saw your actions in the Userbox war as admin violations. Considering that ArbCom has to be trusted to be impartial, fair, above wikipolitics, and representative of the community AND of Jimbo's wishes ... why should anyone consider you a viable candidate, specifically with your critiques of Misplaced Pages and (as diffs have shown above) your sometimes antagonistic viewpoints of some elements of Misplaced Pages?

3. If there was one policy you could rewrite, clarify, or add to, which would it be, and why?

4. Do you regret the actions you undertook in the Userbox mess?

--Elaragirl 18:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Questions from NinaEliza 18:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom Candidate Questions

1. As concisely as possible, please explain how you would continue with your stated commitment to the ArbCom process as an ordinary editor, should you NOT be "elected". Please be as concise as possible, preferably in 100 words or less.

My reasons for this question are three-fold.

First, Misplaced Pages is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It's a powerful statement that has many meanings. It means that, among other things, any user has the power to do pretty much anything, should they wish it. I submit my own user contributions as evidence.

Second, one thing that's a constant is Misplaced Pages's GNU License. As an online-encyclopedia, the history of everything, every edit, every comment, every misdeed, every injury, and every achievement are readily available to anyone who wish to look at it. All they need is a computer, frankly, and they can dig away.

The third is merely a perception. Power is great, but when the entire history of your actions are utterly transparent, and anyone can do virtually anything on their first day here, it's really just a big illusion. I further submit that the more "power" you think you have, the more you have to "lose". You also have to more "work" and have less "fun".

2. What do you think about this "election"? What do you think about your fellow "candidates"? What do you think about "campaign banners" on an online, open-source encyclopedia? What do you think about your own "campaign"? Please answer as concisely as possible, preferably in 100 words or less. For reference, please see this: ]?

3. What, specifically have you done wrong in the past as an editor, community member, administrator, and human being trying to create a world-wide online open source encyclopedia on Misplaced Pages? For reference, see my own user contributions. Please be as concise as possible, preferably in 100 words or less.

4. Do you apologize for your actions, and who are you apologising to, specifically? Please be as concise as possible, preferably in 100 words or less.

5. Hypothetically, how would you deal with an explosion of editors and users behaving very badly because Misplaced Pages has just aquired a bigger "stick". For reference please see Soft Power.

6. What, exactly do you want do on Misplaced Pages? Why did you come here, and why did you stay for more than a minute? What's fun for you here? What makes you happy here? Please be as concise as possible, preferably in 100 words or less.

Questions from LoveLight

Would you kindly evaluate and/or comment article 911. As a reader do you find that piece factual and accurate? As an editor do you find it satisfying (with regards to our fundamental Wiki policies and guidelines)? As future arbitrator how do you feel about status quo imposed on that and similar "ever burning" editorials? Lovelight 10:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)