v t e 2024 Arbitration Committee Elections Voter log Contact the coordinators Discuss the elections Quick guide Candidates: Candidate guide Candidate statements Questions for the candidates Discuss the candidates Personal voter guides These guides represent the thoughts of their authors. All individually written voter guides are eligible for inclusion. Tryptofish Nick Yngvadottir L235 Giraffer Elonka Carrite Ealdgyth

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1. During my last term, the Committee finally moved away from hearing CheckUser appeals, which has freed us to focus on our still considerable task list. (from your statement). Is this something that was publicized and I missed it, or was it an unpublicized internal change? Either way, who hears CU appeals now?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:13, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   If anything, the fact that you hadn't noticed means that it has not appreciably changed or broken any existing workload :) It was announced here. Maxim is due the credit for drafting, and I am remiss I didn't vote on the final motion due to lower than hoped activity this year (I was taking the bar exam!), though I had supported the idea of reform for some time which is why I mentioned it in my statement. CheckUser appeals now are heard on-wiki by default, as with other blocks. We do still hear some blocks privately, though we've found that the vast majority can be heard on-wiki, which allows for greater transparency and lower overall volunteer time expenditure. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2. Thank you for standing as a candidate and for your service as an arbitrator. Please describe your self-assessment of your successes and failures as a member of the committee with as much specificity as you feel comfortable with. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:25, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   My greatest success has been pushing for numerous reforms, most notably my work on the Discretionary Sanctions to CT reform. I have also been particularly proud of the role I've played in helping improve our relationship with the Foundation. In a post-WP:FRAMGATE world, the Committee has repeatedly served as a moderating force on the Foundation. While I know not all contributors would agree with me, I think the Foundation means well. They just often don't get how editing works, or what the community really thinks/wants. I think one of my strong suits has been distilling community desire and communicating it to the Foundation. This has yielded enormous dividends, even if they aren't always publicly visible. I have also been a voice for unconsidered perspectives on the Committee, and often end up a lone dissenting voice. I promise that I'm not trying to be a contrarian, I just often come at issues from a different angle, and I think that has been very helpful to ensure the Committee is not voting in lockstep. Example: the removal of TNT's CU rights. I explained it at the case page, as well as in my questions last year. In a quirk of timing, we've just given TNT their CU rights back. While TNT could still prove me wrong, I think that my initial assessment, as that lone vote two years ago, was correct. I'm proud of my willingness to speak out.

   My greatest failure is that I have not drafted on more cases. My first case as drafter was the RexxS case, where I did not feel like I did a good job. One of my greatest regrets is not voting on Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS/Proposed_decision#RexxS_desysopped. I was so afraid to take a stance that I ended up not doing anything. When RexxS quit, it taught me an important lesson in the humanity behind every person who is front of us. But it also scared me off drafting; I only drafted one other case my first term, and I plainly admit that I haven't drafted a case this entire term (although time limitations this term were part of it as well). I may draft on the PIA5 case which is brewing, which I hope gives me a chance to redeem myself and also take on my share of the drafting load. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:11, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

3. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:25, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   As the NYTimes quoted me, I'm an optimist. I think the project is showing that free knowledge is more important than ever in an age of misinformation, and we are holding on even among a surge in AI content. In fact, the increase in AI content is making Wikipedia only more important. We've done a good job as a community in the last few years dealing with adversity. Even if imperfectly, we tackled declining numbers of new admins with a bevy of new ideas like admin elections and RfA reforms. We pushed through COVID and the interruption in meatspace, and have come back even stronger. We continue to onboard new contributors everyday, and I've been excited to see all the new users climbing the ranks, so to speak. All that is to say: I am optimistic about community! It is the people who make Wikipedia, and we continue to build something awesome. I'm hesitant to say that I'm pessimistic about any aspect of Wikipedia, given how resilient we've been. We've moved up to the fifth most visited website in the world! But I am fearful that our editor recruitment is still not matching the pace of our traffic. If I'm truly pessimistic about anything, its that we don't control how traffic comes to us. Websites like Google ultimately drive most traffic to Wikipedia, and these major tech companies are voraciously looking to make back the money they've spent on AI. Google replacing some of its knowledge bars (fed by Wikipedia with a link to us) with AI content is just the first step in a process that is out of our hands. In general, I worry that we will face graver existential threats this decade, as we cement the transition from being the "website your teacher warned you not to use" to "last bastion of knowledge." CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. Could you explain why you opposed releasing a redacted version of the 2021 letter to JSS, and how this is consistent with the I believe in transparency sentence of your statement? Ian P. Tetriss (talk) 13:14, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I opposed for a number of reasons, which overcame my usual presumption of transparency. First, I felt that JSS was attempting to Wiki-Lawyer his way out of a sanction, thus wasting our time, instead of just doing what we really wanted from him: to say he wouldn't leak confidential information. Second, the framing: he wasn't asking to appeal, or for his tools back. If he wanted to appeal, he should have just appealed. Third, there was a timing issue. We already had a motion on point passing, and it had been passing for a while. Sometimes late is worse than never; adding fuel to a fire at the wrong time does not help our mission of minimizing overall drama. Releasing the letter did not change our decision to amend the underlying motion, but it did up the drama.

   Transparency is important, but not absolute. ArbCom can't release everything it does, because we exist to handle private evidence. Transparency may mean that we try to ensure that only the bare minimum stays "hush-hush", but its also about ensuring that the community understands the process, why we do things, and how we did well/didn't. I have been a champion for transparency and owning up to my mistakes, and the committee's mistakes in general. As recent examples, I'd point to Special:Diff/1256738039 and Special:Diff/1257224122 as places where I could've said nothing and looked better for it, but chose to be honest and show folks behind the curtain, and push for us to do better. With all that said, yes we absolutely could have handled the JSS suspension with more clarity and tact, and I know that its a lesson that will make me do better in the future. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:53, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Thank you. Ian P. Tetriss (talk) 12:22, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5. Why do you want to become an arbitrator and how do you think it helps you? Who am I? / Talk to me! / What have I done? 14:35, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I have been an arbitrator for two terms. I wanted to become one initially because I wanted to help out and make a difference, and because a dear mentor encouraged me to run. It is one of the best and most rewarding things that I do in my life. It provides a lot of transferable skills. I also find it easy to do on the go, which is a real bonus over regular editing. It also meshes well with skills I've developed in the meatspace in terms of writing and conflict resolution. I'll help out and make a difference as long as the community empowers me to. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:23, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6. Are there any topic areas from which you would recuse yourself from while acting as an arbitrator? If so, what set of facts informs that decision? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:49, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I'm not sure there's an entire topic I'd need to recuse from, although birds come closest, since I do love editing about those feathery fellows. Recusal is much more focused on people unless you're the kind of Arb editing in the most contentious places. I've managed to stay out of editing most contentious places (birds just aren't that vitriolic). I know there are some people who if they came before us, I would have to recuse because I'd feel too strongly, positively or not. I think I'd mentioned it elsewhere before, but if we ever say heard a case about User:Atsme, I'd have to recuse because I could never vote to sanction her :) CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:16, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

7. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:42, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   As both the recent request by BilledMammal, and the WPO case request showed, we do not have an adequate system designed to handle in camera cases based on private evidence. We've done such cases on an ad-hoc basis in the past, and have often been helped by cases having mixed on and off wiki evidence. But with more such requests coming in, we clearly need to build a process. One of my priorities after handling PIA5 will be making sure we design, in consultation with the community, a standard and improved way to hear private evidence. We need to ensure that parties are given notice of the evidence against them (such as by emailing them evidence in a standard manner and with a deadline) and an opportunity to be heard. I also want to ensure that there is at least some public component of this, so that ArbCom decisions don't come out of the blue, and that the community gets a chance to comment when possible.

   As for when to take private evidence cases, that comes down to what is private evidence and why. Its not like this evidence is actually top-secret. Its just that we don't allow certain kinds of content on Wikipedia because it doxxes the identity of real people. That has come to encompass most off-wiki evidence for the simple fact that its hard to tell what off-wiki evidence does or doesn't doxx someone. Because we don't want the whole community seeing private evidence, ArbCom is the body explicitly entrusted with handling it. If there weren't private matters to consider, there wouldn't be much need for ArbCom. At the end of the day though, our enforcement is limited to Wikipedia, and rightly so. Our goal is to ensure that this encyclopedia runs smoothly, so that the we can present the sum of all human knowledge. But in this ever changing world, there are an increasing number of off-wiki forces who would like to manipulate us. When that begins to affect the activities occurring on Wikipedia, in that it is affecting the editing or safety of editors, that's where we can step in. Investigating off-wiki coordination, and blocking or sanctioning responsible users, alongside implementing Contentious Topic restrictions, are absolutely something we can based on private evidence. For example, the WikiProject Tropical Cyclones case, in which we took action based on Discord conversations, and laid out recommended practice for off-wiki chat platforms. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:45, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:45, 13 November 2024 (UTC); edited, 01:28, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   We received a considerable test run on this recently with the Marine 69-71 desysop case. But at the end of the whole affair, I'm not sure we'd really ironed out how RECALL and ArbCom work together. There will need to be at least one more test case before we really nail it down. Conceptually, I believe they should operate independently, though they may at times overlap. As I noted at the Marine 69-71 case, I analogize it to the process of many American states, which have both a popular recall mechanism (which we have just passed) and an impeachment process (ArbCom) for elected officials. Both mechanisms have their place. I do not believe that ArbCom should desysop people just because they might in turn be subject to a RECALL petition. I noted that ArbCom needs to keep its independence; we shouldn't be an extension of recall's sword. If we're going to desysop, I want it to be on our own terms. (see Special:Diff/1254468056).

   The roll of RECALL will take time to cement, and we'll have to go through the whole process a few times before the community gets a feel for it. Two scenarios exist that will test RECALL and ArbCom. First, if ArbCom hears an admin case, declines to sanction an admin, and then a RECALL petition is opened. Second, if the community opens a successful RECALL petition, subsequently votes to keep an admin at re-RfA, and then ArbCom gets a case request about that admin anyway. I think the first situation will be inevitable, though I'd hope the community would have the good grace to seriously consider re-litigating the issue. Admins are real people, and being at RECALL/RFA/in front of ArbCom sucks. In turn, I hope that ArbCom has the good grace to seriously consider re-litigating the issue should the second situation arise. Otherwise, ArbCom and RECALL should try not to consider what the other would do. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:05, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:28, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9. In your answer to Q2 you mentioned your dilemma in voting on Case/RexxS. I'm not asking how, in hindsight, you would have voted. However, when hearing a case do you believe that before pronouncing its verdict, sentence, or acquittal, the committee should examine the evidence more deeply, or simply as in the practice of RfC, evaluate, report, and action the consensus of the opinion of those requesting/demanding sanctions balanced with those providing arguments for mitigation? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:31, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   That's a good question. I believe that ArbCom's role is the former. It is our job to independently assess and thoroughly investigate the evidence. Certainly, the input of the parties and peanut gallery can be very useful and insightful. Indeed, without evidence provided by the parties, we generally don't have much to go on. We are open to hearing what folks think the outcome should be, after all that's why we have the workshop phase in most cases. But at the end of the day, the vote is an arbitrator's own. ArbCom is one of the few places on Wikipedia that is not-not-a-vote, exactly for the reason that it isn't an assessment of consensus. The ability of the Committee to have clear majority votes sets it apart from most other Wikipedia processes. When used properly, our majority vote system is part of the key in ensuring that the buck stops here. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 07:58, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Thank you for your answer, Eek. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:27, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10. Do you think that Arbitrators should go into an ArbCom case with the goal to implement a specific remedy, regardless of prelimary evidence, or should Arbitrators try and approach the case with an open mind? Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:53, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Arbs should always go in with an open mind. If you think you know what the outcome is ahead of time, you'll just fall prey to confirmation bias. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 06:13, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

11. Topical and somewhat urgent question: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:54, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As it happens, I started the RfC which created the letter. Personal user data is one of the most valuable things we have, and the Foundation must do all it can to safeguard our data and identities.

    As to the blackout, I haven't voted yet. The discussion has gone from overwhelming support to overwhelming opposition in just one day. You mention urgency, but that is not something Wikipedia at large is built for. Our contemplative, no deadline process fails in the face of emergency. If this is an attempt to get me to vote quickly on the blackout proposal, I politely decline. I will not be voting on threads just in an attempt to win the electorate's heart. If I do vote, it will be in due time, and with appropriate contemplation. Hasty decisions cannot be undone. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:26, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you for your answer. Yes, not good at emergencies. But no, not attempt to get you to do anything. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:58, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:29, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    It is a solid list of musings for sure, and despite reading it several times I couldn't find one that made me go "this is so wrong, I have to argue with HJ about this!" I will thus take the second part of your prompt, and elaborate on your musing that we should delete articles about people who are not public figures if they ask for it. We're never going to delete Taylor Swift (phew!) but the encyclopaedia will survive with one less article about an athlete/military officer/local politician/etc.

    Having worked the VRT queues, and handled boatloads of angry BLP subjects, this is at the root of so many problems that we have. When people write into VRT, they're usually complaining that their article is out of date or includes something unflattering. The trouble is, with most borderline notable folks, there are maybe three sources total about this person. Finding biography length coverage of them is impossible, and so we repeat glaring errors or out of date information because this person isn't notable enough to have quality coverage. We'd save ourselves so much headache, and the encyclopedia would be almost unchanged, if we were much more lax in deleting such articles. As to why the encyclopedia has resisted, I suspect it comes down to more fundamental issues of deletionism v. inclusionism, and a sense that anyone looking to delete their page is trying to commit some heinous coverup. The reality is I think much blander. People want their articles gone because its the 21st century, and anyone anywhere for any reason can read about what is probably not the best facet of your life. While certainly not a decision that ArbCom can affect, I long to see our BLP policy take more pity on regular joes who we really shouldn't be writing about in the first place. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 08:20, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

13. What do you think is the purpose of the evidence phase of a case, if arbitrators (you, in this case) do their own digging and find their own evidence, leading to remedies being enacted without an evidence phase? (c.f. the Marine_69-71 case request) Banedon (talk) 02:02, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Lets start with the Marine 69-71 case. I did not do my own digging. That diff was originally emailed to us by a user who later publicly acknowledged that it was them who had sent the diff to us. [1]. But I also reject the assertion that Arbitrators can never go beyond the exact links that we get sent. Especially when we investigate things like admin sockpuppetry, we are often the first line investigators. On larger cases, we will often have to trawl through discussions and discussions linked within them to get the full picture. So long as Arbitrators are acting as neutral investigators, and not partisans, such evidence may be a vital supplement. Still, as a practical matter, the Arbs generally do not do outside research during cases because it is time consuming and we have no idea what we're looking for. Not all proceedings require an evidence phase. In many admin conduct cases, the evidence is usually clear cut, and there are only a handful of incidents to examine, which have been extensively discussed at other venues like AN. At that point, opening an evidence phase, especially if an admin doesn't say they want it, is just an exercise in mudslinging and a waste of editor time. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:58, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

14. If arbitration had been a legal process, you doing your own digging would be juror misconduct (to quote, "Misconduct can take several forms ... When the jury member brings outside evidence that they may have found themselves into the trial which has not been allowed by the judges or lawyers and is used to create bias on the part of the juror. This new information may be used to influence their final decision). Given that, why did you not recuse? Do you believe that you doing your own digging is justified regardless? If so, why? Banedon (talk) 02:02, 15 November 2024 (UTC) I'm striking out this question because it was, clearly, based on a false premise. Banedon (talk) 03:33, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As I explained in the prior question, I did not dig for that diff. It was emailed to us. At any rate, and as better explained above, neutral investigation is a key part of ArbCom's work and something we do all the time. As to your legal hypothetical, I do not think that we should be making ArbCom more like legal processes. As my userpage has noted for some years: If you think ArbCom is Kafkaesque or inscrutable, I pray that you never have to go through an appellate procedure in an American court. We shouldn't function like courts do, because we fundamentally lack the volunteer time as a project to do that. There's a reason lawyers get paid the big bucks: the law is absurdly complicated. Lets keep ArbCom simple. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:58, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:55, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    ArbCom upholds the Five Pillars, one of which is that Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view. Of course, determining non-neutral editing can be hard in edge cases, which is why such edge cases often end up before us. We can and have addressed the behaviors listed in the WP:CPUSH essay, because being polite is not enough. But as CPUSH cautions, ArbCom handles conduct not content. We can handle editors who are misrepresenting sources or undermining the rules to achieve their ends. But we can't blanket ban anyone with a POV, because everyone has a POV. We must avoid the temptation to choose whose POV is NPOV, lest we became content dictators. Bottom line: we have a duty to keep the encyclopedia neutral, and we will continue to address the behaviors listed in CPUSH, but we should never choose POV winners and losers. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 07:42, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

16. What is a past ArbCom case that you would have decided or handled differently? Pinguinn 🐧 04:01, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I have stood in opposition to many a remedy over the years; every vote I cast on a motion that turned out the other way is a place where I would've decided differently. I respect the Committee's decisions, but I pride myself on occasionally being in the minority. To give a recent example, I felt that the Yasuke case failed to address the outstanding issues left unresolved after GamerGate. In response to a motion to rename the case to Yasuke, I noted that Special:Diff/1256701394: This feels like a bait and switch. I thought we were going to tackle the broader issues in video games that were left unsolved at the close of the GamerGate case, but we have failed to appropriately engage in that arena. That we have failed to workshop an appropriate CT, and that we focused on the narrow topic of Yasuke despite the broad scope of the case, is a failing of our duty. I hope I'm wrong, but my prediction is that culture wars in video games will rear their head again, and we'll have to hear another case to fix what we should have fixed here and now. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 06:45, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

17. What are your plans to help the arbitration committee manage its workload effectively? isaacl (talk) 18:34, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Right now our biggest problem is our workflow. We are using email to manage our business, but it has a real tendency for issues to get lost. Unlike VRT's ticket software or ZenDesk, which have built in tracking of stale threads, email does not. I want an improvement, and we've been looking at a few options. The dream solution would be using a software that's built to handle what we do, like ZenDesk, but that would require institutional support. Short of that, we've been exploring the idea of giving clerks some sort of access to the list so that they can actually clerk the list. At any rate, we've had a recent success: we just updated our instant communication method, which should help speed up our work. That kind of technological modernization is something I've long pushed for. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:12, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

18. When a request for another arbitrator's recusal is referred to the Committee (e.g., during a case request), what is your decision-making process? DanCherek (talk) 21:18, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Recusal starts as a personal consideration. Usually, an Arb will self-recuse when they realize that a situation requires it. Sometimes, they won't immediately think about it, but then an editor will point out that they should. At that point most Arbs will see sense and recuse if the request is reasonable. Only in a very small handful of cases does it come down to the Committee writ large. Usually, we'll start with an informal thread, where concerned Arbs may kindly suggest that the other Arb recuse. Sometimes the Arb will be recalcitrant, or there might be honest disagreement about whether they should recuse. At that point, it comes down to a vote, although it has been a while since we've actually force-recused an Arb.

    Like most decisions we make, recusal is fact intensive. I would examine how engaged the Arb was in the relevant issue, and whether they were acting as an uninvolved admin or not. Because of our tight knit community, its frequent that an Arb has crossed paths with a particular editor before. Casual interaction is not disqualifying. Even if the editor in question has sharply criticized or attacked an Arb, that is not disqualifying; otherwise trolls would just say negative things about us all and then we couldn't intervene. The real question is whether the Arb has made personal decisions, comments, or has otherwise been invested in an issue such that they could not be a neutral arbitrator, or that there would be a perception of impropriety. I can offer no exact formula to achieve that end; it is a case by case examination. The ultimate goal of recusal is to ensure that our decisions are fair, impartial, and legitimate. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 22:54, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

19. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard do you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:18, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    There is a balance between transparency and not throwing members under the bus. There are also some circumstances in which the Committee has traditionally not revealed vote counts in order to achieve another goal, such as ensuring the safety of the Committee members. Still, we have to remember that the vote count tends to benefit individual arbs, not the Committee writ large, unless the decision was unanimous. There is not a one-sized fits all approach, but I frequently push to reveal vote counts because I believe in transparency. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 23:16, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

20. There are currently ten active arbitrators out of a possible 15, and arbitrator activity appears to have been the cause of some matters before the Committee stalling – for example, motions in the recent ARBPIA amendment request were only recently enacted almost three months after the initial referral from AE, and you recently noted at A/R/C that an email sent to the Committee in the summer containing private evidence may have fell by the wayside as [an] enormous issue that no one had the energy to dive into. As someone who has served on ArbCom, is there anything that you think the community, the committee, and/or the WMF could/should do in order to (either directly or indirectly) improve arbitrator retention, and/or prevent arbitrator burnout? ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 13:00, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    ArbCom, like any other position here on Wikipedia, is a volunteer task. It is a beloved hobby, but we must expect that sometimes real life will intervene. So it did this year, as we lost three Arbs through no fault of their own, and found others inactive for long stretches. I fully own up that I was inactive for the middle part of this year, as I was taking the bar exam. With that over, and having settled into gainful employment, I have returned to my usual high level of activity. The Committee is designed to be larger than really necessary so that it can absorb such inactivity. This has mostly worked for years, but this year we faced a combination of factors that put a serious strain on the Committee. I identify a number of improvements we could make, though it is hardly an exhaustive list.

    First, as I discuss in question #17, ArbCom needs to improve our workload management. For example, you quote me regarding a missed email from the summer. I was inactive during that period, and so understandably didn't see it. But because we use email, it is far too easy to lose such messages, such that we had no simple way to look back half a year and find lost business among the thousand+ emails we receive in a year. We are avidly pursuing solutions to this issue, including better tracking software (something we would need WMF funding/logistics support for) or having clerk assistance on the list. inactivity. This has mostly worked for years, but this year we faced a combination of factors that put a serious strain on the Committee. I identify a number of improvements we could make, though it is hardly an exhaustive list.

    Second, I think we need to be more open to appointing Arbs to empty seats mid-term. A process to do so formally exists, but it has never been tried, and previous conversations among the Arbs had established that it was really only meant for true emergency situations. But given the loss of three Arbs this year and the resulting struggles, I think we need to seriously consider filling empty seats sooner than end of year elections. inactivity. This has mostly worked for years, but this year we faced a combination of factors that put a serious strain on the Committee. I identify a number of improvements we could make, though it is hardly an exhaustive list.

    Third, Wikipedia needs to continue to have a strong recruitment pipeline. No matter how hard we try, editors will still burn out or retire. We are also reaching the point where many of Wikipedia's first generation of contributors are dying, including noted arbs like the late and dear DGG. We must continue to attract new users. While we have made important structural reforms to places like RfA this year, the reality is that in order to continue to have new admins and Arbs, we need more new editors in the first place. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:27, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

21. Hi, I've been a Wiki Editor for a long time, mostly clarity edits, but some content. I've noticed that in the last 2-3 years, coincidentally with you at the "helm" of ARBCom, I have had my non-member IP banned several times by bots and other Admins or Editors, for nothing, really, yet you say you want to retain editors. In the past, I was used to being reverted, mostly by proprietary editors. Recently, there is a trigger happy lot running around tagging people as vandals. There is no trial. No jury of the peers. Zip. You just get banned. No warning, no recourse. From the perspective of an old school print editor, it just makes me want to walk away. Wikipedia needs to find a way for people to "ask questions first and shoot later". Can you speak to this? From what you say, I might vote for you. From my recent experience, not. I'm interested in your reply. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Billyshiverstick (talk • contribs) 08:12, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Without knowing the circumstances of your bans, I couldn't comment precisely. Though my guess would be that you have been caught up by the rapidly changing internet. For better or worse, admins have often had to block wide ranges of IP addresses because of the dynamic assignment of IP addresses. Many editors, including positive editors, may be caught out on those ranges alongside trolls and vandals. If you are repeatedly falling subject to IP blocks through no fault of your own, you might wish to ask for IP block exemption on your account. Without more specifics however, I can't comment on whether this is the sort of problem for ArbCom. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:39, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

22. Given the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in, do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unrealiable? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on antisemitism issues at ArbCom level and has been in denial of its scale thus far? Luxofluxo (talk) 21:19, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Bigotry of any kind is unacceptable on Wikipedia. We owe it to our contributors and our mission to ensure that Wikipedia is a welcoming place. Antisemitism has no home here. If there are editors who are antisemitic, they ought be reported first at WP:AN/WP:ANI, or where appropriate WP:AE, and if that fails to address the issue, then escalated to the Committee. The Committee can only take action on the issues that it knows about, which means people have to bring issues before us. ArbCom is about to hear its fifth case on Palestine-Israel Articles (PIA5). We will assess the conduct of editors, and whether our existing Contentious Topics scheme is keeping a lid on the topic area. If there are to be accusations of antisemitism leveled, that would be the next time and place.

    What ArbCom does not control, and should not control, is content. We deal with conduct, not content. Your question asks me to directly engage with the downgrade of ADL. But that is a content decision. Oh, sure it was a hotly contested one which resulted in extensive media coverage, and a lot of public debate about whether that decision was right or not. But ArbCom is not a supervote on whether a community decision was "right." CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:53, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

23. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:53, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I prefer public facing cases when possible. When we are forced to hear in camera cases, I would still prefer that a public facing shell case of some kind be opened. Otherwise, I think this question is very similar to #7, and I would point you to the answer I gave to Carrite. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

24. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 05:53, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    We have heard cases about single users, but mostly in the admin context because ArbCom previously had the monopoly on desysops. I'm not opposed to hearing cases about single users, but I can't recall a recent non-admin example. We may have a unique role to play in dealing with so called WP:UNBLOCKABLES, but we tend not to get those sorts of editors in front of us absent a dispute in a topic area. If we're going to hear single editor cases, we should apply the same standard we apply elsewhere: the problem must be intractable, and the community cannot resolve it. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

25. As a still newish editor who's just finished slogging through everything from, to, and about the candidates, I’m worn out. But glad I did it. I was very tempted just to "sit out" the election, what with so many terms and acronyms and references to situations and issues I was clueless about.
    What an insightful journey it's been. Now I much more clearly understand what the Arb Committee does and the value of voting in the election. I feel I'd actually sort of met you. And I certainly gained appreciation for the many contributions of Wiki service that you and your fellow candidates have already provided, along with your willingness to wade out deeper. (Can't think of a more perfect day on which to say this — by coincidence, it's Thanksgiving Day!)
    In light of the uphill challenges I faced en route to get where I can finally consider pressing the Vote button, I have a question to ask you and your fellow candidates:
    Because of the complexity of things to be aware of in the Arb election, how would you recommend that editors with different amounts of time on board with Wikipedia approach voting — or be approached — to vote? Perhaps time isn't the best criterion, but something else like general # of edits, or desire to dive into Wikipedia activity?
    Of course it's a bit late to implement any ideas you and your fellow candidates may come up for the 2024 election. But there are lots more elections ahead.Augnablik (talk) 05:38, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Your difficulty in voting is emblematic of one our big problems: Wikipedia is not very accessible. We've had 20+ years of instruction creep. Much of it is necessary, and has transformed us into one of the world's most used resources. But it makes the bar to entry for new users quite high. Recruiting and onboarding new editors is one of our biggest challenges.

    Certainly, some helpful resources have been created for voters. I would point to the Wikipedia:5-minute guide to ArbCom elections as a good start. Each year of course many individual editors make guides (see Category:Wikipedia Arbitration Committee Elections 2024 voter guides), although they are the opinion of individuals and should be taken with a grain of salt. Voters may also act from personal experience with particular candidates. Many people watch Arbitration proceedings throughout the year at places like WP:ARC, WP:ARCA, and WP:ARM. If you'd like to follow along with the highlights of what the Committee is doing through the year, I would watchlist WP:ACN. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:14, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I hope I'm replying correctly to YOUR reply to my recent question, but for some reason the Reply feature is disallowed for me to use with replies to candidate questions. (So, why is it even offered ...)

Thank you for your reply — holiday travel totally understood. Then too, my question came so late in the game. Thanks also for your empathy with the challenges those of us still face on the Wiki learning curve. Liz also weighed in on this with a reply to me even though I gave up on sending my question to any other candidates on the list below you and Just Step Sideways.

I'll follow through with the watchlist, as you suggested. At least I'm now a bit more aware of many of the issues and concerns in the Wiki arb world. By the way, I voted for you and wish you best luck.

26. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator?Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Arbitrators do not act on individual pages. We do however hear controversial cases regularly. I am currently a drafter on WP:PIA5, and I don't think it gets much more controversial than Palestine-Israel. During my last two terms (see the case index) we have heard cases on Iranian Politics, Kurds and Kurdistan, Armenia-Azerbaijain, WWII and the history of Jews in Poland, and more. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 16:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Add your questions at the bottom of the page using the following markup:

{{ACE Question
|Q=Your question
|A=}}

Use the |list resume= option to correct list numbering issues, by manually specifying the start point.

There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

1. I'm sure you're expecting this one. Can you explain to me, the average editor who has no idea of all the secret ArbCom business, why I should trust you not to make the same mistakes again? To be clear, I have read your statement. Toadspike [Talk] 00:12, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Of course I absolutely did expect it and I'm glad to try and get it out of the way with the first question. It was and is my contention that the "previous warning" I recieved had almost nothing to do with the issues that led to my suspension. Its status as a warning has since been downgraded by motion to "was advised that his off-wiki conduct was suboptimal." So, I believed that, while some of the other arbs didn't like what I was doing, it wasn't a huge deal. In November of last year it suddenly was a very huge deal to the point that I was being thrown out.
   Now, here's the thing: for me, it doesn't matter if I agree with what the committee and the ombuds have said was crossing the line. There are any number of non-arbitration-related policies I don't agree with, but I don't go around breaking them either. I can respect and follow a rule even if I don't care for it.Now that where the line is has been made clear, an absolute code of silence that forbids even mentioning the very existence of a conversation on the mailing list unless it is cleared with the entire committee first, I will follow that and expect the rest of the committee to do the same. My personal belief is that the committee erred in setting the bar quite so high, and they should have left the matter to this year's committee to clarify instead of suspending me, but that's not what happened. I also believe that for at least some arbs,it wasn't about what I said but where I said it, which should not be a factor but almost certainly was.
   
   I'd add, just for clarity, that I have never released anything that even comes close to personal information such as one routinely sees when using oversight or checkuser permisssions, and I never will. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 00:39, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2. Thank you for standing as a candidate and for your past service as an arbitrator. Please describe your self-assessment of your successes and failures as a former member of the committee with as much specificity as you feel comfortable with. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   First off, good question Kevin. I think I was an effective arb. For whatever reaon I actually do care, on more than one occasion I tried to take a break and felt compelled to end it because there was an issue before the committee that I felt needed immediate attention. I think I maybe also convinced some arbs that we needed to stop doing "bespoke" sanctions as I firmly believe they cause more problems than they solve. I don't know that I have a lot of total failures. The committee doesn't always do what it should, but if I at least tried to make it do so. I can feel good about that. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 03:54, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

3. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   There are some new user tools that actually work.The reply tool has caught on like nothing I've ever seen in all my years on this project. Whatever the thing is that makes edit summaries into section links is amazing, I only just really understood how to use it. The AFD closer tool is the best thing to ever happen to AFD. In short, getting some things done has gotten way easier. If only there were tools that made being an arb easy.
   
   On the minus side, I think we have rather too many rules, and too many users who insist on blind obedience to them. At a certain point it becomes impossible to even know them all, let alone follow them all.I also think there is a cutural issue where WP:IAR is fading away in favor you must follow ze rules. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 04:11, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. Your ARCA request for clarification regarding your suspension shows the need for clear communication. Could you clarify the scope of your promise to respect confidentiality? Does "Nothing from the arbcom mailing list will ever be reposted by me" apply only to the arbcom mailing list? I'd expect the same reassurance in regard to every forum to which you have access by virtue of holding advanced tools. Cabayi (talk) 01:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   My suspension was entirely about leaking non-specific, non-personal information from the arbcom mailing list, and nothing else. I've never even been accused of leaking anything else. It didn't occur to me to promise not to do things I've never done to begin with. I've recently put down my thoughts about this distinction here if anyone would like to see more. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 04:34, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   ArbCom's mailing list was not the only mailing list you were subscribed to which had access to that information. It was on the functionaries list also. Confining your obligations to preserve the privacy of communications to just one forum seems a missed opportunity to reassure the community.Cabayi (talk) 09:18, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Please refer to the essay I linked in my reply, along with my answer to Q1, which thoroughly adresses this distinction. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 18:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5. Accountability to the community is good, but as a group action rather than an individual action. It's the Wikipedia community that elected you to ArbCom. You divulged info to the Wikipediocracy community. To which community do you see yourself as accountable? Cabayi (talk) 01:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   This feels like a loaded question. I don't answer loaded questions. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 04:38, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   It was intended to give you the opportunity to distance yourself from a forum which has recently started a campaign to dox arbitrators, but thanks for the answer anyway. Cabayi (talk) 09:18, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   That's a gross mischacterization of what is going on there, one person saying they might do something and being yelled at for it by multiple other people is not "a campaign." And I reject the premise that one must "choose a side". One can be a critic and still disagree with other critics. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 18:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6. Excluding the sharing of information itself, and just concerning your steps after that: is there anything you would have done differently? Signed, Guessitsavis (she/they) ^Talk 16:04, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   An interesting question. So, one post set all this off, although several arbs have since commented that that particular post wasn't really that bad. I got an amail expressing their distress at seeing it. I therefore asked the WPO mods to please delete the post, which they did. As far as I know it remains hidden to this day thanks to them, I think next to nobody even saw it. The committee must have been keeping a really sharp eye on WPO for them to have seen it and gotten their ducks in a row to email me about it so quickly.
   The next thing I knew I was told there was a "totality of evidence" and that I had been explicitly issued a formal warning not to do what I had been doing, and therefore they were discussing removal from the committee. I responded to their totality of evidence point-by-point, although I suspect what some arbs were hoping I would just resign, I didn't feel the need to make this easy for them. One thing I had discovered was that the committee has historically relied too much on pressuring arbs to resign in order to keep this sort oif thing from becoming public. There's a few skeletons in that closet and I didn't want to be one of them.
   The very next day they had somehow negotiated amongst themselves the odd compromise that I was to be suspended for six months but not ejected from the committee, and had enacted that decision, along with the suspension of my functionary permissions, which are somehow still suspended even after the six months were up. I've personally never heard of a timed sanction that continues to be in effect after the period of time has ended, but that somehow makes sense to the current committee as well, apparently. So, no, actually, I would do all those things again. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 19:10, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

7. Are there any topic areas from which you would recuse yourself from while acting as an arbitrator? If so, what set of facts informs that decision? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:46, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I don't know that there is a "topic area" in the content sense of the word, that I would need to recuse from. My content work is very generalized and I don't enjoy editing in highly contentious areas.
   However I have in the past recused from entire cases or abstained from voting on particular findings or remedies where I had history, good or bad, with the user whose conduct was under examination, even when I knew I could be impartial. The standard that I have followed and would expect others to follow is to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 19:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:42, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   This is clearly an issue that needs some clarification, and if elected, and even if not, I will endeavor to get the committee to do so. "Secret" evidence is usually not secret at all, it is usually entirely public, but on some other website, and the outing policy hamstrings what can and cannot be publicly posted on-wiki. That is a matter the community may want to addrss as the committee can't modify policy.
   As to when the committee should accept a case, if there is a case request based entirely on private evence, it should be handled privately, although some sort of tactful public notice that the case is underway may be in order. It does appear that in the still-pending case request, the committee dropped the ball by not adequetly replying when the evidence was first sent to them several months ago, That is an ongoing issue with the committee, but one that seems to be more acute this past year. If someone sends private evidence, that should be treated as a de facto request for a private case. The submitting user should get a yes-or-no answer as they eventually do with an on-wiki case request.
   In this past year we saw a hybrid case where some evidence was public and some was not, and I would imagine that is possible more often than not and probably a good model to follow. The committee often has to weigh the individual right to privacy, which on Wikipedia, extends far further than most other websites, and the right of the broader community to know about things like canvassing and harassment. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 20:13, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:48, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   A functioning recall process might reduce the number of admin conduct cases brought before the committee, although it will probably always remain an option to got the route of a full case. The committee takes very few cases these days so there isn't a pressing need to lighten the load on that front, and the slow pace of a full case gives the parties time to really consider what is best.
   The committee also recently demonstrated that in more obvious cases it can speedily resolve admin conduct issues by motion, something I have been a proponent of for a long time and was happy to see put into practice. It resolved a painfully unfortunate situation much quicker than either recall or a full case would have, that's a good thing.
   The idea for recall was sold as being more lightwieght and less drama than taking an admin to ArbCom. So far it seems like the opposite. I'm hopeful that the current "reworkshop" will fix some of those glaring issues. Otherwise we would be stuck with an alternative process that, frankly, seems terrible so far. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 00:35, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:29, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10. Do you think that committee members should go into an ArbCom case with the goal to implement a specific remedy, regardless of prelimary evidence, or should committee members try and approach the case with an open mind? Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:59, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    When the committee accepts a case, that is an indication that the preliminary statements have made a compelling argument that there is a problem that needs looking into, and nothing more. Cases often take unexpected turns, for example the one that has just been closed was expected to be an examination of behabvior a broad topic area, and it turned out to that it stayed focussed on a single article.
    ArbCom exists to stop disruption, not to punish, and while one cannot help having a rough idea of what may be the result, arbs should always keep an open mind and remember that the every name on the screen represents a real person. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 18:43, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

11. At first sight it might seem as if this is a repeat of the question above, but taking note of your quip in your answer to Q3: you must follow ze rules, there are indeed jurisdictions where this is rigorously applied and where it is impossible to avoid a penalty for even the most innocent and minor breaches of an often silly law. Hence when hearing a case do you believe that before pronouncing its verdict, sentence, or acquittal, the committee should examine the evidence more deeply, or simply take the filing accuser's and the pile on claims of evidence at face-value and impose the maximum sanction/punishment? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:27, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As I mentioned in that same answer above I do feel the project, as it has grown, has lost some of the spirit that defined its earlier days. That's not entirely a bad thing, a lot of dumb stuff happened back in the "cowboy admin" days, but I am disheartened by the seeming tendency to see comments that reflect a "rules are rules and that's it" attitude.
    Of course, once a matter reaches the committee it is rarely the result of a single action but rather an ongoing problem that the community has tried and failed to resolve. Evidence doesn't lie, but it can be misrepresented or misinterpreted and in my experience the committee routinely simply ignores evidence submissions that don't actually show any wrongdoing. Perhaps ignoring it is not enough though, arbitrators are perfectly free to call out bad or misrepresented evidence as being just that. There are sometimes cases where two or more editors clearly despise one another and may resort to dirty tricks to try and make a point and the committee should always be cognizant of that.
    As to maximum punishment, I don't think that is generally the committee's goal. When a users' conduct is brought before the committee, it isn't because they are someone here entirely in bad faith, we just block people like that and move on. So we know going in that every party to a case was, at least at some point, genuinely here trying to improve the encyclopedia (with rare exceptions). So it's not exactly fun to have to tell them they have failed to do that and the committee quite often goes for the type of sanction that is intended to stop the disruptive behavior while keeping the otherwise good-faith editor i.e. topic bans or interaction bans. Sometimes that isn't an option, and a user has truly lost their way and a site ban is the only remaining solution, but it should never be the only option considered. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 18:59, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you for your answer, Beeb. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:57, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12. Topical and somewhat urgent question: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:54, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I've been vaguely watching the general issue, but I will preface my comments by saying I don't really see what this has to do with the arbitration committee.
    I certainly do not like the idea that the foundation would "out" users, but at the same time I feel like there's a lot of second guessing what the lawyers are up to. Things aren't always what they appear to be on the surface and the foundation isn't going to publicly share its legal strategy. It is also worth noting that the foundation doesn't actually know the real life identities of anyone who isn't already disclosing that information, so it's entirely possible all the court is going to get is a stale list of shared ip adresses, making the disclosure essentially meaningless. In short, I don't believe we have enough information to be sure we actually know what is going on.
    I don't support the blackout proposal. Blacking out the entirety of en.wp for several days won't do anything besides irritating the heck out of the millions of people who rely on the site and don't know or care about a court case in India. We are here to create and maintian an encyclopedia, and I don't see how shutting down the entire site helps anyone. The open letter is on track to hit nine hundred signatures in the near future, I think that is a suffiently clear statement that this deeply concerns large numbers of Wikipedians. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 23:02, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I quite agree that it's not much about ArbCom, and more about you as an editor and Wikipedian. Many thanks for your thoughtful and illuminating answers. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:10, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

13. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:33, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, I didn't see much there that I totally disagree with besides Editors (or small groups) who successfully research, write, and nominate a featured article should be allowed a by-line if they want it.
    That's just not the deal you made when you signed up. If anyone is curious who wrote a particualr article, the history tab is right there. This also begs the question of future edits, when do they get their byline? Does the original author get sole credit forever no matter what?
    Plenty of heavy content contributors maintain a "trophy rack" on their user page and I think that's just fine, there's nothing wrong with being proud of the results of your hard work. Appending their name to an actual article text is something else. If you want that, go edit some site that allows a single user to maintain total control of an article. They do exist. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 23:15, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

14. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:55, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    When such matters are brought before the committee it has an obligation to recognize disruptive behavior of any kind for what it is and take appropriate action to stop it. In cases of POV pushing that could involve a topic ban from the subject area in question or a WP:CTOP designation. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 04:20, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15. What is a past ArbCom case that you would have decided or handled differently? Pinguinn 🐧 04:01, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Generally, I often advocated in the past that any admin that needs to be subject to an ArbCom-level editing restriction is manifestly unfit to be an admin, but getting other arbs to see it that way has been an uphill battle.
    I also think more admin conduct cases can and should be handled by motion, if you're looking for specifics the most glaring example is Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder.Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 04:34, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

16. What are your plans to help the arbitration committee manage its workload effectively? isaacl (talk) 18:34, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    So, all arbs are equal, no one of them has any more say than the others, and that is as it should be, I don't think the committee needs a chairperson or whatever, but it has occured to me that it could use a coordinator. No special authority. just someone who keeps things on track and reminds other arbs of things that need doing that aren't being paid enough attantion. There is often one arb already sort of doing this unofficially, but maybe it is time to make it an actual position.
    
    I also think there is an issue with arbs being marked active but not actively particpating in on-wiki committee business, and this has led to case requests and other situations that require a vote to languish far longer than they should. Committee procedures already state that an arb is considered inactive if they do not participate in committee business for seven days, but this is rarely put into practice. I'd go one further and say that if an arbitrator does not vote on an open matter for seven days, they should be considered inactive or abstaining from that matter regardless of whether they are active in other matters. Perhaps the procedures can be changed to reflect this. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 19:06, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

17. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard would you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:19, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Things should only be kept private when there is a compelling reason to do so. So, checkuser data,suppressed edits, links to user's other online accounts or real names, those are all things covered by policy that must be kept private. The committee doesn't have a choice in that.
    How arbitrators voted in a case based on that sort of material is not something they are obligated to keep private, so if they are doing so it is by choice. I can't really think of any reason to make that choice. If you're ashamed of the way you voted, that's a good indicator that you shouldn't have voted that way

18. In response to your above answer: several arbs have since commented that that particular post wasn't really that bad. I got an amail expressing their distress at seeing it. I therefore asked the WPO mods to please delete the post, which they did. As far as I know it remains hidden to this day thanks to them, I think next to nobody even saw it. I feel as though some of the questions you're getting are "in the know" with respect to what you posted to WPO, and the rest of us have simply no idea what you posted or any concept of how much of a "leak" it was or wasn't. I am reassured by statements like for clarity, that I have never released anything that even comes close to personal information such as one routinely sees when using oversight or checkuser permisssions. For forbids even mentioning the very existence of a conversation on the mailing list, can you clarify just in general for us that aren't privy, what is the general category of what you posted that caused all this drama? Was it truly something like "on the ArbCom mailing list, we are discussing X"? I see the statement that it was not direct quotes but rather general information but I just feel as though that's so vague that I'm having a hard time weighing it against the reaction of ArbCom. I would like to Support, and if what you posted was something like just a general mention that X is a topic of discussion, I will feel comfortable doing so.

    I kind of have to keep some of it somewhat vague, but I will try to adress the points you raise.
    The post that directly led to the initiation of the case against me was me posting about the existence of an on-list discussion about a specific user, and the result of that discussion. As I've indicated, there were no direct quotes from anyone or any other hint of who said what, just that the discussion was had and had been decisisve. I only even brought it up on WPO after the user in question was revealed to be a long-term sock of banned troll. This was the post the WPO mods hid when I asked them to, and I beleive is still hidden/deleted. I still don't think this should be a secret but the committee was upset that I took it upon myself to make that decision, which is not entirely unfair.
    However, several arbs have said that was simply the final straw, and they were much more upset about another incident from several months before that which had not been discussed with me before that. This is fairly public and still out in the open: Gitz6666 was blocked from another WMF wiki, and then globally locked, on the pretense that he had done something extremely out of line, but he wasn't told what this reason actually was. For some weird reson, someone told him to appeal to the en.wp ArbCom, which he did. In the course of the committee talking with the stewards, trying to figure out what exactly was going on, a steward explained what the accusation was to the committee. Gitz posted quite a number of times at WPO about his situation, and while I was skeptical at first and told him as much, I gradually began to feel the situation was manifestly unfair.
    After questioning why this action had been taken against him for some time, he guessed the correct reason for the block/lock. I made a post saying it was too bad I couldn't tell him if that was exactly the right reason, because I couldn't say anything. I was obviously being sarcastic and deliberately telegraphing that he had indeed gotten it right. So, I made a choice to help someone, whom I did not know in any capacity prior to this, and who was caught in a beuracratic nightmare. People throw around the word "Kafkaesque" but this is literally the entire plot of Kafka's only full novel, The Trial.
    I think part of what irritaed the other arbs about this is that the committee does not always have the best relationship with the stewards. I agree that it's unfortunate that this is the case, but I didn't agree that a person wrongly blocked for reasons they weren't being told should just sit there while the committee hoped that the stewards and the admins from that other project would do the right thing. So, I once again did take it upon myself. I don't think for a second that the committee would have voted to drelease this information as it actually was not anything to do with en.wp or the committee and only came our way because someone gave Gitz bad advice. I could have done it by private mesage or email and nobody would know it was me, but I generally don't do things that way.
    It's perhaps worth noting that one of the stewards involved in all this was removed during this years' confirmations largely over their role in this incident, and a number of current and former arbs from en.wp made comments that they should be removed. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 23:04, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

19. There are currently ten active arbitrators out of a possible 15, and arbitrator activity appears to have been the cause of some matters before the Committee stalling – for example, motions in the recent ARBPIA amendment request were only recently enacted almost three months after the initial referral from AE, and it has been noted that an email sent to the Committee in the summer containing private evidence may have fell by the wayside as [an] enormous issue that no one had the energy to dive into. As someone who has served on ArbCom, is there anything that you think the community, the committee, and/or the WMF could/should do in order to (either directly or indirectly) improve arbitrator retention, and/or prevent arbitrator burnout? ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 13:02, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    This is similar to question sixteen, so some of my thoughts on what the committee itself could do are already there. Arb absanteeism/apathy is by no means a new phenomenon, and the ARCA thread you mention is one of several indicators that it has been particualrly acute recently, but it seems to have been trending that way since WP:FRAMGATE. The sheer number of arbs that walked away after that was what prompted me to run that year, similarly, the apparent dysfunction of the current committee is what led me to run this time.
    One thing that I don't think has ever been done is a special election, which is permitted by WP:ARBPOL if " arbitrator resignations or inactivity have created an immediate need for additional arbitrators." I think the committee should consider it if, for example, an arb does not particpate in committee business for six months or more and a significant portion of other arbs are largely inactive.
    The committee has also recently moved review of most checkuser blocks off of its own plate and pushed it back on-wiki, and I think that was wise. CU block reviews were a huge portion of the off-wiki workload, and most of them did not need an entire committee to come to a conclusion.
    The community, or more speicifcally the admin corps, already handles arbitration enforcement, I'm not sure there's much else it can do, except maybe people should consider, when case requests come up, if they actually have anything substantive to add to the conversation, and if they do not, amybe don't post a statement.
    As to what the founbdation can or should do, Trust and Safety will sometimes make an office ban at the request of the committee largely to provide a new target for whatever highly disruptive person to go after. This doesn't always work but it is worth a try and the more willing they are to do it the better. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 21:05, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

20. Having read your statement, I would like to ask this: what reasoning led you to believe that email content, accessible only to a small committee of individuals entrusted with private information that cannot be handled publicly on-wiki, didn't need to be kept private and were fine to leak to a public offsite forum where some banned Wikipedians congregate and engage in behavior that would be disallowed on-wiki? (I am well aware this is not universal to all membership of the site.) Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 19:17, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Meaning no disrespect, I would ask that you read my answers to questions one, four, six, and eighteen on this page, and my comment here. I feel like I've explained myself pretty thoroughly already, but if you read all that and still have specific questions please ask away. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 21:14, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you for directing me to your statement in the Arbitration motion. I had read your answers to questions one, four, six, and eighteen but not clicked through to the motion (since I did not know it included another characterization on your part of your actions). My own question remains, though. I get that you considered your behavior unproblematic and that you disagreed with what the rest of the committee concluded about your behavior, but I don't grasp or see on what grounds you felt the behavior was fine in the first place. It just seems kind of obvious to me that if I know something because of or about an email that only me and a select circle colleagues can access because we were elected to a community position that exists partly to be entrusted with handling information that's supposed to be private, I'm not going to leak stuff on an online forum even if I personally think it's minor; so I'm trying to understand how you drew a very different conclusion. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 21:52, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I understand and agree with the idea that things like personal information, or even the exact contents of emails should generally be kept private, but I do not believe that it was firmly established before my suspension that there is an expectation of an absolute code of silence with zero exceptions unless the committee as a whole pre-approves it.
    Further to that, the matter with Gitz, which seems to be what most of the committee was most bothered by, was for me a matter of ethical behavior -vs- adherence to the rules. Here was this person who had been trying to figure out why he had been blocked and then globally locked. If he had in fact done what he was accused of, he would've deserved it, but they wouldn't tell him what the accusation even was. Once he knew what it was, he was quickly able to appeal and get the unjustified lock lifted, and the steward who misbehaved here was later removed by the community. That is, as far as I am concerned, the correct outcome. If this had remained a little secret between the committee and the stewards, he might still be unjustly globally locked right now, through no fault of his own. However, the committee didn't see it that way and made it abundantly clear, in an astonishingly fast decision for them, that they believe there are absolutely no exceptions, ever.
    So that's now my understanding of it as well, whether I happen to agree or not.
    I would also assume that this applies not just to posts on WPO but to here on-wiki as well and that all arbs will henceforth be incredibly tight-lipped about any discussion on a mailing list, and not even mention that one exists without clearing it with their peers first. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 22:09, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I think that fulfilling the community trust of your elected position—which includes maintaining the privacy of Arbitration communication—is what would be ethical. This answer is not what I had hoped for, and the dig at potential future colleagues seems unnecessarily temperature-raising, but both are clarifying. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 22:41, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I am not running just to make a point, if that is what you are implying, and despite it being asked about again and again here, I'm bot running to re-litigate the case from last year either. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 23:46, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

21. Hey JSS. I know your candidacy has invited a lot of questions, and I can see above that some of those lines of questions appear quite hostile - so I hope you don't mind another question, on the more general topic. Wikipediocracy is a lot of things, it hosts individuals who will never be allowed to return to Wikipedia, some of whom will dox or harass individuals without a second thought. Equally, it has been a place of valid criticism of our project, and has discovered and raised concerns about huge issues that we've then been able to deal with - the site is a real mixed bag. Given that you are a regular participant in their forums, do you feel you have a role in encouraging the site away from the certain behaviours and towards others? Do you see yourself as "setting an example" either to WPO members or Wikipedians? Worm^TT(talk) 10:09, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Totally agree that it is a mixed bag. There are large portions of it I don't even read. I do a few things there, for differing reasons:
    
    One of those things is trying to provide tranparency and policy knowledge, mostly in "governance" threads, as there are quite often posts there that are making assumptions that are just wrong, assuming facts not in evidence, imagining conspiracies that don't exist etc. I also think it is important to be aware of what critics are saying, whether the criticism is valid or not. (up to a point, I don't read that other "critic" site as it is just a few people screaming into the void)
    I also regularly read the threads that offer criticism of article content in apparently little-watched articles or poor-quality images in biographical articles that may be replaceable, ("crap articles" and "unflattering portraits" in WPO vernacular) because those often highlight areas where it may be fairly easy to fix these issues, or where an article we plainly should not even have has sat unnoticed for a prolonged period. This is genuine and useful criticism that provably has resulted in postive changes to the encyclopedia.
    The area that has caused the most consternation on-wiki is of course where individual editors are criticized. I don't think it is patently unfair to criticize WP users on WPO, but I do think it often goes to far, and have written about that in this user essay. Coming up with an insulting nickname for someone and using it over and over again is not a valid way of criticising a person's actions, and actually weakens the case that you have something valid to say. Unless you're Donald Trump it usualy is not a winning strategy.
    I don't suppose I could just leave it at that without adressing the subject of outing. And let's be clear here, as many people have used the term doxxing to describe outing. Wikipedia's definition of outing is a much, much lower bar than doxxing. WPO does not have an outing policy. Most of the internet does not have an outing policy anywhere near as strict as this project. So, some users over there will in fact make connections between accounts on other websites, or even real names. Most of the time, this is done to reveal a suspected WP:COI in a way that would not be possible on-wiki, and is in line with WPO's stated purpose. The same information could be sent to the paid editing VRT queue, but the fact that it was posted on WPO instead does not invalidate it, even if many of us find it distasteful. This is another area twhere WPO has provably uncovered very real problems here on WP. Other times, it seems to be done for no very good reason except to attempt to embarass "power users" such as functionaries or arbs. I don't agree with that, and neither do most WPO commenters, and many of us have said as much,
    
    I think what we need here, on WP is an understanding that making posts on WPO is not an endorsement of every single thing that happens over there, any more than editing a Wikipedia article is an endorsement of every other edit that has ever been made here. I've seen some users baldly state that people need to pick a side and be loyal to it. That sort of divisive us-or-them rheotric has caused much drama, while accomplishing exactly nothing except to drive more traffinc to WPO to see what the fuss is about. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 01:52, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

22. If you fail to reach the 50% threshold for a one-year term by a slim margin, will you consider it proof that the community has lost faith in you, at least as far as arbitration is concerned? Sincerely, Dilettante 19:53, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

23. Given the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in, do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unreliable in certain areas? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on antisemitism issues at ArbCom level and has been in denial of its scale thus far? Luxofluxo (talk) 21:22, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I would think that any the vast majority of Wikipedians would agree that any form of discrimination against any group is not ok. However, ArbCom deals with behavior, not content, and has no mandate or authority to interfere in a decision like listing the ADL as unreliable. What it can do is provide tools such a WP:CTOP designations, topic bans, etc, to discourage and/or remove disruptive editors that push any sort of discriminatory narrative. A full case has been approved by the current committee to address these issues. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 00:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

24. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:52, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I feel like this is substantially similar to question number 8. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 20:07, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

25. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 05:52, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Anyone who has been around as long as either of us has has certainly seen this scenario any number of times. What is often frustrating is that such persons tend to be at their most unpleasant when they are actually right about whatever is being argued about. This often serves a shield for their nasty remarks "yeah, he shouldn't have said it that way, but he's right" has excused quite a few such persons.
    
    This tendency may result in a situation wherein it becomes clear that the community has tried and failed to effectively deal with the users' behavior, and that is generally the bar for accepting a case, although in the contemporary era of ArbCom taking cases regarding a single non-admin user is extremely rare as the community has gotten somewhat more willing to issue "exhausted the community's patience" bans. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 20:07, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

26. As a still newish editor who's just finished slogging through everything from, to, and about the candidates, I’m worn out. But glad I did it. I was very tempted just to "sit out" the election, what with so many terms and acronyms and references to situations and issues I was clueless about.
    What an insightful journey it's been. Now I much more clearly understand what the Arb Committee does and the value of voting in the election. I feel I'd actually sort of met you. And I certainly gained appreciation for the many contributions of Wiki service that you and your fellow candidates have already provided, along with your willingness to wade out deeper. (Can't think of a more perfect day on which to say this — by coincidence, it's Thanksgiving Day!)
    In light of the uphill challenges I faced en route to get where I can finally consider pressing the Vote button, I have a question to ask you and your fellow candidates:
    Because of the complexity of things to be aware of in the Arb election, how would you recommend that editors with different amounts of time on board with Wikipedia approach voting — or be approached — to vote? Perhaps time isn't the best criterion, but something else like general # of edits, or desire to dive into Wikipedia activity?
    Of course it's a bit late to implement any ideas you and your fellow candidates may come up for the 2024 election. But there are lots more elections ahead.Augnablik (talk) 05:38, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    It can certainly be difficult trying to keep up with all the various elections and other areas such as RFA and the Functionaries appointment process. This year we had the additon of admin elections,and admin recalls, and it seems all of these things are going on either simultaneously or one right after the other.
    
    It's near impossible to be an informed voter in every single on of these things, even if you have lots of free time. I imagine not a lot of people actually read every answer to every question asked of every candidate, as they may already have some familiarity with some of the candidates. It's tough for newer users to be able to have that sort of familiarity with a dozen candidates, let alone the thirty-something candidates we had in the admin elections. There are of course user-created voter guides, and I confess that I do read those every year, even though they are just opinions or in some cases nothing but tables and stats. Statistics can give you a vague idea of a users experience on the project, but they don't tell you anything abiout the candidates ideals, their temperment, sense of fairness, etc. So this question-and-answer format is about the best we can do.Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 20:08, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

27. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator?Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:42, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Add your questions at the bottom of the page using the following markup:

{{ACE Question
|Q=Your question
|A=}}

Use the |list resume= option to correct list numbering issues, by manually specifying the start point.

There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

1. Thank you for standing as a candidate and for your past service as an arbitrator. Please describe your self-assessment of your successes and failures as a former member of the committee with as much specificity as you feel comfortable with. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Hi Kevin, and thank you for your questions. I like to think that I had more successes than failures, though many of my successes are less visible, and I've got quite a few to think back upon. The thing I'm most proud of, is my part in encouraging the responsibility for "child protection" to be moved from the community to the foundation, even all these years later. Besides that clear point, my main successes are harder to quantify - I have helped keep the committee focussed during some tough times, helped reduce controversy internally and externally with a well placed word.
   With regard to failures - the places we've lost contributors stick with me. It may be that we needed to take that final tough decision to remove soemone from the encyclopedia, or it may be that an otherwise good long term editor needs to have user-rights or even just status removed. If that individual subsequently disengages, we as a community has lost something, and that's a failure. Similarly, if an editor leaves because of a decision we've made - then we haven't been clear enough about the reasons and our choices - again, that's a failure. As I say, these things stick with me and help me try to make the right choices, earlier in the future, so that we don't get into these situations.

2. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Over the past couple of years, Wikipedia as a project has moved from "the" reference, to "a" reference to the man on the street. All that lovely Google juice is still pointing over here, but AI is summarising the information for the consumer far earlier, and I believe the people reading our pages has shrunk. And so the pessimism - I do believe the pace of LLMs, and ways of transforming that information into being processed by individuals has started to push our wonderful project to obsolescence - less people reading means less editors fixing, and risks of manipulation of content. Yet - there is optimism to be seen too - we do have more active editors than we have in years. The LLMs need training, and our content is good and available - so we are still having an effect on those future generations. More to the point, those who do not trust the AI still have us here, solid and reliable. We're not going anywhere, there's budget to keep us here for years to come. We need to protect what we have and be open to new and wonderful ways it will be used, giving knowledge to the world.

3. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:43, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   The standard should be "we shouldn't do it unless absolutely necessary". I don't like secret evidence cases, they're not visible to the community who are our backstop - and so there needs to be a very good reason for one. As for the rest - the accused should have the right to respond to evidence against them, though depending on the scenarios, they may not have a right to "face the accuser" - we're not a court - but equally, I find it hard to picture scenarios where it's got to Arbcom and the accused cannot know who has made the accusation.
   The one scenario I can think of was WP:FRAM - but that was Arbcom trying to fix a mess of how it was handled, rebuild a fractured community and deal with the underlying issue, all with our hands tied on what we could see and what we could say. I'd rather not go through that again.

   It's been done. In the Racepacket case, ArbCom issued a finding against me based on secret evidence. Not only do I not know who the accuser was, but ArbCom did not disclose to me the nature of the accusation, leaving me unable to defend myself. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:42, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:47, 13 November 2024 (UTC); edited, 01:33, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   The recall system isn't ready yet - I'm not sure it was ever really ready enough to pass the RfC, despite the fact I am for recall and believe such things should be in the hands of the community. From an Arbcom point of view, I do not believe it should affect our way of working - besides being evidence that dispute resolution has been attempted. This would be similar to the historic situation, if someone had initiated a voluntary recall, and then gone to Arbcom afterwards.
   I'm afraid this makes things more unpleasant for administrators, as they may have to face multiple reviews of the same incident - but the systems, such as they are, are mutually exclusive.

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:33, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5. In a previous ACE I asked you this question: Should the Committee have a duty to investigate the veracity of the de facto evidence presented by the complainant(s) and/or uninvolved commenters? To which you answered: I’d prefer that the arbitration committee does no investigation themselves - where evidence is incorrect, I would expect that to be highlighted by other case participants. In the pure hypothesis that all the participants - for whatever reason - were accusers, but it had been pointed out by the accused that the evidence may require investigation, would your answer be different today? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:31, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I did say that and I stand by it. Before I address your hypothetical, I'd like to explain a little bit more about why I believe this. The committee deals with all sorts of cases, across the entire breadth of Wikipedia. The committee are not experts in those fields, we have millions of topics and just and handful of arbitrators. So, the committee members already have a lot to manage, to understand and weigh accuracy of what is presented. Add on top of that, cases should be written in a manner that future editors can understand not only what the decision was, but why it was made.
   And so to your hypothetical, if we have a small number of participants, one "accused" subject and the remainder on raising evidence, the subject claims that the evidence requires investigation. I would not expect Arbitrators to go looking for more evidence, in fact I would actively discourage it. I would be asking the subject to expand on their point - to give that context of why it requires investigation. I have no issue with arbitrators reading around the issue to understand the context, especially if it is presented to them, by any case participant. There's a difference between "looking for evidence" and "reading the context".

   'Looking for evidence' is not quite the same as examining the veracity of the evidence where doubt has been expressed. In that previous ACE, you did continue by saying: What the committee does have a duty to do is weigh the evidence, making a decision on the balance between level of the negative impact and the quality / quantity of the evidence provided - in other words, extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence, patterns should be shown etc. I think that covers it. Thank you for your answer, WTT. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:00, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   And all that still holds true too. Worm^TT(talk) 17:02, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6. Do you think that committee members should go into an ArbCom case with the goal to implement a specific remedy, regardless of prelimary evidence, or should committee members try and approach the case with an open mind? Tinynanorobots (talk) 10:00, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Committee members should never go in looking to implement a specific remedy. If the case is cut and dried enough that there is a clear outcome, it should be handled by motion. You never know what evidence will be presented during a case, and they can turn significantly away from the case request structure - so being willing to move away from preconceptions is essential.

7. "I have achieved a lot as an Arb, and am proud of my contributions". Can you tell us about some of things you have achieved? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:26, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I am not great at blowing my own trumpet, and will preface my answer to mention that everything achieved on Arbcom is a team effort, and by focussing on the things I'm proud of, I absolutely do not want to take away from other arbitrators who also worked hard on the same.
   So, now that's out of the way, top of my list is "Child Protection". In my first term on Arbcom, I was very hot on this, with a firm no nonsense approach - and taking some steps to pressure the foundation publicly to take responsibility for the area. Although burned out a the end of the term, I did receive confirmation before I left that they would be taking that responsibility on.
   I have had a firm stance on poor administrator behaviour for years, having drafted and lead voting on cases where administrators have fell below community expectations - while equally trying to find solutions that did not ostracise the individual as a community member.
   I helped lead the committee (and by extention the community) through an extremely tough period, and while I may have acted differently in hindsight, I believe I made the best choices I could at the time - finding a way for the community to heal and move forward. I ended up dropping the case I was trying to draft to focus on that case and remained fully engaged throughout the case.
   On top of those highlights, I've helped to decide countless cases, been willing to stand up for my principles on those, offered encouragement to new arbitrators, been the voice of reason / voice of experience behind the scenes. Worm^TT(talk) 16:24, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:40, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Harry, you know I'm the ultimate devil's advocate (Yay, I bluelinked!), so I could probably argue against any of your musings, if I needed to. Because I'm that sort of person, I'll pick one from each area.
   Let's see - Editors whose focus is politicking in project space and at administrators' noticeboards, especially on matters they're not involved in, are a net negative to Wikipedia. No, simply. The behaviour is not beneficial, but that does not mean they are a "net negative". Perhaps the hypothetical individual who only does this might be - but Wikipedians are rounded individuals, they spend time doing other stuff. If participating in project space makes them feel more of the community, then it should be encouraged - just modified to be more productive.
   I often hear people say they can't find anything to write about, or that everything already has an article... For these people I wouldn't focus on redlinks but instead suggest expansion of topics they find interesting. Admittedly, I'm lucky enough to have found some interesting subjects without articles, but I've also expanded or reworked articles that were in a sorry state. I remember finding a vital article Drink in this state and changed it to this. You can't say there's nothing to write about just because the articles exist - there's always more to do.
   Editors (or small groups) who successfully research, write, and nominate a featured article should be allowed a by-line if they want it. I'm not totally against this as a way to encourage featured articles, which require a lot of dedication to bring it to the resting place - however it's against our community's basic philosophy. Every article is a collaboration - it's updated by editors, maintained by other editors, reviewed by yet more editors. I've worked on two WP:Four Award articles, and I would never claim a "by Worm That Turned" on either, they're not "mine" and if I wanted my work published in my name, I would go elsewhere.
   RfA is a cesspit where we invite people to abuse candidates with impunity for a week. Adminship is a position of trust and some vetting and critical discussion is absolutely necessary. But dedicated editors volunteering to take on extra work deserve better. That many of these people have left the site after their treatment at RfA should be a source of shame. This one really speaks to me - I've spent so many years working on RfA reform, and did come up with the idea that has turned into WP:Admin elections, so yes, I certainly agree RfA is not good enough. but actually I believe you've gone too far. RfA isn't as bad as people make out, and it's reputation is a large part of the problem - so musings like this don't help. Sure there those who believe "you've got to have a thick skin because it'll be worse as an admin", but I believe you should be able to speak to your actions, especially so as an administrator. So, issues about candidates need to be able to be raised. So, yes, I agree, RfA needs to be better - but I'm not sure I agree with your language, let alone all your points. Worm^TT(talk) 18:23, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I appreciate your considered answers, Dave. A quick follow-up to the last one if I may: do you not feel that Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MB rather exemplifies my criticism of RfA? There were legitimate concerns there and the community was clearly conflicted considering over 250 editors took part and it went to a 'crat chat, but they were expressed in such a way that the candidate left shortly afterwards. Even if we take it as given that the result was "correct", surely that's not the best outcome? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:14, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9. You've been away a while. What have you done to catch up with changes within the community? How will you re-embed yourself other than serving on ArbCom? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:40, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I've been reading. A lot. I've caught up on all Admin newsletters, signpost articles and a fair amount of noticeboard posts (VP and Arb mainly) - I have had chats with members of the community who I trust to find out what I should read more about. To re-imbed, I've re-familiarised my self with a little light content work, after I get myself back through all these questions, I will try to join in som community discussions too. Worm^TT(talk) 18:23, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Neutrality is core to Wikipedia's guiding principles, so non-neutral editing, or any sort of POV pushing (civil or not), is a huge issue that needs to be dealt with firmly. Happily, the community is the best place to handle these sorts of issues, from community members helping to point out where the editing is not neutral and improve the articles using high quality sources, to administrators protecting articles / blocking repeat / egregious offenders. Arbcom is there for the situations that the community can't handle, and they are fewer and further between. So, if the situation is not solvable by the community - possible because of the subject matter, or the individuals in question - that's where Arbcom needs to be able to help out.

11. What is a past ArbCom case that you would have decided or handled differently? Pinguinn 🐧 03:59, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Hindsight is always 20:20 is the phrase - we work on the information that we have at the time. So, for example, we've come down on the wrong side with regards to editors who fooled us - say Lourdes / Wifione for example, any case where they were involved, I would have handled differently. That doesn't mean everything about the decisions were wrong, but it's hard to say that everything was right, when influenced like that. Any case which required subsequent cases, I'd have to look at the original case and how that happened - often these are based on outside factors, but if the committee did not draw a line under the issue, then the committee could do more.

12. What are your plans to help the arbitration committee manage its workload effectively? isaacl (talk) 18:35, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    That's an interesting question Isaacl. I have tried to help find solutions for this in the past (for example, moving to Google Groups, which had much better spam protection) but given that workload is something I haven't solved in my previous terms, I'm not expecting to be the one who solves it now. I will support any changes that do get put forward, I do use workload management software day to day, but the ones I use are proprietary, and we should consider something a little more open source. I am confident there is a software solution to the management, but being a volunteer group, it's the herding cats aspect that needs addressing - and for that, I hope to focus on keeping morale up and helping to keep focus in taht respect.

13. If a request for another arbitrator's recusal was referred to the Committee (e.g., during a case request), what would be your decision-making process? DanCherek (talk) 21:20, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    We're a committee, which means we don't all need to be involved on every case. So we should recuse without concern if needed. Equally, I'm not keen on people "picking and choosing" the arbs they they want to sit on their case, so frivolous requests should be ignored. So, what's my decision making process? If the arbitrator can be reasonably considered involved, if they have a conflict of interests, if they have obvious strong feelings that makes me question whether they can be unbiased in a decision, then I will push for them to recuse. Similarly if it appears to the community that any of these are true - whether or not they actually, are - I would be suggesting they recuse.

14. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard would you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:20, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    That's a good question. The problem is that when we don't release the vote breakdown, and a single arb releases their vote - suddenly the rest of the committee is put in an awkward position - either release their own vote, or have it effectively revealed by other vote reveals. It's a distraction from whatever the actual issue is in question, something the committee should be willing to stand by as a group. As to your original question - my standard is that if a vote is made for a "decision", then we should reveal the votes. If it's just a straw poll for say, how best to write something, we shouldn't because that's just a committee working together.

15. There are currently ten active arbitrators out of a possible 15, and arbitrator activity appears to have been the cause of some matters before the Committee stalling – for example, motions in the recent ARBPIA amendment request were only recently enacted almost three months after the initial referral from AE, and it has been noted that an email sent to the Committee in the summer containing private evidence may have fell by the wayside as [an] enormous issue that no one had the energy to dive into. As someone who has served on ArbCom, is there anything that you think the community, the committee, and/or the WMF could/should do in order to (either directly or indirectly) improve arbitrator retention, and/or prevent arbitrator burnout? ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 13:05, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    In my experience, individual arbitrators will go inactive every year. This is due to normal life which has the unfortunate habit of happening. Wikipedia should never come before real life - so, this should not be a concern and that's the reason we have redundancy built in to the size of the committee. The problem comes when the committee is causing the burnout. This can be due to internal or external pressures - and if there is a proximate cause that is creating the issue that means multiple arbitrators are going inactive - then that issue should be identified and addressed. That's not easy to do, but it is something I focus on. Communication is key in this respect, checking in, keeping lines of communication open, being willing to talk about the issue head on - these are all things that can help. We look to have a good mix of experience and enthusiasm coming to the committee, so I am hopeful for the next year.

16. You were an arb in the past. Which of the decisions you were active in do you think have stood the test of time, and which ones do not? What do you think you've learned from those cases and what would you do differently now if you are elected? Do you have any votes that you have come to regret? Ealdgyth (talk) 14:33, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As I mention above, there are situations where, with hindsight, cases would have gone differently. Any perennial case, that we have to deal with the same issue again, is one that hasn't stood the test of time. They certainly exist - I will add more on this soon, because it's quite a big topic - but also I find that I keep answering the second part to your question (repeated below) - so I need to answer that first.

17. In line with the above, what do you think you've learned from those cases and what would you do differently now if you are elected? Do you have any votes that you have come to regret? Ealdgyth (talk) 14:33, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    One of times I've come down on the wrong side was Portals. I voted against a desysop for BrownHairedGirl, and I was quite vocal about that afterwards, even suggesting I'd nominate her for RFA. However, her subsequent behaviour proved me wrong, and she has subsequently been blocked. I'm not certain if my enablement caused her to spiral, or if my decision was wrong at the time, but it is definitely a place where I put my opinion ahead of that of the committee - and that's something I don't plan on doing in the future. If I cannot persuade a group of editors of my point of view, it can follow that my point of view is wrong.
    Looking back, another motion I'm happy to see over the past year was that of Cinderella157's topic ban being looked at. Their behaviour at the case was not acceptable, but their content work was not the issue, so looking back, the topic ban was not the right solution. The issue was with interactions, and so we should have focussed on an interaction ban. It may have been over half a decade ago, but I have tried to keep remedies focussed on the behaviour since.

18. Was hoping you would answer at your RFA, so that I could vote there. But as that has just closed, I will ask here instead. Topical question, although the RFC has now closed: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:03, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I skipped that question first time round as I hadn't made my mind up on it, and when I went back to look, I looked here, not there and couldn't find it. That's not good enough - because it's an important issue and so I'll express my thoughts here on the matter - so, Martinevans123 you have my sincere thanks for taking the time to ask me again.
    First off, I am certain that the Wikimedia Foundation gets threats of cases similar to the ANI one all the time and they do a great job of handling those sorts of issues. I am sure, based on my conversations in the past and based on what I know of the individuals who will be dealing with it, that they will be taking these matters very seriously and they do have my confidence. I have massive concerns for the safety of individuals who are at the heart of these matters, in countries that do not have the same sorts of legal protections that we have. Again, I am aware of how much priority the Foundation team members give to such issues, how passionate and clearly dedicated they are to ensuring that safety.
    I know that the English Wikipedia community has had problems with the Foundation in the past. I know that certain members of the Foundation have taken steps that were unacceptable, that it has happened multiple times over decades and has lead to a general feeling of distrust towards them. I don't disagree with that, the WMF needs to earn the trust back. They know that.
    So - to the open letter. I agree with the sentiment. I fundamentally agree with the key message that the Foundation should prioritize the safety and well being of volunteers, even if it comes with a risk of legal action against the Foundation, or other costs - and for that reason alone, I am minded to sign it and likely will. I believe the rest of the message contains some bluster, some wilful ignorance and I am not sure it's necessarily fair to the Foundation who, in this matter, I do have confidence in - but as I say, I will likely sign.
    The RfC though. Going dark. I would have opposed - Going Dark is a world wide incident - it goes beyond our community, and has an effect on the entire English speaking world. It is an important ability that we should use to protest fundamental political issues that will make the world a worse place, that need to be highlighted to the world - it should not be made lightly. If we are ever to use it again, we should include a full campaign to go with it - links to click to register your protest with people who can make change etc. By taking such action in anger, in response to a court case because the judicial system wants to test our editorial architecture - it is the wrong thing to do. Worm^TT(talk) 10:44, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I appreciate your answers. Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:59, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

19. Given the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in, do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unreliable? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on antisemitism issues at ArbCom level and has been in denial of its scale thus far? Luxofluxo (talk) 21:19, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Of course, antisemitism - as with all bigotry - is abhorrent and needs to be dealt with firmly. Happily, the community is generally pretty good at this, the incidents I have seen over the years have been handled quickly. There have been some unfortunate instances where this is not the case, and this has lead to a number of Arbcom cases in the general topic area of Judaism, Isreal, and their people. Unfortunately, tensions have been high across such topics throughout my lifetime and beyond - culminating in the current war and international hostilities, and those tensions are reflected on Wikipedia - the issues are too big for the community to solve (if we could I would hope we'd be actively solving them outside of Wikipedia) so the have often ended up at Arbcom - for example, the upcoming ARBPIA 5 case.
    I do appreciate the background. I appreciate that there are issues. I am, however, concerned by this question, as it is full of rhetoric, and does not seem to accept any possibility of nuance or willingness to see other points of view. I've seen that attitude multiple times during my tenures on the committee, it does nothing to improve collaboration on the encyclopedia, as it appears to start from a point of assuming bad faith. Your contributions this year do nothing to allay my concerns.
    So my answer is twofold. Firstly, Antisemitism should be dealt with firmly, agreed. Secondly, you should remember our policies on maintaining a neutral stance - and throwing around accusations without providing evidence will likely get your removed from our community.

20. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary?Robert McClenon (talk) 05:54, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Private evidence should not be the norm, and should only be accepted in exceptional circumstances. In those rare cases, if private evidence should be accepted, it should be considered how to allow parties to be able to respond. For example, I've seen cases which focus around a couple of individuals, and the case turned on it's head when we saw the email correspondence between them. It would be wrong to ignore such evidence, but it would be wrong to release it to the community too - it included private information. So finding a way to explain to the community what the evidence was, without breaching that trust of those sent it, is a challenge, but an important one to overcome.

21. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 05:54, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Your first sentence does refer to a problem I haven't seen on Wikipedia for a few years, since most of the more infamous individuals have since left - so I'll focus on your question without that context. Arbcom does hear cases focussed around individual editors, administrators definitely, but technically can about individuals. I am wary of such cases as there are limited possible outcomes - it's one thing for "remove admin" being an outcome as that's the main way we did it for years - but "ban user" or "restrict user" feels a lot more like a community question than a full arbcom case. I won't say never, but I strugge to think of scenarios it should happen.

22. Your last arbitration activity was September 2023, at least one year ago, when you halted your last two-year term. How do you think the ArbCom would function without you if you're not elected this time? --George Ho (talk) 23:22, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Over the course of 2023, my workload increased, and by September I accepted that I was unlikely to be able to contribute much more that term, and decided to step down then, rather than hang on until the end. I do regret that decision, as I'm not sure I agree with some of the decisions made at the end of the year - caveat, I don't have the full information - so I do wish I'd hung about. Stepping down early also drew a line under my term, putting in a psychological gulf so that I wasn't tempted to run in ACE2023.
    Now, I don't want to criticise the committee too harshly - it's a lot of work and there's a lot of new faces there, but 2024 has not been a stellar year for the committee - things have been left hanging, inactivity and burnout has been rife, and I believe the pressure has increased that. I am hoping to be able to right the ship, as it were. How do I think it would function without me? Well, I have high hopes for a few other candidates, there are some experienced faces who I believe could do the job as well as I could. Equally, if I'm not elected, and we lose 1-2 key experienced arbitrators through illness or other inactivity, we could quickly end up in a similar position to this year.

23. Follow-up to Q4: To this day, two admins resigned as the result of the recall process: one withdrew the re-RfA, the other just resigned without heading to the re-RfA. How is the recall system still not ready yet? George Ho (talk) 01:33, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Simply, I believe the current process will encourage the loss of editors, you say two admins resigned, well, I see that one has retired - is that the best possible outcome? I also have concerns about two scenarios, based on the many admin removals I've seen over the years;
    Adminsitrator A takes a controversial action - and a petition starts. That petition can sit for 6 months 30 days, with a trickle of annoyed users popping up and adding their names. 6 months 30 days of that is likely to be demotivating for the administrator in question. Taking a controversial action is not necessarily a bad action - but this way of working will paralyse the community members who take those "hard decisions". I've had it pointed out to me that this was updated to 30 days, which is much better
    Administrator B takes a significant action in times of heightened community tensions. Their petition fills up almost immediately by those on the opposing side. They are forced to choose between a "mob rule" RRfA, highly charged on a single issue, or resigning
    In fact - any RRfA which follows a successful petition is likely to fail - I cannot think of a scenario where the administrator is likely to keep their tools, knowing the community - so why are we offering RRfA at all?
    To be clear - the process does mirror my own recall process - with a longer petition state. I'm happy to subject myself to it, but I do not think it is right for the community. I support recall, and want to see a community de-adminship process - I just think this needs a bit more work before it's "ready".

24. ARBCOM serves a unique role in proceedings that desysop an admin, and when an editor is sanctioned or reinstated based on off-wiki evidence. Two questions: [1] what factors will you consider before accepting desysop cases where the admin is clearly WP:INVOLVED and yet the admin participates in or takes admin action against the editor after getting WP:INVOLVED; or where the involved admin threatens or sends hostile private messages to that editor; [2] what factors will you consider before accepting cases to sanction an editor (or a cabal of editors) with WP:COI where on-wiki and off-wiki evidence shows that the editor (or the cabal) is creating a distorted, misinformation-filled narrative in contested topic articles to further their off-wiki advocacy, social media activism, political activity or is adversely affecting Wikipedia due to their off-wiki coordination / canvassing. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:15, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As you say, Arbcom is in a unique position for these scenarios - as they can be provided the off-wiki evidence and have the power to remove tools based upon that. I have a fairly low bar on accepting admninship conduct cases, but would prefer to not accept the off-wiki evidence unless it is material to the case - that is, if there's enough on wiki evidence, that would be best to present. So, if the admin is clearly involved and taking admin admin actions, that is sufficient for a case. However, hostile / threatening behaviour off wiki, I would take into account, as that rises to the level of banning the user, admin or not.
    With regard to your second suggestion - I'd accept off-wiki evidence of collusion and coordination in a case against an editor or group of editors. Off wiki evidence of COI / POV pushing is the sort of thing that I'd hope could be covered by Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Conflict of interest reports and so I'd hope to not be including that in case evidence.

25. (Another follow-up to Q4; follow-up to Q23) Reading your own proposed process, I think seven days is too short; others think so too. Furthermore, I don't think petitioners need to be told that they can rescind their own signatures within the timeframe; they may already figure out what to do. Re-reading the past RFC discussion about forming the process (couldn't find your name there), I can't help wonder which part of the discussion/proposal you have issues with, despite the consensus. --George Ho (talk) 20:25, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi @User:George Ho - apologies for the delay in replying. My recall process is the standard that I hold myself to, anyone is welcome to use it to recall me, but I do not consider it appropriate for general use as I did not build it with that in mind. So, I think you're comparing apples with oranges there.
    As for my concerns with the current process, I believe it has not sufficiently put in safeguards against "mob mentality" - something that does happen on Wikipedia regularly. I am also concerned that such a major change did not get the visibility it required, phase one where "consensus was gained" only included ~70 editors in the discussion, a discussion which was focussed on Requests for adminship not removal. This appears very much like a local consensus - and therefore needed more discussion. Phase 2, as you mention above, had ~95 editors participate in total - and honestly, the RfC was a bit of a train wreck. There's a lot to unpack, but the 2 recalls have meant that they will be unpacked, hopefully in the reworkshop.
    So, my position is - the proposal wasn't ready, the consensus that we should do it was a local consensus, and we shouldn't be pushing forward with that consensus - but instead have a clear proposal and a global consensus. I am for recall - and I don't think the suggested process is far from a working process... it's just not quite there. Worm^TT(talk) 13:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

26. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator?Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:29, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As an editor, my interests lie away from highly complex moral or controversial topics - I enjoy writing about things that interest me, unusual stories, inspirational figures, local history or culture. So, I cannot point you to that.
    As an arbitrator, I have sat and discussed Manning naming dispute, Sexology, Iranian politics, Skepticism and WWII and history of Jews in Poland, which are all topics that I believe fall under your themes. Some I participated in more, others less, but you should be able to get an idea of the way I work from those links

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There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

1. Thank you for standing as a candidate. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:19, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I guess I'll start with the pessimism, because right now there's a lot to be pessimistic about. The rise of LLMs presents a huge bump in the road forward for the project. LLM use/misuse is already something we're seeing fairly often, and one of the places I see it most often is with UPE/spam/vandal accounts interacting with administrators after being blocked. That eats up the already limited time of those that do the hard work of patrolling unblocks, and as the models evolve and improve it will become more and more difficult to spot their use quickly. There's also an issue with LLM interaction on noticeboards and RFCs which is a time killer for everyone engaging in good faith. On top of that, we also have LLM created articles being dumped into mainspace, and LLM generated prose being tucked into articles. We're at the beginning of common LLM use, so we can only expect this to increase in the future.

   LLM is also likely to contribute to a decrease in traffic, which leads to a decrease in the pool of possible editors. Google and Bing putting their LLM generated response to search queries, with the result often paraphrased from Wikipedia, means there is less impetus for search engines to drive traffic here, and fewer searchers will find it necessary to go all the way to Wikipedia when the nice AI box tells them what year Shakira was born.

   Another thing I'm pessimistic about is state and corporate actors influencing Wikipedia through policies, laws, and lawsuits. We're already seeing more lawsuits incoming after the ANI lawsuit[2] and many are rightly concerned about the possible curtailing of freedom of speech where Wikipedia is hosted.

   As for optimism, seeing the community response to how the ANI suit is playing out makes me optimistic that the community is willing to take a stand against such attempted manipulations, and hopefully as we see this play out we'll find that the WMF has our backs. I'm not normally a fan of slippery slope arguments, but standing against this type of interference is important, and I feel the community is willing to take that stand. I'm also optimistic having seen the times Wikipedia has already survived through. The internet is a vastly different place than it was 23+ years ago, and yet the project continues trucking along, attracting new editors, many of which are younger than Wikipedia itself.

   I'm also optimistic seeing some of the recent reforms, e.g. administrator elections that netted us a pile of new admins, and even the community recall process which is important for administrator accountability, despite its teething and growing pains. These reforms and new processes show that the community is working hard to address long-term issues, like both declining administrator numbers and lack of a community method to desysop, and make the us stronger in the long run.

2. Please identify a substantive decision of the committee that you disagreed with within the last 3 years, and explain why. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:19, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   There's a few that I've disagreed with, but that is different than thinking a decision was wrong. The one I disagreed with the most was granting Mschwartz1 extended-confirmed to allow them to participate in arbitration. Obviously, I'm not party to the private discussion that resulted in that granting, but from my public vantage it was a serious own goal in both our ability to resist external pressures and evenly and fairly applying WP:ECR. That allowance led to a single complaint, generally viewed as meritless, lodged in the wrong location, and quickly hatted, and at least 0.5 tomats of mostly disapproving discussion. Without knowing exactly what led to the committee's decision I can't say it was wrong, but from everything I saw it wasn't the right choice. A large amount of drama and spilled bytes could have been avoided by taking the request by email and deciding if it had enough merit to open a case or place before the community before comment.

3. ScottishFinnishRadish, you have pushed for recent ARBPIA AE complaints to be referred to ArbCom. If elected, would you recuse from an ARBPIA5 case that has in part arose from such referral(s)? Thank you. starship.paint (talk / cont) 07:22, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I can't find the diff, but someone told me they would be presenting evidence about me in any case, so that alone is more than enough for recusal. If that were not the case, I would still recuse because I have too much administrative involvement, read too many of the discussions, and placed too many sanctions to expect that my actions haven't already had an impact on the topic area. Additionally, having already proposed sanctions against a number of likely parties any involvement in the case as an arbitrator would draw reasonable criticism of going into the case with my mind made up. So yes, I would be turbo-recused.

   Thank you for your response, ScottishFinnishRadish! starship.paint (talk / cont) 08:19, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:43, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I've started writing a reply to this several times, and have probably deleted hundreds of words so far trying to wrangle a clear answer out of an incredibly complicated question. It's made even more complicated due to the broad strokes when accepting a case based on secret evidence should be considered based on the specific circumstances. Here I am trying again, so we'll see if I can clearly get my thoughts down about this.

   What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? I think the simple answer to this is that Arbcom should accept a case based on secret evidence when revealing the evidence could revictimize, out, or otherwise harm or reveal private information about editors or living people. There are a lot of situations where the evidence in a case, even just the basic facts, could cause harm or reveal private information about someone. The answers get more complicated when you have an actual situation in front of you, and you have to weigh transparency against what might be revealed by making evidence public, and you take into account the definition of outing that we use on en.wiki. As connecting an account on Wikipedia to an account on another platform meets the threshold a lot of evidence, especially when dealing with off-wiki collaboration issues, will fall under the umbrella of secrecy. If you have some scenarios you'd like me to opine on feel free to ask. Obviously I would strive to maintain the maximum possible transparency^{I bet you say that to all the boys}, but I've also provided private evidence to Arbcom in the past so I understand that it can be necessary.

   Using the example of the current case request I'd say that anything connecting en.wiki accounts to undisclosed off-wiki accounts has to be private by policy.

   What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? This is really the meat and potatoes of the problem. Arbcom should be providing secret evidence against editors whenever possible, redacted if necessary. When dealing with coordination it's easier, though you still have to be careful around outing. Providing an editor with evidence that someone with their username was coordinating with someone else with the same name as another Wikipedia editor risks violating the outing policy by linking an on-wiki account with off-wiki account to a third party. Because of that, care must be taken in how the evidence is redacted and provided. For the community, a statement that evidence was presented that editors X and Y were colluding off-site and the general strength of the evidence would most likely be safe to release.

   It becomes significantly more hairy when dealing with harassment or outing. As an example, if private evidence is received that an account believed to be an editor has outed another editor off-wiki providing that evidence to the editor could lead to spreading the personal information. In the case that the editor was not the one who outed someone else, they may have received a way to locate that personal information. The same goes with harassment, you don't want to draw further attention to the harassment and if there is a chance that the editor in question wasn't responsible for the harassment you'd be leading them to the harassment. What, if anything, could be provided to the accused editor depends on exactly what the situation is. Arbcom should strive to provide as much detail to the accused as possible while still preventing drawing further attention to harassment or personal information. In these situations it's even more difficult to provide information to the community but what can be, even if in the vaguest terms, should be. In the situation where the harassment is of a BLP via Wikipedia editing it's also dicey because when someone ends up Arbcom blocked it is likely that their contributions will be examined, and any statements from Arbcom could provide clues to harassment, and living people should enjoy the same protections as editors.

   Again, this is a lot easier to answer with specific scenarios, but the short answer is Arbcom should be providing as much as possible while avoiding revictimizing people and protecting personal information.

5. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:49, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Well, I'll start what wouldn't change, and that is level 1 and level 2 desysops. In my opinion, once the recall process is nailed down and polished a bit more it should be the primary method of "lost the trust of the community" desysops. Arbcom should be the last resort, and since there is a path to test the trust of the community without Arbcom there needs to be cause for it to be handled by the committee. There are situations where it may still be necessary for Arbcom to address the question of desysopping, e.g. accusations of misuse of tools that non-admins cannot easily review or private evidence. I don't think we're quite at the point of Arbcom declining administrative behavior cases because recall exists but as the process gets tidied up I expect that we'll be there soon.

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:35, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6. Do you think that committee members should go into an ArbCom case with the goal to implement a specific remedy, regardless of prelimary evidence, or should committee members try and approach the case with an open mind? Tinynanorobots (talk) 10:00, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I think if committee members think after the preliminary evidence that there is a specific remedy that would address the situation without the need for a case they should propose a motion. Once a case has been accepted committee members should be make their decisions based on the evidence presented, as well as their own analysis of the evidence and the analysis at the workshop.

7. If I understand your self disclosure correctly, you have an account on WPO, what is your view of Wikipediocracy and would you recuse yourself from any potential ARBCOM cases as a result? ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 19:51, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I don't think that was a self-disclosure, but yes I have an account on WPO. I assume your question is about the forum, rather than the blog. My view on it is that it is similar to a lot of other social media platforms. There are people I like and that I don't like, there are discussions I'm interested in and not interested in, and there is both positive and negative behavior. I think an off-wiki platform for editors and non-editors to interact and critique Wikipedia is important, and in general the discussions stay on topic. Much like any platform there are people who sometimes behave in a way I, and others, disagree with.

   As for participating there I don't see a reason to discourage it. It's plain that a large number of editors read the forum so any outing or harassment still has the same effect. When editors are part of the community there they can speak out when they disagree with information that is being posted and make their case to the site administration. They can even, as AtG did, leave in protest over what has been called a campaign to dox arbitrators. This campaign is a single forum participant who hasn't actually started a campaign to dox anyone and there has been a fair amount of pushback from other forum members about the threats to do so. Between the the options of everyone still reading the forum and seeing whatever is posted there or developing relationships and arguing for limits to things like doxing while enjoying some banter I'll take the second every time. Also, Wikipedia is WP:NOTAFORUM, and WPO ISAFORUM and sometimes I want to talk about the bed I built, or discuss lumber mill best practices, or talk about gardening, or wave my hands wildly about the election.

   I don't see a need to recuse from anything dealing with WPO anymore than any other platform I casually use, but I'd be willing to be convinced otherwise.

8. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:46, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   First, we'll start with Editors (or small groups) who successfully research, write, and nominate a featured article should be allowed a by-line if they want it. Ownership issues aside, since we're trying to avoid WP:OMGWTFBBQ, I eagerly anticipate the ANI threads about who gets a byline, what percentage of edits, prose, or ephemeral research qualifies and editor for that, how much does the article have to change in order to remove the byline, and do we remove the byline if the editor is indef blocked, community banned, arbcom banned, or glocked. Let's add to that if the FA was, say, Asian News International, does the byline imply a higher responsibility for the content? Do the FA reviewers also get credit, because that's a lot of work. Why is that the one process that leads to a by-line? I wrote Shit flow diagram and it has very few other substantial edits so it should really say ScottishFinnishRadish's Shit flow diagram! I think it's opening a can of worms that will provide very little benefit with a heaping serving of drama.

   I'll also give you a bonus with processes like AfD and RfA are called discussions and many Wikipedians go to great lengths not to call them votes. They are votes. We expect editors to provide a rationale for their vote (more so at AfD than RfA), but strength of argument rarely trumps numerical superiority (and never at RfA). RFA is a different beast, and although the discussion is a necessary part of it it's still basically a straight vote. Cratchat should just be about discounting any votes that are obviously contrary to policy or in bad faith when striking them may change the outcome. I guess my question for you would be: do you consider RFCs to be one of the processes that is actually just a vote? I've closed a lot of discussions and I take NOTAVOTE to heart when doing so. Numbers still matter a lot, and all arguments being equal a decent majority is enough to carry the RFC. However, often when I'm closing an RFC or other discussion I see plenty of bad arguments, responses contrary to policy, and responses that don't address counterarguments. I routinely downweigh or discount those responses. This often leads to a close review, but I think that as none of my closes has been overturned that the community still broadly believes that these discussions are not a straight vote. I think most editors simultaneously wish that we followed NOTAVOTE a bit closer, but understand why closes often just follow the majority.

9. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Their role is the same as with any other conduct issue that the community cannot handle. Arbcom is uniquely positioned to handle large and complex cases where CPUSH and NPOV are at issue as the only body that can hold formal structured cases. There are more Arbs, even with the current inactivity, than there are admins who regularly work AE, the case pages are nice and divided for each editor to present their own evidence, there is a separate section for analysis, and separate talk pages for other discussions. When we're dealing with NPOV, CPUSH, and misrepresentation accusations going in all directions involving a dozen long term editors that's the only method we have available that has a chance of sussing out what the real issues are and what can be done about it. Arbcom also has the numbers to share the load of pushback (or the shit sandwich as I've often called it) when difficult choices are made.

10. You have imposed a lot of sanctions under ARBPIA. Do you consider that you specialise in that area, or do you enforce all the contentious topic proportionally but that happens to be the busiest? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:09, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't specialize in that area, it's just that the topic is such a tinderbox right now that it needs an admin to stay on top of it just to keep ECR and 1RR under control. If you look at my unilateral sanctions in the past year most of them are blocks or tbans of editors who turned out to be socks, or ECR/1RR sanctions. I do spend more time patrolling the area than others because there is such a high level of activity and the rampant socking and a high burden of CTOP notification and ECR enforcement. Also, once you're known as the admin that's watching the area people reach out, so you get even more activity in the topic area. On top of that, reading through probably over a million of words in discussions it gives me some insight into behavior and how things are progressing. That's why I try to preempt or conclude some of the arguments by starting RFCs on issues where it's needed. Again, that's not specialization, it's just what I've always tried to do. I get involved with many of the other CTOPs through AE, since I try to look into every report and keep things moving.

    Thank you for your answers to both my questions. To be clear, this one was not intended to be accusatory—neither answer would have been a problem, but if informs what kind of arbitrator you would be. :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:28, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

11. What have you done to prepare yourself to understand the arbitration committee's workload, and to manage your time to handle it? isaacl (talk) 18:37, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I've closed roughly 40% of all the AE threads opened so far this year and participated the large majority of the rest, while also working AIV, UAA, ANI/AN, and BLPN, and doing various other patrolling and handling some off-wiki requests. This wasn't done to prepare for Arbcom, but a lot of the work involves similar themes. Not having been on the committee I can't say that I know exactly what to expect, but based on the reflections and essays available I'm fairly sure that the workload won't be beyond what I can handle. Also, like I said, I checked with my wife and she said it's okay if I use my chromebook in the evening.

12. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard would you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:22, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    This is one of those questions where you'd think the answer would be a simple, "Transparency, yes. Always release the vote tallies!" That was my first immediate thought, but then I stewed on it a bit while my wife browsed garland. In situations where the subject of the vote is private and there is a split vote, publishing the tally could lead to even more questions that can't be answered. If you see a 8/7 split that results in an Arbcom ban, rather than just that there was a ban, especially if the editor on the receiving end is in good standing and hasn't appeared to do anything you're drawing even more attention to it and causing a lot more discussion of what you're trying to keep private. That also puts a target on one side or the other, or both, depending on the social capital and reputation of the editor. Releasing the tally can also tell a story that isn't true, in that you might have am 8/7 split, but the range of opinions ranges from 100% support of a ban down to just shy of supporting a ban, so although the vote is close the actual consensus might be a bit more solid. All in all it's a lot more complicated a question than it initially seems. All of that said, I'm still firmly on the "Transparency, yes. Always release the vote tallies!" side of things, but I can't say there would never be a situation in which I could be convinced keeping the tally secret was the right move.

13. Besides the ARBPIA5 case that you said you'd recuse from in question #3 above, are there any other contentious topic areas on wikipedia you'd feel you need to recuse from? (perhaps radish farming?) Ealdgyth (talk) 14:32, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I actually do have some views on the right to farm, but I don't think they're sufficiently strong to recuse. I will recuse on any case that deals with the sale or conversion of hay pasture for solar development, though. I'm not broadly involved in the skepticism/pseudoscience/fringe space space but I would recuse if another case concerning the GSoW happened to show up, or any of the editors that I'm involved with from the topic. Aside from that I don't think there is anything I'd be recused from.

14. Besides your work at AE, what other disputes have you been involved in - any where your efforts led to a resolution of the dispute that did not end up at AE/ANI/AN or any other noticeboard? Ealdgyth (talk) 14:32, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    This question is the reason for the delay because trying to find diffs across thousands of edits to talk pages and such is pretty time consuming. There are a few ways one can interact with dispute resolution, as an editor involved at the ground level, as a closer assessing consensus, as a third opinion or an extra set of eyes, and as an administrator. I've been involved in disputes in all of these roles. I'll start with the easy one, I've closed a lot of RFCs, including some pretty big ones, and although that second up at AN for a closure review I think that is a bit secondary for purposes of your question. I've also opened RFCs for disputes I wasn't really part of in order to move things in a productive direction. Moving to an RFC when discussion is going in circles is a great way to keep things from escalating.

    As for disputes as an editor, I've been in quite a few. I spent a lot of time editing BLPs involved in other contentious topics, e.g. pseudoscience, COVID, and American politics, and it's pretty easy to find yourself in a disagreement. This discussion is a great example of a couple editors coming in hot and ending up with a much improved consensus version. This one was back from my edit request days, back when I was new editor and I worked to explain to another new editor the issues with their request and worked with a couple other editors to make an improvement. There's a lot more, but those two have always stuck in my memory.

    As far as being an extra set of eyes goes, at this point it crosses over with my administrator duties, so sometimes I get pinged to offer some input and try and help forge a path forward and see if I can explain one editor's concerns to lower the temperature. I routinely get pinged like that to pop into a discussion and offer a word. I've also offered my talk page as an alternative to making notice board reports to try and calm tensions rather than go straight to another report. Sometimes having the lower-stakes venue is enough on its own, and sometimes it needs a few words but in both cases it's better than another trip to AE. I've also hosted discussions about some of the blurrier lines that people can cross. The past year of my talk page archive is full of discussions like that.

    As an administrator I've worked with another admin to explain to a new editor why they were blocked, leading to an unblock without having to move to AN or AE for a full appeal. I'm very happy with how that turned out, since if a new editor has to go to AE or AN to appeal they're almost guaranteed to quit because of the inherent WP:BITE in the whole process. There have also been many times where I've worked very hard to avoid a block or another noticeboard. I did log a warning, but eventually things cooled and no one was blocked, no one was sanctioned, and the disruption stopped.

15. Topical question, although the RfC has now closed: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:29, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I signed the open letter because although the WMF has an obligation to comply with good-faith legal orders I am very concerned that in this case there is a fair chance that the case was not brought in good faith. The chilling effect of releasing editor information to a media company for reporting what reliable sources is significant, and we're already seeing others using this tactic. While I'm not in a position to second guess the foundation's legal strategy I wanted to express my concern about revealing editor information in response to a frivolous lawsuit, and communicate that concern to the WMF in one of the limited ways we have available.

    As for the blackout, I don't think that would have been the best way to handle raising awareness of the lawsuit and the community concerns around it. I'm not necessarily in support of this action right now, but I think a better plan would be to go with a banner atop all articles explaining that the fundamental way that Wikipedia is supposed to work is under threat. The whole purpose of a blackout or message is to demonstrate the community's position on something and hopefully get the media discussing it to apply additional pressure on WMF, and I think a banner would do a better job of that.

16. As you and others have pointed out, you've been the most active administrator on arbitration enforcement over the past couple of years. You've shown dedication and experience there that well-qualify you to move from AE to ArbCom itself, and this question is not meant to test whether or not you should be elected, which you will be, but perhaps to frame some thinking for when you are. Some of the hardest decisions that have to be made, as an admin and as an arbitrator, are in the realm of literal versus more purpose-oriented interpretations of rules, and (related but not the same), as to whether to take a strict/harsh or more lenient approach in imposing sanctions. A few weeks ago, you wrote on AE that I figured I'd mention the lightest action we should take first since I'm pretty sure I already have a reputation as a hanging judge. Why do you think you've obtained that reputation, do you think you deserve it, and does realizing that you have it prompt any thoughts about the strengths or weaknesses of that approach? In the same vein, do you have any thoughts a year later about the block and resulting discussion that so seriously upset me here? Thanks for your thoughts on this. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:46, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    First, let me start by thanking you for your confidence. I wish I could say I was as sure. Hopefully the scrutineering happens quickly this year so I don't have to start on blood pressure medication.

    As far as being a hanging judge, that was a bit of my usual levity, although like much humor it was rooted in truth. Part of what comes along with being the most active admin at AE for a while is I end up being the one to pass sentence, often without other input. Often working with silent assent I have closed quite a few threads with sanctions, and when you see the same name doing the sanctioning I expect that lends a bit of a reputation. On top of that, in the interest of keeping things moving along I'm often the first to propose some action when I feel it's warranted. Without actually doing a study of the hundred+ AE threads I've taken part in this year, I'm pretty confident that most of the time my proposals fall in line with most other administrators taking part. Obviously, that isn't always the case, but that is true for anyone. Part of what makes AE work is seeing the differences of opinion, seeing what has some support, and what has little support. This also has an effect (hopefully) on the editors involved with the report. For instance, seeing administrators supporting a widespread 0RR sanction, even if it isn't implemented, may communicate a growing impatience with widespread slow edit wars.

    Although I probably fall a bit more on the strict side of things, I do try and adjust my actions based on how consensus plays out at AE and other venues. Using the example of the block you've disagreed with, I have adjusted how I handle violations like 1RR/EBRD, and in most circumstances I make sure to offer the editor a chance to self-revert. I also generally go with a pblock from the start, rather than a full block. I still think that violations of anti-edit warring sanctions are disruptive in and of themselves, but I have adjusted how I go into those situations. If I were in that situation again, I would have offered them a chance to self-revert and probably logged a final warning for violating page sanctions.

    I think this gets to one of the strengths of Arbcom. We generally end up with a variety of editors with different viewpoints, styles of administrations, and place on the harsh/lenient scale. Wikipedia works on consensus and compromise, and there will always be disagreements on the best way to handle different situations. I think the most important thing is that one is able to compromise, or accept that consensus is against you. You said recently Please don't worry about disagreeing with me. I probably cast more solo dissenting votes while I was on the Committee than everyone else put together, so why should it stop now? Despite often being the sole dissenter, I don't think anyone would say they didn't respect your input and perspective. It takes all perspectives to make Arbcom work.

17. If elected to ArbCom, will you stop working at AE, as some arbs do (presumably to avoid needing to recuse if matters are kicked up to the committee)? If so, I presume your loss will be noticeable on that board. Do you have any thoughts on how, as an arbitrator, you (individually or collectively as a committee) could encourage more admins to get involved in arbitration enforcement? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:36, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I would step back from the more contentious or complicated reports, but I would still lend a hand with the more straightforward cases to keep things moving forward. I'd obviously avoid any appeals, as Arbcom remains a venue of final appeal. I'm sure that others would step up to fill the void. AE worked before I started participating, and it will continue to work if I step back.

    As for encouraging admins to participate in AE? That's a difficult question. It's a lot of complicated work, it makes you a target for hostility, it puts your judgement front and center in a high visibility venue. Obviously, asking for assistance from admins is an option, and from what I've seen such requests do result in, at least a short term, increased involvement. I don't think there's really a way to convince admins to take part, though, since most admins probably understand the challenges involved. They have to knowingly step into that, and a lot of people just don't want to. I am very interested in what others think might be able to draw more admins to AE, though. Maybe a legobot style message to an admins asking for input on reports that have been open for longer than a week? More visibility of languishing threads might be enough to get admins who are on the fence, or willing to help out without becoming an "AE admin", to engage.

18. Given the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in, do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unrealiable? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on antisemitism issues at ArbCom level and has been in denial of its scale thus far? Luxofluxo (talk) 21:22, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I think you're conflating community consensus that an advocacy organization's reporting on a specific conflict is not reliable with antisemitism. As someone who as placed dozens, if not hundreds, of blocks for antisemitism, I think we have a reasonable handle on most of it. There is no way to stop bad actors from popping up from time to time so enforcement is reactive, but we react quickly when we see any sort of bigotry. We even crack down on unnecessarily inflammatory language bordering on antisemitism or any other bigotry. While outside analysis of Wikipedia can be helpful for self-reflection, we also need to understand that it can often lack understanding of Wikipedia's internal processes, and the nuance of decisions like the RSN discussion about ADL. Evidence that antisemitism is not being addressed by the community should be brought to Arbcom, but keep in mind that Arbcom is not in a position to negate community content decisions about source reliability.

19. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary?Robert McClenon (talk) 05:56, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I covered this somewhat above in question 4, and again, without a specific situation to discuss all I can say is that Arbcom should do whatever possible in each specific situation to reveal as much as they safely can without risking harm or the privacy of editors and living people. Without knowing the discussions and information available to Arbcom in many situations where decisions were made in private and exactly how such decisions are made there's not a lot I can say about what would maximize the transparency. We know it some situations that the committee has revealed information after the fact, e.g. redacted emails regarding JSS's removal from the committee, and that BM had provided private evidence to Arbcom several months ago. In those cases being ahead of the curve in transparency, like mentioning that private evidence was sent to the committee when some of that information was brought up publicly at ARCA, could have drastically reduced drama. One thing that can certainly help with transparency is actively pushing to release what can safely be released, and doing the work to redact and sanitize that information.

20. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 05:56, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    There is definitely a place for Arbcom when dealing with individual editors when it has become clear that the community cannot come to a consensus about their behavior. That does not mean that several ANI threads are closed with consensus against action and another editor believes that action should have been taken. Long term behavioral disputes that routinely result in no consensus closures are an indicator that Arbcom and a structured case may be called for. Another would be a situation where there are numerous blocks and unblocks without firm consensus about either action. These types of cases should also not be brought up unless there is a current dispute, as digging at stale issues and picking at scabs isn't really Arbcom's bag.

21. ARBCOM serves a unique role in proceedings that desysop an admin, that sanction or reinstate editing privileges of an editor when on-wiki and/or off-wiki evidence is compelling. Two questions: [1] what factors will you consider in deciding to desysop an admin when evidence shows that they have been WP:INVOLVED with an editor, yet have taken admin action against that editor or have threatened or scolded or sent hostile messages to that editor off-wiki through email or other forms of private messaging; [2] what factors will you consider in deciding to discipline editor (or a cabal of editors) with WP:COI who insert misinformation or who grossly misrepresent peer-reviewed scholarly sources in en-Wikipedia articles to further their off-wiki advocacy, social media campaigns, political causes and such. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 05:17, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I would consider the level and type of involvement, and the extent of the actions taken. Normally this is something that the community can investigate, but when combined with the off-wiki communication it falls into Arbcom's scope. Depending on the messages sent, how the administrator discovered the off-wiki methods of communication (e.g. simply using the wiki email user function versus independently investigating and searching out off-wiki avenues of communiction), and the content of the messages the case might end up more about off-wiki harassment rather than WP:INVOLVED.

    As for factors that I would consider in handling COI, misinformation, and source misrepresentation a lot again depends on the exact situation and evidence available. Is the misrepresentation and misinformation a good faith misreading or misinterpretation of sources, or relying on sources that may be incorrect or biased? What is the type and extent of the COI alleged, and what evidence has been provided? Arbcom has, in the past, placed sanctions requiring consensus for source use and has requested detailed source analysis to deal with misrepresentation, which can be necessary in complex disputes where there is legitimate concern about widespread source issues.

22. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator? Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I've already covered my administrative work in CTOPs, which covers pretty much all of this, but here's some contentious BLP stuff from a while ago that also fits into your request.

Add your questions at the bottom of the page using the following markup:

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There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

1. Thank you for standing as a candidate. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I think the thing that makes me feel optimistic right now is that we seem to be seeing something of a sea-change regarding the over-reliance on newsmedia as a reliable source. This has been something of a pet issue of mine for some time and I have been a minority voice here. However recently I've been seeing more and more editors discussing newsmedia as being something that should not be relied on when other options are available. This is excellent. On the other hand I'm somewhat pessimistic about how Wikipedia still has failed to address some of its systemic biases. This, combined with increased judicial pressure from post-democratic states, is a risk to the project and needs to be firmly addressed.

2. Please identify a substantive decision of the committee that you disagreed with within the last 3 years, and explain why. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I think the arbitration committee has been over-reliant on extended confirmed protection. Our ideals are that "anybody can edit Wikipedia" - however the proliferation of ECR pages has made it so there is an increasingly large caveat to that statement. I would prefer to rely on other remedies before this one.

3. Thank you for standing as a candidate. Are there any topic areas that you would consider yourself involved in, to the extent that you would recuse from any cases related to it? BilledMammal (talk) 00:32, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   The arbitration committee policy is as follows: "An arbitrator may recuse from any case, or from any aspect of a case, with or without explanation and is expected to do so where they have a significant conflict of interest. Typically, a conflict of interest includes significant personal involvement in the substance of the dispute or significant personal involvement with one of the parties. Previous routine editor, administrator or arbitrator interactions are not usually grounds for recusal." I would adhere to that policy as appropriate. In addition, I would recuse myself from those issues presently before the arbitration committee to which I have made comment should those remain on the docket after the close of this election.

4. Followup: Recently, an administrator was deemed involved in relation to the Israel-Hamas war due to their participation in the topic area. Given your participation is both more extensive and more partisan (they didn’t use a pejorative to refer to one side, for example), why do you not consider yourself involved? BilledMammal (talk) 23:22, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   If you look at my article space edit history you will see I don'tedit much in Israel / Palestineand when I do it's almost always in directresponse to a conversation at WP:RS/N or WP:NPOV/N. I rarely stick around article tqlk for I/P articles for long and almost never make more than one edit to topic area in a day. My general engagementwith the topicarea is routine. Recently I have been involved with several discussions at arbitration enforcement and arbitration cases. This is becauseI feel these arbitration actions represent an abuseof process and that those editors responsible for making public accusationson private evidence or opening three enforcement actions on one editor in short succession all based on the flimsiest of pretexts should face sensure. I have committedto recusingmyself from those specific arbitration cases. I will not commit to recusing myself from a topic area where I am only marginally involved on the basis of one heated comment.

5. Have you ever been involved - whether as a recipient or a sender - with off-wiki canvassing? BilledMammal (talk) 00:32, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Frankly I find this question offensive. You have no legitimate cause to suspect me of any such activity and this line of questioning is inappropriate. With that being said I will give you a straightforward and honest answer anyway: No.

6. Have you ever been paid to edit or edited on behalf of another?--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 15:59, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   No.

7. Why have you never requested the administrator toolset at WP:RFA nor gone through admin elections? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:41, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   This is a good question. I've thought about it. I have friends who are administrators and maintain collegial relations with more administrators. I do keep an eye on WP:AN and WP:AN/I and post to those boards relatively regularly. The truth is that, while I've thought about it on occasion, it never really seemed like Wikipedia lacked for administrators. Most of what I like to do in Wikipedia is to either participate in noticeboard discussions or edit extant articles. So since what I generally like to do on Wikipedia does not require it and since it didn't seem like something that was needed I didn't see any reason that would benefit the project for me requesting these tools.

8. As you have never held any advanced rights on the English Wikipedia other than being extended-confirmed, what history of actions on Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects show that you can be trusted with access to the checkuser and oversight tools that would be granted to sitting arbitrators? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:41, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Being perfectly honest it never occurred to me as I was volunteering that being an arbitrator would give me access to those tools. I did actually make a request for mentorship as a SPI clerk some time ago (although that seems to have gone nowhere in particular) and have some interest in sock-puppet investigations and assisting with that part of the project - something that might have, in time, led to me requesting CheckUser privileges. What it comes down to is, unlike with the administrator role, I saw a need for arbitrators, with fewer volunteers than open seats at the time I put up my hand, and I felt it was a position where my volunteer energy would be of value for the project.

9. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:44, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I'm generally not fond of private evidence and believe it should only be used when there is an extremely compelling reason for making said evidence private. Otherwise I believe arbitration proceedings should be as transparent as possible. It's supposed to be a method of resolving public disputes - not a private court system. I think I know precisely which arbitration case this is kind of asking about as I was quite vocal about that issue and what I'd say is that the handling of that issue - a public accusation built around private evidence - was the worst of both worlds. It was non-transparent, provided insufficient opportunities for the accused parties to meaningfully respond, and simultaneously potentially stained the perception of comportment of editors who may have done nothing wrong. My opinion is that a private arbitration case for which a compelling requirement for in-camera response exists should be private start to finish and should include private contact of involved parties to get their responses to any evidence against them.

10. As others have noted above, you are running for ArbCom as a non-administrator. My question does not concern the "philosophical" aspects of electing a non-admin to the Committee (I can see both pros and cons), but the practical aspect. It is sometimes necessary for arbitrators to review deleted pages or deleted revisions while evaluating editor conduct, which only admins can do. If elected, would you plan to (1) run an RfA at that point (I have no doubt you would pass), (2) request some sort of temporary admin privileges to be used in connection with your arbitration duties (that would seem sensible, but we don't currently have a mechanism for it), (3) ask for oversight rights and use those to look up the deleted revisions (if that works technically, which I'm not sure about), (4) rely on other arbs to look up the deleted revisions, or (5) something else I haven't thought of? Thank you and good luck in the election. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:49, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I said before that I hadn't requested adminship as it wasn't necessary to do the sorts of things I've been doing on the project. If I'm in a position where that changes, and those volunteer responsibilities I'm taking on necessitate that responsibility, I suppose, yes, I would request adminship. Heck, who knows, it might let me lend a hand on sock puppet investigations too.

11. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:50, 13 November 2024 (UTC); edited, 01:36, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    My understanding is that it will somewhat reduce the overall load on the arbitration committee by providing an alternate avenue for handling disputes with admins. Beyond that there is the question of how Arbcom would deal with a situation wherein an arbitrator who is an admin and relying on admin tools to arbitrate is desysopped hopefully this is not something that would occur but if it does it could lead to some minor complications.

    Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:36, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12. Why did you not run for adminship before running for Arb. As an Arb you atleast need access to deleted material for sure. How will you manage it ?Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 01:04, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I actually answered this question above - I didn't run for adminship as I didn't need it to accomplish the tasks I like to do on the project. Should I be elected as arbitrator and should it become evident that I require admin tools to successfully perform the role I will seek an RfA quickly.

13. In this case request statement, you referred to the Israel Defense Forces as the IOF, which is presumably a shorthand pejorative for the "Israel Occupation Forces" according to our disambiguation page on the topic. Do you think that language was appropriate behavior in making statements to the committee you're hoping to serve on? ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 05:11, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    It was a single comment in a heated moment - I will, of course, endeavor to arbitrate fairly, impartially and guided by the rules and norms of Wikipedia.

14. In light of the above question, would you commit to recusing yourself from participating in cases relating to the ARBPIA topic area? ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 05:11, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    No. Unless, as I mentioned in the questions about recusals above, I was significantly involved in a discussion per the definition in the arbitrator regulations I cited. My having once expressed a personal opinion about an active military force is not, in my opinion, a hindrance on my ability to dispense my duties appropriately and according to the rules and norms of Wikipedia.

15. Do you think that committee members should go into an ArbCom case with the goal to implement a specific remedy, regardless of prelimary evidence, or should committee members try and approach the case with an open mind? Tinynanorobots (talk) 10:01, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I think arbitrators should approach any given case with an open mind regarding remedies. As I mentioned in a prior answer I do think that ArbCom has been too dependent on ECR as a remedy - but this doesn't mean I'd never consider it if it were appropriate as a remedy. An arbitrator should, ultimately, mediate and resolve disputes. Our remedies must be tailored to the disputes we're trying to resolve.

16. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:00, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I actually agreed with quite a lot of what you had to say in your musings. In particular I do think there are serious structural problems with how Wikipedia manages dispute resolution. I do pay relatively close attention to WP:AN/I and to WP:ARBCOM pages (a side effect of my first area of focus in Wikipedia being China) and AN/I, in particular could do with significant restructuring, including more formal procedures for creating, responding to and resolving incidents. I think the main reasons why we don't fix it are strain on volunteertime and institutional inertia.

17. You have relatively little experience of the back end of Wikipedia compared to most other candidates. Do you have any other relevant experience of making difficult decisions or handling sensitive information? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:00, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Quite a bit actually. My career is as a project manager and I've worked in both the private and public sector, including with medical technology. As a result I have had to regularly handle a variety of highly confidential information. A past position in veterans affairs required a security clearance and I have a certification for handling HIPAA materials. Regarding difficult decisions, my work experience has included being in the position of making hiring decisions. Beyond my work history, I have engagedin a host of off-wiki volunteer activities that required me to handle sensitive or private information. For obvious reasons I can'telaborate much beyond what I have disclosed here. But, yes, I am quite comfortable keeping confidence and being responsiblefor difficult choices.

18. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I think this is somewhere that arbitrators should tread very carefully. Frankly we can't expect editors to have no thoughts, feelings or moral / ethical presuppositions that will influence what they believe is appropriate for Wikipedia. Questions as to what makes a source unreliable, what constitutes mainstream or fringe views and what words like "neutral" should mean are open to interpretation and, for Wikipedia to remain collaborative, must continue to remain open to interpretation. In light of that no POV of an editor should be subject to discipline unless it becomes disruptive to the work of creating a collaborative encyclopedia. If editor behavior is disruptive then the level of politeness is, in all likelihood, irrelevant.

19. What have you done to prepare yourself to understand the arbitration committee's workload, and to manage your time to handle it? isaacl (talk) 18:39, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm quite good at handling large email loads and have significant prior volunteer experience on boards of directors. I have reviewed what the arbitration committee is supposed to handle and feel, based on my review of available data, that it is within my capacity.

20. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard would you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:22, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Whenever possible as much of an arbitration decision as possible should be transparent. If votes are held in camera there should be a compelling reason. Otherwise that information should be public.

21. Topical and somewhat urgent question: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:59, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I am a signatory and support the proposed blackout action.

    Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:59, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

22. Given the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in, do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unrealiable? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on antisemitism issues at ArbCom level and has been in denial of its scale thus far? Luxofluxo (talk) 21:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    My understanding of the recent discussion of the ADL was that it is only being seen as unreliable for items related to the Israel / Palestine conflict - and that RFC seems, to me, to have followed appropriate process. I suppose, if you believe that the handling of this source or other actions were motivated by antisemitism, and you are hoping for arbitration intercession, the best thing to do would be to file a case presenting evidence of this.

23. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary?Robert McClenon (talk) 05:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't think ArbCom should accept public cases that principally rely upon private evidence. If there is a compelling reason for in-camera arbitration then the affected parties should be notified privately. A shell case can be constructed into which public-facing information can be placed but this should be done by an arbitrator or clerk after acceptance of the case. Ideally as much of an arbitration process as possible should be public.

24. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 05:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I do worry sometimes that a certain rather culturally bound form of formal politeness is used as a cudgel within Wikipedia. However I also think it's important to maintain a collegial environment. Ultimately arbitration should be a dispute resolution tool, not the supreme court of en.wikipedia - if a single editor's civility has become enough of an issue that it has become actively disruptive this should generally be addressed by administrators rather than arbitrators. If that pattern of incivility is, however, part of a greater conflict between parties on the project then that should be addressed by arbitration during the production of remedies at the closure of a case.

26. How do you think the ArbCom will function within the next year or two without you if you are unsuccessful in becoming an elected (non-admin) arbitrator? --George Ho (talk) 23:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Probably just fine honestly. Like I think I could do a good job at this and it's something I would be happy to do to contribute to the project but I'm pretty confident in the capacity of many of the other nominees.

27. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator?Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Add your questions at the bottom of the page using the following markup:

{{ACE Question
|Q=Your question
|A=}}

There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

Note from Daniel — I'm currently travelling overseas so replies may be slightly delayed, apologies in advance. Also, I'm going to keep responses deliberately short for two reasons; firstly I'm away from home so it's hard to sit down and punch out mini-essays. Secondly, given there's 12 candidates all with lots of questions and answers, information overload is a real risk for those reading answers. If any editor would like me to expand on any answer below, please feel free to flick me a note on my talk page and I'd be happy to elaborate. Cheers, Daniel.

1. Thank you for standing as a candidate. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Optimistic - longevity. We're still around! This project has amazing resilience. Reform - have seen things like administrator elections and recall get through recently, which are both (in my opinion) steps in the right direction. It also shows the community is able to continuously improve.
   Pessimistic - partisanship. Reflecting the real world, opposite viewpoints are becoming further apart, and the common ground for respectful and constructive discourse seems to be narrowing. Editor retention - very concerned that not enough is being done to protect content contributors in difficult areas from disruptive actors. Daniel (talk) 00:30, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2. Please identify a substantive decision of the committee that you disagreed with within the last 3 years, and explain why. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   This is easy for me; the most dangerous set of FoF's I've seen was Scottywong. I said as much on the proposed decision talk page. Scotty was in the wrong with his initial conduct, absolutely, but dredging up evidence from 10-12 years ago to justify a decision was below the standards I expect from the Committee. Further, this finding of fact actually has a chilling effect on future participation in Arbitration proceedings and the presentation of evidence, which can't be considered a good thing (surely we want parties engaging, not avoiding, ArbCom proceedings?). Please also see Newyorkbrad and Anomie's comments on the PD talk page for further context. Daniel (talk) 00:30, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

3. Are there any topic areas from which you would recuse yourself from while acting as an arbitrator? If so, what set of facts informs that decision? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:45, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Interesting question. At this stage, no, unless there is an arbitration case about Sydney hailstorms or Australian football (soccer) clubs! More likely is I would need to recuse due to editor conflict rather than a topic area conflict, simply because I don't edit in contentious areas. To give a contemporaneous example, I'd likely have to recuse if this general dispute ended up at RfAR (again) given my close of the ANI omnibus discussion (associated user talk page discussion here). I offered some strident commentary post-close to those who objected to said close, about an issue fundamental to the ongoing dispute (ie. the standing of editors), and this would surely cause at least a perception of being conflicted and therefore recusal would be necessary. It is fair to say I would err on the side of recusing more than less, should I be elected, so as to protect the integrity of the Committee. Daniel (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:44, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Simply put, I think cases need to be extraordinary to be conducted based predominantly or entirely off private evidence — whether that be extraordinary alleged behaviour, extraordinary divisiveness within the community, or extraordinary risk to the project for not taking action. This 'extraordinary' threshold would be higher than the standard threshold to accept a 'normal', public case. In short, the Committee really should have no choice but to take it, if we're taking a private case (as private evidence is something that should be resisted generally). To extend that principle further, everything possible should be made public, whether in full or summarised. I think for a private case, it should be voted on in public at every stage (acceptance at RfAR, proposed decision etc.). Finally, if the private evidence cannot be shared in a form close to completeness with the 'accused' (to use your term) to offer a response, in my opinion it shouldn't be allowed to be relied upon as justification for a decision. Natural justice is incredibly important to me, and I believe these statements reflect this position. Daniel (talk) 00:42, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:51, 13 November 2024 (UTC); edited, 01:37, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   It took five questions to get asked about Administrator recall, which is three more than where my bet would have been on! Firstly, I support administrator recall as a concept and am proud of the community for getting both this and administrator elections over the line (see answer to Q2 and my comments here). That being said, I've been pretty strident in my commentary around making the recall process as 'fair' and 'humane' for administrators put through it, including challenging the length of time that a recall runs for and the ability for them to provide a structured response (back when the filer had a chance to make a statement at the top of the page). This is the same fairness and humanity-oriented approach I would take to being on ArbCom, and links to my answer to Q4 above.
   I'm sure many people disagree with my views on recall, either dislking the entire recall concept (which I support) or disliking the two proposed alterations (which I think the process needs to be improved), but I hope people can appreciate my views comes from a position of trying to optimise a new process and find the balance between process and people.
   None of this has answered your question though. In short — I don't know right now. Potentially issues may get kicked back to recall to deal with, although maybe they won't? Can being recalled/having a RRfA become a proposed remedy? The only thing I do think will happen with some level of confidence is that I expect that at least some ADMINCOND cases that would have ended up at ArbCom may not any more, as they will be short-circuited by ending up at recall instead. I look at very recent examples such as Arbitration motion regarding Marine 69-71 as being one that likely wouldn't end up at ArbCom in 2025 on this basis. Daniel (talk) 00:52, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:37, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6. Do you think that committee members should go into an ArbCom case with the goal to implement a specific remedy, regardless of preliminary evidence, or should committee members try and approach the case with an open mind? Tinynanorobots (talk) 10:01, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Absolutely not. They need to have an idea that they can apply some sort of remedy that will be effective based on the information presented at the filing at RfAr, otherwise there's no point accepting the case (eg. content disputes should be declined). But, in terms of actual specifics, if a case is accepted it is opened to explore all possible outcomes based on the evidence presented. Where the facts aren't in dispute, for example the recent desysopping of Marine 69-71, motions can provide an efficient solution to a problem that doesn't require the exploration of a whole case. But if you open a case to explore an issue, it should be done with an open mind, and comments to the contrary of this should be avoided by arbitrators at the acceptance stage with their votes to accept/decline (something that hasn't been done particularly well this year.) Daniel (talk) 22:35, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

7. Topical and somewhat urgent question: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:54, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I offered up an opinion very early in the piece of this issue, see my two comments here and here. I think this is a very dangerous game that WMF are playing, for two reasons — showing that the Foundation are willing to play ball with foreign governments with autocratic executives and/or judiciaries (rather than its previous general position of 'get lost', which has been long-term effective in places like Turkey etc.), but also for editor retention, engagement and trust in the WMF protecting them. I acknowledge this is hardly a revolutionary view to hold, based on the amount of support the open letter has received. Daniel (talk) 22:45, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Thanks for your answer, Daniel. Yep, funny old thing this t'inter-webs lark, ain't it. Almost as if national laws are irrelevant. Until suddenly they're not. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:52, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:06, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I'm going to take you on at "Wikipedians are fond of calling processes things they're not. For example, processes like AfD ... are called discussions and many Wikipedians go to great lengths not to call them votes. They are votes. We expect editors to provide a rationale for their vote (more so at AfD than RfA), but strength of argument rarely trumps numerical superiority" — but it won't be today, I've had a full day of travel. Will get to this over the weekend (Central American time). Daniel (talk) 22:31, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I don't think ArbCom is equipped to deal with it particularly well given the way it's set up and its mandate to focus on conduct rather than content, except in the most egregious of cases which can be captured in an evidence and workshop phase. However, where it is prevalent within a topic area, ArbCom should absolutely be enabling uninvolved administrators to take action using the contentious topics toolkit. Daniel (talk) 18:19, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10. What have you done to prepare yourself to understand the arbitration committee's workload, and to manage your time to handle it? isaacl (talk) 18:40, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Former clerk (a long time ago, I concede) so I am roughly aware of the workings of the Committee. As mentioned in my nomination statement, the sort of activity required for an Arbitrator to be effective suits my real-world situation perfectly. Actively edit 3-4 times a week at a minimum, travel a fair bit so can keep track of discussions and emails on my phone remotely. Daniel (talk) 22:29, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

11. Thank you for your answer to Q3, and about erring "on the side of recusing more than less". How about for other arbitrators – if a request for another arbitrator's recusal was referred to the Committee (e.g., during a case request), what would be your decision-making process? DanCherek (talk) 21:25, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I would advocate for my threshold to be applied, but will respect if I am outvoted on that. After all, the Committee decides as a collective. It should be protecting the appearance of impartiality though, and recusing when borderline feels like an 'easy win' in that regards. There are (hopefully) 14 other active Arbitrators who can reach a decision without one who may cast a shadow over an end result. Daniel (talk) 22:28, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard would you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:25, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    The list of how members voted should always be posted - the current Functionaries appointments kerfuffle is showing that, I want to know who supported and who didn't (rather than having arbitrators come along individually to say). I don't understand what circumstances it would need to be hidden? If there are, it needs to meet the extraordinary threshold mentioned in Q3. Daniel (talk) 22:26, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

13. In looking at your contributions, I'm seeing some rather large gaps - although the gap from 2015 to 2021 is explained in your candidate statement. But, you didn't edit for 10 months in 2022, and although you did edit a good bit in October, several other months this year, you've not edited much more than 100 edits. What makes you sure you'll have time for the heavy load of ArbCom? Ealdgyth (talk) 14:34, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    To answer your first question about 2022, I had a work secondment that has subsequently opened the door for my new role. This role (that I've been in since mid-2023) is what is providing me the flexibility and time to edit more reliably. With the second part, there is only one month that is less than 160 edits (July, 116), so "not edited much more than 100 edits [per month]" seems like quite a harsh way to generalise that dataset (179, 192, 168, 166 and 192 are presumably the numbers you are talking about when you say "several other months"). But secondly and most importantly for me, the quality of the edits is far more important. Closing complex DRV's, closing ANI discussions, reading community conversations etc. all take time that isn't reflected in edit count. If a voter wants a machine who pumps out 2,000 edits a month, I am not their candidate. But more specifically, I don't think volume equals value when it comes to being an arbitrator.
    However, if we're crunching the numbers, I believe a more fair stat that better reflects availability is "how many unique days this year have I edited on" - and using UTC days for no other reason than its the easiest arbitrary dataset to review, I have edited on pretty much two-thirds of all unique days this year to the end of October (201 out of 305, or 65.9% of unique UTC days). I have a data dump summary here of the raw data if that helps break it down for you and others, but I am always around, always reading discussions, even if sometimes I can't edit that particular day as easily if I'm away from my desk. (For context as to that number of days edited, I am likely to spend nearly 175 days away from home this year between work and vacation come December 31— so I think I'm doing OK on the edit front count considering that! As mentioned in my nomination statement, I am on emails and on my phone every day and stay up to date with things, even if I've only edit on two-thirds of days this year so far. Daniel (talk) 18:16, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

14. You mention involvement in community discussions at the noticeboards - can you give some examples of where you think your involvement has helped resolve conflicts? Or where you aided in resolving a dispute? Ealdgyth (talk) 14:34, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I back my ability to a) assess the evidence and community sentiment in front of me to find the right outcomes and b) have the courage of my convinctions to act, which are generally supported by the community. I'm going to link-drop just a couple if I may, happy for you and others to read and ask follow-up questions on any if pertinent:
    * ANI — 'Blocked indefinitely - open to review' (note the edit summary in question has subsequently been revdel'd)
    * ANI — 'Lightburst making poorly disguised personal attacks and hosting WP:POLEMIC content in his userpage' (and subsequent user talk discussion)
    * ANI — 'Ckanopueme: 15 year SPA-ish'
    * ANI — 'FC Internazionale Milano'
    * Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Denial of atrocities during the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel
    * Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2023 collapse of Damar Hamlin
    * Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2023 December & Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2023 November (some random examples)
    Thanks, Daniel (talk) 18:39, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As a followup - have you been involved in discussions at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement? (I know I could search, but my wiki-search-fu sucks and frankly, I slept badly last night so I'm not up to fighting the bad search functions of wikipedia). If you haven't, not a big deal, just wanted to see examples of actual discussion and back-and-forth in disputes, not just closing of discussions. Ealdgyth (talk) 14:53, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi Ealdgyth, very minimal to be honest — Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive328#Mkstokes was the only one that jumped out in my mind when I cast my memory back. I've definitely commented in and closed a number of arbitration appeals at WP:AN, but not so much at WP:ARE. Cheers, Daniel (talk) 15:55, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15. Given the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in, do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unreliable in certain areas? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on antisemitism issues at ArbCom level and has been in denial of its scale thus far? Luxofluxo (talk) 21:22, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Your question appears to be directly related to an active arbitration proceeding (PIA5), which will open per motion at the end of this month. The Committee explicitly noted this timing will allow the incoming Committee to participate and vote on PIA5. On that basis, I won't be providing any direct comments in response as it will be potentially prejudicial to assessing the evidence presented and subsequently voting on a decision. In more general terms, it is clear that more needs to be done in this whole topic area to protect good-faith editors and resist covert co-ordinated disruption, hence why the Committee has accepted PIA5. This will all (hopefully) be explored in the PIA5 with evidence presented by users, decisions workshopped and eventually voted on by both the outgoing and incoming Committees. Daniel (talk) 04:22, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

16. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary?Robert McClenon (talk) 05:58, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi Robert, I believe my answer to Q4 covers the vast majority of what you're asking, including my general position on private v public. Daniel (talk) 06:04, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

17. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 05:58, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    The same standard as other requests — the community is unable to resolve on its own, there is either ongoing disruption or a high chance of it occurring again in the future, and a request is brought to the Committee (likely after multiple noticeboard discussions failed to reach a consensus resolution) asking it to resolve. A long block log in of itself is not a direct cause for concern — the contents within it (ie. length and reason for block, if it was overturned or endorsed at a noticeboard subsequently, if it was a sanction that came reactively from community consensus or was it unilateral, etc.) are far more important. Daniel (talk) 06:04, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

19. ARBCOM serves a unique role in proceedings that desysop an admin, that sanction or reinstate editing privileges of an editor when on-wiki and/or off-wiki evidence is compelling. Two questions: [1] what factors will you consider in deciding to desysop an admin when evidence shows that (a) they have been WP:INVOLVED with an editor (e.g. editing disputes where the admin and the editor have substantially edited same article(s) using peer-reviewed scholarly sources), and (b) the admin takes administrative action or threatens administrative actions against the same editor on the article's talk page or elsewhere in Wikipedia; or where the admin threatens or scolds or sends hostile messages to that editor off-wiki through email or other forms of private messaging; [2] what factors will you consider in deciding to discipline editor (or a cabal of editors) with WP:COI where on-wiki and off-wiki evidence establishes that the editor(s) have inserted misinformation or grossly misrepresented peer-reviewed scholarly sources in en-Wikipedia articles to further their off-wiki advocacy, social media campaigns, political causes and such. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 05:39, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Before I answer, a question back — does this relate to this ANI complaint? If yes, a further double-question — have you submitted this to ArbCom (and if 'yes', what was their response); and if 'no', do you plan on submitting it to ArbCom in 2025? Daniel (talk) 21:19, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

20. As I found out just now, you recently stepped down from adminship at least one month ago. Also, reading your response to Q1, I can't help thinking. If you become an elected (ex-admin) arbitrator with CheckUser and Oversight tools, how can you contribute to the ArbCom within the next two years? George Ho (talk) 09:45, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    My statement is pretty clear - my unavailability is only until mid-January 2025 ("but also as disclosed here my availability [from late October] until mid-way through January [2025] is awful. If successful at this election, I will re-request the tools at WP:BN in late December instead of mid-January as originally planned"). Assuming I'm elected to a two-year term (a massive assumption but the basis for your question, so we'll run with that timeframe), that is 1.9% of my term I would be unavailable for. If being unavailable for 2% of a two-year term is a deal-breaker for voters, then there's nothing that I can say to them to encourage them to vote for me. But, I'd like to think that being unavailable for two weeks out of 104 shouldn't be a deal-breaker. I will be back to full availability from mid-January 2025. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 19:12, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

21. (Follow-up question to Q20:) Besides being unavailable for two weeks, how else would your contributions impact, i.e. make a different to, ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 19:15, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks for the follow-up question. I believe my personal attributes that are best suited to improving the Committee are: 1) an outside perspective who will gently challenge processes and decisions to ensure that we are doing the right thing and whether something can be improved; 2) real-world experience understanding the strengths and weaknesses of committee functionality, and how to maximise the benefit and cut through the noise of a 15-person body; and 3) a focus on fairness, editor retention and keeping an eye on the 'bigger picture' — and ensuring all decision-making is captured through this lens, rather than becoming short-sighted and reaching an imperfect decision due to losing focus on the core issue(s) that affects the project. Daniel (talk) 19:54, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

1. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator?Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:17, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Add your questions at the bottom of the page using the following markup:

{{ACE Question
|Q=Your question
|A=}}

Use the |list resume= option to correct list numbering issues, by manually specifying the start point.

There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

1. Thank you for standing as a candidate and for your service as an arbitrator. Please describe your self-assessment of your successes and failures as a member of the committee with as much specificity as you feel comfortable with. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I am optimistic because I am seeing the passing of the torch to a third or forth generation of members of the committee. Theleekycauldron and Elli were not around for my RfA in 2011 or my first term on the committee in 2015, just like I was not around for Jdforrester's time on the committee. One of my fears has been, for a decade now, that Wikipedia will be remembered as the monument built by Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers, and Millennials. It seems that Zoomers are starting to come into their own on the project. That make me hopeful that when I die, this project will go on.

   While I am hopeful about seeing the torch get passed and editor numbers stabilizing, I am also very worried about the solidification of roles on the project. The last time the committee appointed first-time functionaries as OSers was my generation. That means that outside of incoming arbs, the team has been pretty static for a decade now. There was a time when OS was part of a pipeline to the committee, that pipeline is now gone. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:51, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

3. Are there any topic areas from which you would recuse yourself from while acting as an arbitrator? If so, what set of facts informs that decision? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:46, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   The FA process is probably the only thing. I was one of the core source reviewers for a few years. Outside of that, the areas I write about are calm and out of the way. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:51, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:45, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   A problem that the community can not solve should be explored by arbcom. As for safeguards, it depends on the exact evidence and if all of the parties know what is going on. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:51, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:52, 13 November 2024 (UTC); edited, 01:38, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Recall should be able to handle the most cut and dry cases of Admin misconduct that tend to be handled by motion and a suspended case. If it works, we should have a chat with the community about ending LEVEL2 in 2026 since that power has been returned to the community. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:51, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:38, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6. Do you think that committee members should go into an ArbCom case with the goal to implement a specific remedy, regardless of preliminary evidence, or should committee members try and approach the case with an open mind? Tinynanorobots (talk) 10:02, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Members should try to keep an open mind --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:51, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

7. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:08, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   You want to fight over controversial thoughts. My favorite pastime. The problem is, I agree with you on most everything. The one that I will pick a fight with you about is "Editors (or small groups) who successfully research, write, and nominate a featured article should be allowed a by-line if they want it." I understand where you are coming from as a fellow FA writer, but all of my work has greatly benefited from edits from other people. While Marriage License is mine, it has the fingerprints of reviewers and friends. If I get credit they should get credit. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:02, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   If non-neutral editing crosses over into disruption or other violations of policy, editors can be removed from the topic area or the project. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 17:05, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9. What is a past ArbCom case that you would have decided or handled differently? Pinguinn 🐧 04:02, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   One of the curses of coming in the minority on a regular basis when the voting begins is that there are quite a few cases where I continue to think that I was in the right. I think the committee is far too hesitant to impose CT on a topic area. I hope that the sun setting CT gives arbs another tool in the toolbox. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 17:23, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10. It's often been suggested that Arbcom is the community's only 'official' bridge to the WMF. 30 days ago on Arbcom talk, you said: We are not EN Wikipedia's Foreign Office. This is a gross misuse of our political capital and time. I'm having difficulty contextualising that comment. Could you please clarify it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:43, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I can't seem to find the discussion where I said that. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 17:05, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Archive 25#Mentioning administrator elections to your WMF contact in your monthly meeting. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:30, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

11. What are your plans to help the arbitration committee manage its workload effectively? isaacl (talk) 18:41, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    The committee needs to find a way to keep email from falling through the cracks. We probably need something like a ticketing system or a secretary who bumps threads to make sure that don't become stale. I don't know which one is more amiable to the community and the committee right now. Part of me thinks that switching the arbcom list to a third service is going to be a mess. Especially if there is a high barrier to access ongoing discussions. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 17:05, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12. When a request for another arbitrator's recusal is referred to the Committee (e.g., during a case request), what is your decision-making process? DanCherek (talk) 21:26, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    The biggest thing is determining of there is there clear and convincing evidence that an arbitrator reaches the bar for recusal in arbpol. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 17:05, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

13. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard do you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:26, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I have been in favor of releasing vote breakdowns over my current term, and have been opposed by a majority of the committee at almost every turn. I will continue to advocate for releasing vote breakdowns if elected to a third term. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 17:05, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

14. There are currently ten active arbitrators out of a possible 15, and arbitrator activity appears to have been the cause of some matters before the Committee stalling – for example, motions in the recent ARBPIA amendment request were only recently enacted almost three months after the initial referral from AE, and it has been noted that an email sent to the Committee in the summer containing private evidence may have fell by the wayside as [an] enormous issue that no one had the energy to dive into. As someone who has served on ArbCom, is there anything that you think the community, the committee, and/or the WMF could/should do in order to (either directly or indirectly) improve arbitrator retention, and/or prevent arbitrator burnout? ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 13:09, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Beyond what I told Isaacl, I think one of the problems facing the committee is that the balance between the arbs who do work in the background or on wiki and the ones who show up to vote has been out of whack over the past 2 years. The committee needs more do-ers to allow members to take a break every so often. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 17:10, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15. Topical question, although the RfC has now closed: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:43, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I think the SOPA/PIPA blackout was a mistake because it opened Pandora's box. As for the open letter, it is my understanding, based on my discussions with the WMF, that they are taking the issues pointed at in it seriously. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 10:39, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

16. How do you propose to deal with the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in? Do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unrealiable? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on this at ArbCom level? Luxofluxo (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Content questions, such as if a source is reliable, are outside of the scope of the arbitration committee. If there are conduct issues at play, the committee can look into them after the community gets a bite at the apple through AN/ANI. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 10:39, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

17. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

18. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, when the community is unable to solve the issue. Just like any other case --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 10:39, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

19. In your answer to question 9, I assume CT refers to contentious topics? If so, what do you mean by "sun setting CT"? Banedon (talk) 03:23, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    @Banedon: The idea is to have contentious topic designations end in some topic areas if the tools have not been used in 2 years. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

20. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator?Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    No. Arbitration exists for conduct disputes not content ones. There shouldn't be any edits in the mainspace or on a talk page by me where I was acting as an arbitrator --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Add your questions at the bottom of the page using the following markup:

{{ACE Question
|Q=Your question
|A=}}

Use the |list resume= option to correct list numbering issues, by manually specifying the start point.

There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

1. Thank you for standing as a candidate. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Thanks for the question! RFA2024, and the new blood we've gotten from it, is what makes me the most optimistic. I've heard from lots of candidates and nominators who went through EfA that the trial run was a much more pleasant experience than RfA. And we got 11 admins out of it, which is almost as many as we got from RfA in all of 2023. WP:MONITOR also really helped clarify and solidify who's responsible for keeping RfA civil, and I think it's led to some really positive results. Overall, I'm incredibly pleased with the fact that the community is willing to try new things at all. Fossilization is one of the worrying trends I've noticed in the community, but RFA2024 is a strong indicator in the other direction.

   What makes me pessimistic is our fragile place in the media ecosystem right now. Our traffic is largely at the whims of Google, which is currently experimenting with magical, buzzwordy disinformation tools and has been known to use in-house tools to capriciously screw over rival companies that depend on Google Search. We're also seeing fearmongering and disinformation become successful strategies for populists around the world, and I think the war in Gaza this year has caused some damage to our reputation as a source. Case in point: I was one of the closers of the ADL RfC, and I saw a bunch of media organizations basically refuse to understand that the community isn't jam-packed with anti-semites. That had a real impact on the way my Jewish family and friends, including non- and anti-Zionists, view Wikipedia.

   Internal community matters tend to take up more of my time because there's something I can do about that, but the external things like Wikipedia's institutional standing are the things I worry about long-term, so that's my main pessimism. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 01:50, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2. Please identify a substantive decision of the committee that you disagreed with within the last 3 years, and explain why. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Thanks for the question! There are decisions I disagree with, but if you don't mind me hijacking your question a little bit, I want to talk about a Committee indecision that I strongly disagreed with. I was one of the referring administrators on this August ARCA thread on toxicity in the Israel–Palestine topic area. ArbCom moved to open a full case this week as a result of the thread, which I agree is necessary. But I'm disconcerted that it took three months from the thread being filed to even the beginning of a resolution, and now it's being delayed a few weeks more.

   Tensions in ARBPIA have obviously skyrocketed since the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. The dispute that caught my attention the most was tag-team edit-warring over the lead of Zionism, but it was a sprawling mess everywhere else, too. Several overlapping threads were filed at AE in mid-2024, with editors accusing each other of edit-warring, POV-pushing, and battleground behavior. Most of those threads trainwrecked because it's a complex case with a lot of policy gray areas, which is the kind of situation where ArbCom is supposed to step in. That took a few months, but in August, the AE admins finally referred a thread to the Committee and asked it to address the toxic, battleground behavior in the topic area.

   It looked for a while as if the Committee was going to pass a few motions and kick it back to AE. That would've been a mistake. I'm glad they're choosing to open a PIA5 case as well, but a few months is a long time in the heat of a conflict, and I don't know what the delay was about. Now it's going to be another few weeks before the case opens and a few more months before it closes, and looking from the outside, it feels like the Committee could be acting faster to address one of the more pressing problems for the project this year. I think the delay's had a real impact – the topic area is still a battleground, but now a lot of the evidence brought to ArbCom already is more stale. That'll make it more difficult for the Committee to agree to remedies that can help lower the temperature. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:39, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

3. Are there any topic areas from which you would recuse yourself from while acting as an arbitrator? If so, what set of facts informs that decision? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:46, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Thanks for asking, Red-tailed hawk! Inasmuch as I'm a regular content creator, I'm not active in any particularly contentious areas. I used to edit more about current events when I was starting out as an editor, but as I found my groove, I realized that pond wasn't my style. I do still technically edit in WP:ARBAP2 a fair amount, but my American politics editing is mostly stuff nobody feels strongly about, like old court cases and minor political figures. The sourcing is clearer and easier to follow, and even when I do write about contemporary-ish American politics, it's usually a low-key affair. Because I'm not really involved in the American politics editor group, I don't think I'd be likely to be INVOLVED if an AmPol case came up. Same goes for the other topic areas I write articles in.

   That said, I would be very likely to be involved if a DYK case came up. I've participated extensively in every corner of that project for a few years now, and pretty much everyone who keeps DYK working is a familiar face to me. So, DYK's not a contentious topic area, but if there's a DYK-wide dispute, I'd almost certainly be involved in it. For more narrow questions, or where DYK's not a central facet, it'd have to depend on who's a party and why. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:42, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:45, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Thanks for the question, Carrite :) I don't think the secrecy of the evidence should determine whether ArbCom decides to take action or not. ArbCom should address cases based on the strength of the evidence and the underlying allegation.

   But I do think ArbCom should commit to being as transparent as possible, in a way it hasn't always. Episodes like Just Step Sideways' warning being concealed from the community and Bishonen not being told why they weren't granted COIVRT suggest that ArbCom is still more opaque as an institution than the community wants. And in JSS's case, when ArbCom actually released its private warning of JSS, it had to amend its public summary of said warning in its suspension motion. I don't think the Committee deliberately misconstrued its warning, of course, but it's still troubling that increased transparency led ArbCom to revise its actions. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:57, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:53, 13 November 2024 (UTC); edited, 01:39, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Thanks for the question, George Ho :) I think that pretty much depends on how effective recall becomes as an institution. If recall becomes an established first resort for pervasive admin conduct issues (i.e. ANI threads begin resolving with consensus to refer to recall), ArbCom might decide that its policy of letting the community exhaust its own measures first applies to recall in some way. Obviously, we're not there yet, and ArbCom is still pretty comfortable with its jurisdiction over admin conduct issues, having summarily desysopped an admin just last week. I think ArbCom is probably gonna retain its power over emergency and summary desysops, because recall is probably going to remain a fairly intensive process, which isn't well-suited to urgent cases. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:57, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:39, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6. Do you think that committee members should go into an ArbCom case with the goal to implement a specific remedy, regardless of preliminary evidence, or should committee members try and approach the case with an open mind? Tinynanorobots (talk) 10:02, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Thanks for the question, Tinynanorobots! I think it's kind of impossible to not have preliminary thoughts about preliminary evidence when, a lot of times, all the evidence for the case is already in front of you in some form. In a broader sense, everyone has heuristics for what information is most important when sorting through a case, it's a survival tool and even a mark of experience. At the same time, no, I don't think the Committee should use a case as a pretense to enact a specific remedy. If a full case is required, the parties should have the benefits of a full case – the opportunity to provide context, new evidence, and ultimately persuade arbitrators on the merits of their case. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:57, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

7. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:13, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   @HJ Mitchell: Ooh, I really enjoyed this question! I couldn't find a point I have a strong disagreement with, although I have a hope that your point about abuse at RfA can become a thing of the past with admin elections, admin recall, and RfA monitoring. I do have some thoughts about this one:

   I'm more of a mergeist than a deletionist but more of a deletionist than an inclusionist. I believe Wikipedia would better serve its readers better with a smaller number of more detailed articles with a broader scope than with many thousands of short articles on (for example) individual athletes or species.

   First, emphatically agreed. I'm really not a fan of standalone articles that are just hagiographies, stats repositories, or otherwise space fillers. My main frustration on this point is that WP:NOPAGE already exists, is a guideline, and very clearly encourages merging permastubs, but the community has collectively and silently decided that it doesn't apply for no great reason. If more sourced content is not available and is not likely to be available soon, I don't see a reason to keep a one-line article. If an article about a flower is only ever gonna be a couple of sentences with a nickname and an endangerment level, it makes more sense for it to be merged up to a list or genus article. If there's nothing more to know about an Olympic rower from the 1920s except their placement in one match, then there's another article that could easily accommodate. (Genus articles are better merge/redirect targets if you make them FLs, hint hint!) But it doesn't happen because I think the community interprets "automatically notable under a non-GNG-based SNG" to mean "immune to NOPAGE", and I think that's ultimately a suboptimal interpretation of policy both on the letter and the result. (Also, because merge infrastructure is terrible. Merge merges to AfD already, c'mon.) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 02:55, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   @Thebiguglyalien: Tricky question :) I think that ArbCom is the body best suited to address long-term civil(?) POV-pushers. Its institutional status gives the ability to take a bird's-eye view of a topic area, which is basically the only way to address long-term low-level disruption. ANI and AE only work if you strike when the iron is hot, which requires the iron to be hot, which civil POV pushers are good at avoiding.

   That said, while civil POV pushing would definitely be a focus of mine if I were on the Committee, it has to be said that the systemic barriers are high. If I'm a civil POV pusher in favor of a certain obscure viewpoint, I can quietly influence the project in favor of that view for years by cherry-picking lots of high-quality secondary sources that agree with me. In an area where Wikipedia's systemic biases mean there aren't a lot of sharp-eyed admins or arbs who can sink dozens of hours into proving that I'm a crank, I can do what I do for a very long time, perhaps indefinitely.

   This is partially fixable with different rules on sourcing. One of the struggles of CTOP areas is that we haven't moved from secondary sources to tertiary. High-level Wikipedia articles are essentially meta-reviews of the secondary literature that take shape without anyone ever actually doing a full meta-review, and the fact that we don't rely on respected tertiary sources to do that meta-review for us is a weak point. In the end, though, it's not entirely fixable without more admins in our current blind spot areas. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 03:12, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9. What have you done to prepare yourself to understand the arbitration committee's workload, and to manage your time to handle it? isaacl (talk) 18:42, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   @isaacl: Thanks for asking! I've actually talked to a good number of current and former arbs about what a week in the life is like, and only started to write up my nom statement once I was convinced that was something I'd be able and willing to handle. This year's a gap year between undergrad and law school, so I don't expect there to be many constraints on my time – I talk a bit about how I plan to balance arbwork and law school work, should that time come, in my statement. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 03:15, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10. Topical and somewhat urgent question: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martinevans123 (talk • contribs) 19:53, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    @Martinevans123: Looks like the RfC was already closed. I actually helped wordsmith the language that would have appeared on the Main Page if a blackout occurred, but didn't vote. I think I landed on a position similar to Floquenbeam's: a pre-emptive blackout isn't smart, but if the Foundation actually discloses the names, we absolutely should protest. I think the smartest thing to have done, per someone I proxy-commented for who didn't feel safe participating directly, would have been to get a consensus to blackout if the disclosure happens, as a kind of community warning. As for my general thoughts on the WMF disclosing the names, see my draft statement :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 03:19, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

11. If a request for another arbitrator's recusal was referred to the Committee (e.g., during a case request), what would be your decision-making process? DanCherek (talk) 21:28, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    @DanCherek: Thanks for the question! Per WP:RECUSAL, an arbitrator... is expected to do [recuse] where they have a significant conflict of interest. Typically, a conflict of interest includes significant personal involvement in the substance of the dispute or significant personal involvement with one of the parties. So my approach would be to look at the evidence and see if it suggests the arbitrator could potentially have an interest in the outcome of the project other than a fair and impartial rendering of a judgment. For example, if an admin who happens to be on ArbCom imposes a topic ban on a user, and that user appeals the topic ban to ArbCom, that admin has a reputational interest in that topic ban being upheld. After all, if the ban is overturned, it's a finding of fact that the admin has made an error in judgment. Since that reputational interest conflicts with ArbCom's institutional interest in correcting potentially poor topic bans, that admin needs to be recused.

    There are also cases where the appearance of impropriety or worries about prejudice factor into the decision-making. For example, say administrator 1, also an arbitrator, topic bans a user. That topic ban is not disputed, and the user continues editing for several years under the topic ban. Then, administrator 2 blocks the user for violating the topic ban imposed by administrator 1, and that block is appealed to ArbCom. Administrator 1 has no serious reputational interest in upholding the block – the topic ban is unquestionably valid either way. But because there's a worry about prejudice – that administrator 1 has already expressed an opinion about the user's behavior in topic-banning them – the circumstances might warrant a recusal. It would depend on how closely connected the topic ban is to the block. Personally, I think it's generally better to err on the side of recusal when in doubt – prejudiced decision-making is something ArbCom should be avoiding. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:35, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard would you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:28, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I have no idea what goes into when ArbCom decides to release a vote or not, because – and I'm starting to notice a bit of a pattern here – ArbCom doesn't have a public procedural policy on it. In general, I think if a decision has a direct onwiki effect – including a permissions grant or warning – there should be a public notification and a note of the votes. In an unsuccessful permissions request, the reasoning should be disclosed to the requester, as well as the vote if there's any dissent (i.e. arbs in favor of granting). theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:35, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

13. Can you give some examples of where you have helped mediate or resolve conflicts either at the noticeboards or on article talk pages? Or where you aided in resolving a dispute that you weren't necessarily involved in but helped resolve it? Ealdgyth (talk) 14:32, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    @Ealdgyth: I've done a fair amount of dispute resolution at DYK, actually! Getting nominations approved and the backlog down often requires being able to cut through a standstill, like a dispute between a nominator and a reviewer. Sometimes this comes in the form of being pinged for a third opinion on a DYK guideline; other times, it's finding a stalled-out nomination and figuring out the best way to get it unstuck. My general philosophy on dispute resolution is to clear away as much of the noise as possible and make the question clear, at which point it hopefully has an easier answer.

    There was recently a dispute at DYK on whether to run at article titled "The Cock Destroyers". There was an objection that running it could be seen as gratuitous, as DYK has had some problems with that in the past, but the discussion stalled out without a clear answer to the point that DYK ran out of queued sets while trying to figure out an answer. So, I took over the review, read through the whole discussion, and boiled down the core question to "is it gratuitous to run an article on a work with 'cock' in its title, given past disputes at DYK and NOTCENSORED?". Looking at the history of DYK getting in trouble for using that word, it seemed to me like the use here wasn't gratuitous compared to what had previously been criticized. My thought ended up being that categorially preventing a word from being used on the Main Page, even when it's the title of a work, falls afoul of NOTCENSORED. Everyone involved was okay with that position, resolving both that dispute and DYK's lack of queued sets. I talk some more about dispute resolution at my second RfA, if you're interested :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:35, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

14. Other than ARBPIA and such issues, much of Arbco’s public-facing work involves claims about an individual's behaviour that couldn’t be resolved on noticeboards. Where heuristics might be a crude attempt at a solution, in your opinion, before pronouncing its verdict, sentence, or acquittal, should the committee examine the claims more deeply and assess the evidence to determine its veracity and decide the facts of the case, or simply take the filing accuser's and the pile on claims of evidence at face-value, asses that consensus, and impose the maximum sanction/punishment demanded by the community? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:37, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Answered your own question there, I think. ArbCom is designed to be independent from community consensus for a reason, even when the two are expected to follow the same norms. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:35, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15. Faced with a decision on a case against an individual, if there were a conflict of conscience (i.e. not personally agree with the proposed remedy) do you think a committee member should abstain/recuse themselves or feel obliged to vote with the majority? (I will understand if you prefer to give this question a miss). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:37, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not sure I understand your question, Kudpung. Why would I vote in favor of anything I don't feel is in the best interests of the project? theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:35, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

16. Thank you for volunteering. Could you please expand upon the concern you expressed in question 1 that "Fossilization is one of the worrying trends I've noticed in the community."? Additionally, please define precisely what is meant by the term "fossilization"; and what the inherent hazards of "fossilization" might be to the encyclopedia, its community, and the role of ArbCom. Netherzone (talk) 05:10, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    @Netherzone: Thanks for asking :) this one's going to be quite a long answer, so apologies in advance. By "fossilization", I mean a tendency of the community to take a small-'c' conservative view towards new policy, where it is unwilling to try new things or make big changes. It worries me because it means the community is unlikely to gain significant ground against long-term problems like battleground behavior and incivility in the near future. That's bad, because those things stand in the way of a more cohesively and competently-written encyclopedia. But I've become more optimistic about this lately, as I said to Kevin, and my running for ArbCom is primarily about continuing that work.

    Fossilization is essentially an expression of contentment. An unspoken sentiment that there are no changes left that are worth making. It's an entrenchment of power in favor of not changing, whether in the form of our written policies or our unwritten culture. I think Wikipedia is incredible, I think our community does extremely important work, but I am not content with projectspace. If I were, I would retire from most all of it, focus more on writing articles and occasionally pitching in at review boards like DYK and GA. I'm running for ArbCom, and I've been facilitating RFA2024, because I think I can bring something to the table that makes the community better, and in turn, strengthens the project. That something requires overcoming fossilization.

    The only reason projectspace and everything around it exists is to support building an encyclopedia. Admins, the community, ArbCom, the WMF – none of it matters except in service to our mission. We've come to the conclusion that, though it isn't perfect, having a community and a projectspace is a net positive and even a necessity to maintaining Wikipedia and coordinating its growth. So, I don't care about civility because I take so much pleasure in sticking my nose in other people's business and judging how people treat each other. I care because the project comes first, and in our system, a healthy community is vital to a healthy project. Incivility, battleground behavior, and POV pushing corrode the health of the community by driving away positive contributors. Not just that, but they harm our reputation to the outside world as a neutral and accurate source of information. For a long time, "unblockables" were everywhere on the project, users with a blank check to bite and push and insult about anything they wanted for years, because our fossilized editor base was unwilling to do anything serious about it. That phenomenon is a lot less prevalent today, thankfully – another reason I'm optimistic about fossilization as of late.

    Fundamentally, fossilization represents a conflict of interest between the core of the community, which is incentivized to protect its own, and what the community is supposed to be working for, which is the project. This is why I think of RfA as such a black mark on our record. Not only does RfA have a reputation as a toxic, demoralizing mess that exiles net positive editors from our ranks, but we've been putting off fixing it for so long that to me, it represented the worst of this phenomenon – the community maintaining a broken system that actively damaged the project, or at least failing to do anything about it. I don't think RFA2024 fixed everything. There's still a lot of work to do. But what excites me is that I think the seal of fossilization is broken. The community has shown it's willing to try different approaches, a process that is turbulent in the short-term but ultimately pays off in the long run. The alternative to trying something, being open to change (even good ideas that don't pan out!), is sleeping with the devil you know, forever, forgetting sometimes that they're even taking up space in your bed.

    I'm on Wikipedia because I like building the encyclopedia. I like creating quality content. When I participate in the backrooms, it's because I'm trying to make it easier for other people to do that too. That's how I approach the idea of being an arb – I'm here to push back against incivility, battleground behavior, people who clearly aren't here to build an encyclopedia. To cut through the fossilization that enables poor behavior and make it easier for people who want to make quality content to do it. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:28, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

17. Given the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in, do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unreliable in certain key areas? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on antisemitism issues at ArbCom level and has been in denial of its scale thus far? Luxofluxo (talk) 21:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As a Jewish editor, I don't think the anxieties you've ascribed to all Jews everywhere are as universal as you might think. But while we're on the ARBPIA subject, I do believe pretty strongly that Wikipedia is not for people who want to influence its coverage or editors for their own social or political ends. Squabbling about POV is inflammatory and usually unproductive – time spent doing that is time not spent building the encyclopedia or making it easier for other people to do that. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

18. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:01, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Fundamentally, I think ArbCom should let us know what it's up to and why. Among other things, private warnings, unexplained blocks, and overuse of per curiam motions make ArbCom more opaque than it needs to be. Like I've said before: I don't think any arbitrators intentionally keep ArbCom opaque to hide bad actions, but when ArbCom has to revise its characterization of a statement upon publicizing it, it says that maybe the community would benefit from more insight into what the Committee is doing. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

19. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:01, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I think ArbCom should go wherever it needs to, up to and including cases on individual editors the community hasn't been able to resolve. The community isn't always fantastic at dealing with users who are habitually incivil or treat Wikipedia like a battleground because it has a short memory, but ArbCom is able to take the long view. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

20. ARBCOM serves a unique role in proceedings that desysop an admin, and when an editor is sanctioned or reinstated based on off-wiki evidence. Two questions: [1] what factors will you consider before accepting to rule on desysop cases where the admin is clearly involved with an editor per WP:INVOLVED, yet the admin participates or takes admin action against the editor after getting WP:INVOLVED; or where the involved admin threatens or scolds or sends hostile messages to that editor off-wiki thru email or other forms of private messaging; [2] what factors will you consider before accepting cases to sanction an editor (or a cabal of editors) with WP:COI where on-wiki and off-wiki evidence shows that the editor (or the cabal) is creating a distorted, misinformation-filled narrative in contested topic articles to further their off-wiki advocacy, social media activism, political activity or is adversely affecting Wikipedia due to their off-wiki coordination / canvassing. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    INVOLVED admin actions, offwiki harassment, and offwiki COI-based POV pushing are all cases where not only are sanctions possible, it's likely that ArbCom is the only body that can impose the appropriate remedy. So, if there's a real possibility that sanctions are needed, ArbCom should definitely be taking a look. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

21. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator? Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:56, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    @Cinemaandpolitics: Sure! I think Ealdgyth had a similar question about how I approach disputes, but I answered mostly from an amicable-resolution perspective. For less amicable results, you can look at how I approach battleground editing in the pseudoscience topic area (a thread she was also a part of!), abuse of process in ARBPIA and other CTOPs, habitual incivility I came across as an RfA monitor, personal attacks and battleground editing in Indigenous peoples and GENSEX, and a chronic dispute between two music editors at ANI. I was also one of the referring administrators on the ARCA thread that eventually lead to PIA5. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:18, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Add your questions at the bottom of the page using the following markup:

{{ACE Question
|Q=Your question
|A=}}

Use the |list resume= option to correct list numbering issues, by manually specifying the start point.

There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

1. Thank you for standing as a candidate. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   An encouraging trend I've seen recently has been a focus on putting topics popular among younger generations through content review processes. For example, just in October, Smash Hit, "Can't Catch Me Now", Ada Wong, and "Bad Blood" became featured articles. This makes me very hopeful for our future, because it helps us maintain our cultural relevance, and shows that that our editor base includes people of younger generations (like me) who are interested in such topics.

   A more discouraging theme I've noticed is the fragmentation of media landscapes. This takes many forms, from ANI's lawsuit against us, to Elon Musk's attacks on our impartiality, but the general trend is the same: a significant disconnect between what reliable sources report, and what many others publish and believe. This is not a problem we've caused, but one where we've been caught in the middle. If a large percentage of the population discounts Wikipedia as biased, that hurts our long-term prospects for gaining and retaining a diverse group of editors, and if people stop looking to Wikipedia for their simple queries, many will find their answers in far worse places. We'll do the best that we can do—evaluate sources and write in a neutral manner—and I hope that will be enough to help. Elli (talk | contribs) 20:51, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2. Please identify a substantive decision of the committee that you disagreed with within the last 3 years, and explain why. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I'm not particularly pleased with how the committee has handled situations involving private information. Being on the receiving end of private proceedings can be somewhat frustrating, so it is ArbCom's responsibility to be as up-front and transparent as possible with those involved, as well as the broader community, as is possible while still maintaining privacy. This is a difficult balance, and one that ArbCom needs to do a better job with. Just yesterday, the committee rejected a long-time admin's application to help with WP:COIVRT after the public consultation phase, and without providing useful feedback to them. While I can't say for sure if I would've voted the same way on that application, as I have not seen the private information, I would've insisted that we explain the committee's reasoning to the applicant in as much detail as possible.

   This is not the only example of this sort of thing happening, and it's the pattern of action that I'm concerned about. Other examples where the committee has handled this poorly include giving unclear assurances to CorbieVreccan (which then added unnecessary drama to a painful public case) and the failure to release the letter sent to JSS/Beeblebrox in 2021 until after his removal from the committee in 2023. Given that there is not really anyone else to appeal to, it's important we help people as much as we can while maintaining transparency with the community. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:16, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

3. Are there any topic areas from which you would recuse yourself from while acting as an arbitrator? If so, what set of facts informs that decision? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:32, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I find WP:INVOLVED to be a very important policy, as I explained at my RfA: even the appearance of an admin taking an action in an area where they are INVOLVED can feel incredibly frustrating and unfair. This is even more true regarding the Arbitration Committee (making its corollary recusal policy just as important), as its decisions are far harder to overturn compared to those of an individual administrator. There aren't any broad topic areas where I am so broadly involved to be unable to arbitrate neutrally, or where it would even appear for me to be unfairly involved. I do edit a decent amount about American politics and elections, so those would be the topic areas I'd be the most hesitant on arbitrating on, but that would be a case-by-case determination. Elli (talk | contribs) 23:31, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:46, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   As I mentioned in response to q2, private proceedings can be frustrating for those involved. They also deprive the community of the ability to provide useful input while a case is ongoing, and of clarity for why decisions have been made. I'd like to minimize fully-private cases, limiting them only to situations where no other type of case would be able to address important issues while maintaining safety for those involved. Hybrid cases such as Historical elections are an interesting approach and something I'd like the committee to work on improving as an alternative to private cases, as they allow for more community input. For all cases—private, public, or hybrid—the accused should be given as much access to the evidence against them as is possible without compromising the safety of others. Elli (talk | contribs) 00:10, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:54, 13 November 2024 (UTC); edited, 01:26, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   My hope is that once WP:RRFA becomes a well-accepted policy, ArbCom will no longer be responsible for most routine Level II desysops. For example, a case like Mzajac would ideally be handled with a recall petition. This does not mean that ArbCom should pass on addressing admin misconduct when it's brought to us, though, especially when part of a larger dispute that the community cannot effectively resolve. Elli (talk | contribs) 00:10, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:26, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6. Do you think that committee members should go into an ArbCom case with the goal to implement a specific remedy, regardless of preliminary evidence, or should committee members try and approach the case with an open mind? Tinynanorobots (talk) 10:02, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Committee members should go into cases with an open mind. If there is an obvious remedy based on preliminary evidence, the case would be a good candidate for speedy resolution with a motion. Elli (talk | contribs) 00:10, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

7. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:24, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Ooh, this is an interesting one. While I agree with most of your thoughts on notability, I disagree with your second point: that notability should never be inherent or presumed. This touches on the purpose of our notability guidelines. In my view, they serve two fundamental goals: to establish a reasonable standard so we don't try to write about everything (which would be a disaster for maintainability), and to effectively structure content for our readers. For example, we require a relatively high standard for corporations compared to for books, because a few stubby articles on books are generally not going to be a problem, while if we lowered our corporate notability standards in such a manner, we'd be inundated with corporate spam to an even worse extent than we are now.

   My disagreement with your point here goes back to the second purpose of notability, which is effectively structuring content. In line with your mergist views, if we do not have sufficient sourcing on a particular subject to meet GNG, but that content is still encyclopedically relevant, that content should often be merged elsewhere. For example, content about an author who does not pass GNG but who has written a notable book should generally be merged to the article on that book. However, there are some cases where retaining an independent article makes more sense. What if that author has written three separately-notable books? The content on them is still relevant to our readers—we'd include it if we only wrote about one of their books—but it doesn't neatly belong at any of the book articles. Given this, having a page on them, listing the books they've written and the basic biographical information we have, is the most effective way to structure that content for the benefit of our readers, despite the author not meeting GNG. As a note: this article would generally be considered to pass point 3 of WP:NAUTHOR, but my interpretation of your point is that this is the sort of notability standard you do not support. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:22, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:57, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   As POV-pushing is a conduct issue regardless of tone, both admins and ArbCom should feel empowered to take action to prevent it. I disagree with the premise of the essay that this is primarily ArbCom's responsibility; arbitration is for matters the community can't handle, not the other way around, and on-wiki behavior is within the community's purview. That said, in practice the community often struggles to deal with civil POV pushers, necessitating action on the part of ArbCom.

   Many, but not all, of the examples listed appear to be contentious topics, and uninvolved admins can and should make effective use of the CTOP tools that ArbCom has made available in these topic areas. I'm not aware of the extent of the issues in all of these topic areas, but I'm certainly open to designating more areas as contentious topics if necessary to allow admins to effectively crack down on POV pushing.

   When enforcement with the CTOP tools by admins is unsuccessful at stopping disruption in these topic areas (perhaps due to someone's behavior persistently falling just short of what admins are willing to sanction for), that's when ArbCom should step in with a case, which could result in topic- and/or site-bans. Elli (talk | contribs) 05:42, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9. What have you done to prepare yourself to understand the arbitration committee's workload, and to manage your time to handle it? isaacl (talk) 18:42, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I've talked to many arbitrators, both current and former, to get a good understanding of the time obligations involved with ArbCom, and the type of tasks that use significant arbitrator-time. As I spend many hours every week editing Wikipedia, I'm confident that I can redirect a sufficient amount of that time to arbitration work. Elli (talk | contribs) 05:42, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard would you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:29, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As I've outlined above, I value transparency very strongly. Given this, I would almost always support releasing the vote breakdown when private decisions are posted publicly. It may make sense to avoid this when dealing with someone who has made credible threats of violence, to avoid giving them specific names to target. Elli (talk | contribs) 05:42, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

11. You mention liking to resolve disputes in your candidate statement - can you give some examples of you being involved in a difficult dispute on wikipedia? Or where you have helped resolve a dispute you were not involved in but was discussed by the community where you were involved in the discussions? Ealdgyth (talk) 14:33, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    A few examples where I've helped resolve things include a noticeboard discussion concerning a controversial MfD and the second close review of the Telegraph RfC. I closed both of these discussions with the successful goal of deescalating and resolving what had been contentious disputes. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:17, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12. Topical question, although the RfC has now closed: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:43, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I share the concerns of many of the editors who have signed: the Wikimedia Foundation should not release editors' information to Asian News International. However, I am inclined to think that the WMF does not intend to do so, and that publicly pressuring them to take this stand could potentially hurt us in the court case (as if they agree, the court would view the WMF as participating in the case in bad faith). Likewise, a blackout might make sense if it was "we will do this if you disclose data", but "we will do this unless you commit to not disclosing data" would interfere more directly with the WMF's strategy. That said, I understand that having personal data being handed over to a corporation that would be likely to sue you is quite scary, so I do not fault anyone for signing either the petition or the blackout RfC. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:03, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

13. Given the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in, do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unrealiable? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on antisemitism issues at ArbCom level and has been in denial of its scale thus far? Luxofluxo (talk) 21:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Antisemitism, like all forms of bigotry, is a conduct issue, becoming ArbCom's responsibility when the community fails to sufficiently address it. However, the ADL was listed as unreliable for antisemitism relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict as the result of a well-attended RfC closed by well-respected editors. As ArbCom does not adjudicate content disputes, overturning that is not in the committee's purview. Elli (talk | contribs) 00:44, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

14. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:02, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I've tried to address this in my answers to q2 and q4. Is there a more specific thing you would like clarity on? Elli (talk | contribs) 00:44, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:02, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Hearing cases on individual editors is not ideal, as it singles people out instead of addressing what are often broader conflicts. However, if there is a particular editor who persistently causes issues which the community fails to sufficiently address, ArbCom should be willing to step in to solve those issues. When doing so, the committee should make sure that an alternative framing of the case would not be more effective. Elli (talk | contribs) 00:44, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

16. ARBCOM serves a unique role in proceedings that desysop an admin, and when an editor is sanctioned or reinstated based on off-wiki evidence. Two questions: [1] what factors will you consider before accepting desysop cases where the admin is clearly WP:INVOLVED and yet the admin participates in or takes admin action against the editor after getting WP:INVOLVED; or where the involved admin threatens or sends hostile private messages to that editor; [2] what factors will you consider before accepting cases to sanction an editor (or a cabal of editors) with WP:COI where on-wiki and off-wiki evidence shows that the editor (or the cabal) is creating a distorted, misinformation-filled narrative in contested topic articles to further their off-wiki advocacy, social media activism, political activity or is adversely affecting Wikipedia due to their off-wiki coordination / canvassing. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:19, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

17. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator?Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:23, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Add your questions at the bottom of the page using the following markup:

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There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

1. Thank you for standing as a candidate. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:21, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I don't mean to dodge your question but I don't think I feel either optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the project. I do have "concerns" about factors that I think could impact the project.

   • I'm concerned about the use of AI by our newer editors and the randomness of when and how it is detected. I'm not sure how much AI has been discussed at AFC but I think reviewers need the appropriate tools to detect when a draft is machine generated. I'm ambivalent on the use of AI on the project, I can see how tempting it would be to editors who are not proficient in English but the writing itself is bland, almost always unsourced and subpar.
   • I'm concerned about Administrator elections. I think it is great that we have 11 new admins who have the support of the community but, with over 30 candidates to review and consider, I don't see how we could have wide-spread and quality participation in the entire process. There were just an unexpectedly high number of candidates. And I'm concerned that candidates who didn't "win" in this election will not consider having an RFA in the future. They should see this election as a trial run. I think this shouldn't be a "one and done" experiment, it should be assessed and reviewed over the next 5 years. The page states The community will discuss whether and how to proceed with administrator elections. but it's too soon to see how this discussion will happen.
   • I'm concerned about WMF's relationship with Wikipedia, especially that concern which is conveyed in Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation. This letter already has almost 800 signatures in just 5 days and I expect that number to grow. I think the disclosure of editor identities is something that needs to be called out before it becomes an ordinary event instead of an extraordinary one.
   • I'm concerned about editor burnout. As a regular closer at AFDs, I'm saddened to see the exodus of some of our regular participants and I know that this is not the only area of the project to see declines. The participation at TFDs and CFDs discussion is so low that sometimes "consensus" becomes the nominator's statement alone. While I applaud the few very knowledgeable editors who keep these forums going, low participation results in consensus that are less reflective of the community at large.
   • I'm concerned that our more-technically minded editors who create the tools we use to help us do our work do not always feel supported by WMF and their engineers and developers. It seems that every time a bot gets turned off, it causes a bit of anxiety over what will take care of these routine tasks for us but luckily we have some amazing editors who step up and try to build replacements, often in very little time.
   • If you look at my Edit Count breakdown, what will stand out is the number of edits I have in User talk space. Many of these edits are CSD notifications but a large share are Welcome messages and Invitations to the Teahouse. I'm heartened that I could probably do this activity full-time as we continue to grow as a community and new editors join the project. The puzzle is how to turn casual editors into experienced ones and that's impossible to predict.

   These are some of my concerns I have when I think about the future of the project and I'm sure over the next two weeks, I'll think of others, hopefully a few more positives to balance out the "concerns".

2. Please identify a substantive decision of the committee that you disagreed with within the last 3 years, and explain why. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:21, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Looking over cases from 2022-2024, I see two cases where I might have had a different opinion than the consensus of the committee. In the Small Cat case in the Proposed decision, there was a Proposed Remedy #2.3.4 called "BrownHairedGirl conduct restriction". This remedy had 4 arbitrators in support while 7 were opposed. While acknowledging that the evidence collected against BHG was damning, there were longstanding civility issues and BHG had previously violated editing restrictions, I probably would have argued in favor of this remedy or, at least, tried to conceive of an alternative sanction to an indefinite block. I know that my argument probably wouldn't have resulted in a different outcome but I wish there were more possible intermediate-level sanctions that could be considered between "No sanction" and an "Indefinite block". My opinion is based on BHG being an unofficial mentor to me when I first started editing in 2013 and my admiration for her contributions to the project and, because of this, I likely would have recused myself from participating in this case deliberation. But that's one instance where I disagreed with the committee consensus and that was the question you asked.

   Secondly, in the Conduct in Deletion-related editing case, remedy 4.3.7 a Request for Comment was proposed. An RFC was even set up at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/AfD at scale and the talk page shows that discussions concerning it went on from November 2022 to May 2023. But, in February 2023, the committee rescinded this remedy by Motion. This was due in part from a lack of participation. I am not privy to the committee's discussion about this Motion but I think I would have tried to brainstorm ways to get the community involved here because there are still ongoing problems at AFD with mass nominations and low quality participation that have only worsened as participation in AFD discussions has decreased. I know from my own AFD participation and discussion with other closers and AFD regulars, that this decrease in editor participation, except for "hot topic" article discussions, has been noted since the summer of 2023. This is a discussion that still has to happen and I think this RFC was a lost opportunity. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

3. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:46, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   This is the most challenging question posed to me so far. First, I'm not sure what the standard should be because I don't know what the current standard is right now, so it's hard to evaluate what aspects I would propose changes to or accept as appropriate. The existing standard could be more transparent to the community, I think, without any harm to any individual. But it very might be that ARBCOM decides whether to take a case based on private evidence on a case-by-case basis and has no "standard" to judge this which I find disconcerting.

   I think it should be possible to have a case based on private evidence especially when it involves harrassment but it does pose a thorny question on how to divulge information to the accused in order to allow them to defend themselves. I think I'm more concerned about the fairness of this process than how much of the prodeedings to reveal to the community. The Arbitration Committee often keeps information from the community, much to their frustration, so that is nothing new. But the accused needs to know what the accusations are in order to offer their own explanations or defend themselves. I don't see how it is possible to provide details about misconduct allegations without it being obvious about the identity of the filer so perhaps the accused could be asked to keep such information private which would require their agreement and cooperation. I don't think we can take that reaction as a given.

   So, to shorten what could be a long, exploration into the nature of privacy and arbitration deliberations (I can be very wordy), I'd have to say that I don't have an easy-to-sum up solution to the problem that you are validly pointing out and, if elected, I'd need to see how these cases are handled before advocating changes. But you have put your finger on a sensitive question which needs to be spelled out better by the committee to the community and I hope you will continue to pursue transparency here no matter who is elected.

4. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:55, 13 November 2024 (UTC); edited, 01:43, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   While I think a recall process for administrators is overdue, I think the current system needs to be refined, with the comment and voting portion shortened to the length of a standard RFA. 30 days is too long to keep an administrator who is the subject waiting to see how the recall will be concluded. If it takes a week to determine if an editor is suitable to be an admin, it should take a similar amount of time to determine whether they no longer have the trust of the community or, at least, of the editors who choose to take part in the process.

   I think a functional recall process will lower the number of cases that the committee is asked to review about administrator fitness. I think that arbitration cases should still be an option, especially if there are large amounts of evidence that need to be submitted and reviewed. The recall process, as it exists, is less adaptable to hear evidence from multiple editors and even if changes are made to it, it would not be a suitable avenue for that process to occur. So, I think Administrator recall will reduce the number of cases focused on administrator conduct that the committee is asked to consider but the arbitration option should continue to exist for more complicated cases that might involve multiple parties.

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:43, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5. Being on the committee requires a lot of time and presence and an enormous dedication. This would mean a radical restructuring and change in focus of the huge amount of essential admin work you already do. If you are accorded a seat, how do you plan to reorganise your time? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:32, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   You're absolutely right, Kudpung and thinking about this was part of the reason that I didn't submit my candidate application sooner in the process. I'm at a stage in my life where I have a fair amount of free time and I have spent much of it with my daily admin editing routine of tasks. And I find a lot of satisfaction from the work that I do right now.

   Even though I was an arbitration clerk for two years, the pace and workload of the committee members on a daily basis is unclear to me and I think it's also unknown to everyone who hasn't served on the committee. So, it's hard to know how much it will impact the editing work I do on the project. I'll obviously have to cut back but I'm less concerned about this change than I was a few months ago. In the spring and summer of this year, we had very few admin closers for AFDs but recently we've had a number of new and returning administrators coming to help out with AFDs so I have stepped away from closing so many of those. We also have more admins helping out with reviewing PRODs so I'm not worried about that area. My other main activity is reviewing stale drafts, CSD G13s, which takes a fair amount of time every day but I think it would be fairly easy to explain this process to one of our newly minted admins. So, while it will be hard for me, personally, to give up some of my daily habits, I have confidence that we have able and competent admins who can pick up the slack. I also think it is good for the project to not have any editor or admin who has "jurisdiction" over any one area of the encyclopedia. It's healthier for the project and its editors to have redundancy and have multiple administrators who can and do handle any particular task. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:52, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Thank you for your answer Liz. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:16, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:27, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I can only pick one? Several musings brought up reactions from me, both positive and negative but we can leave those to any follow-up questions.

   The one I'll select to reply to here is in the "On articles, deletion, etc" section and that is I believe Wikipedia would better serve its readers better with a smaller number of more detailed articles with a broader scope than with many thousands of short articles on (for example) individual athletes or species. While I understand your point, Wikipedia is dependent on our content creators who are volunteers and they have their own subjects of interest and knowledge. So, we are richer in areas where we have editors who have expertise in an area whether that is railway lines, German tanks, species of toads in South America, songs of the 1960s or turn of the 20th century vaudeville performers in the UK. Who becomes a content creator and what their focus is lies beyond anyone's control.

   For example, I think that the subject area of sociology is really substandard on Wikipedia. We don't have enough articles and many of our articles introducing basic concepts are not well-developed because it is more challenging to write a well-referenced article with a "broader scope" that is not overly long about an abstract concept than it is to write an article about characters in a popular TV series. But until we get more experienced and capable editors who want to take on this area as a project to work on, it will remain in a poor state. Our editors and their areas of interest is not equally distributed or proportional to the importance of the topic. So, while it might be an interesting thought experiment to consider the Wikipedia we think should exist, we are lucky to have well-referenced and well-written articles that we do have whether or not they are on "important" subjects or on topics that have a narrow interest. The composition of Wikipedia reflects the interests of our editors over 23 years, for better or worse.

   An aside:I wouldn't have pegged you as a Swiftie! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:52, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

7. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:57, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Well, the essay you link to, Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing, is a pointed critique of how ARBCOM has neglected to address this POV pushing behavior. I agree with some of the points it makes. But, generally, the Arbitration Committee responds to case requests that are brought to its attention or evidence that is sent to them through email, it doesn't go out and investigate matters without an initiative like these and these are complaints that have typically gone through prior attempted levels of resolution before arriving at arbitration. But I think POV pushing is and has been an element of discussion when brought up in formal arbitration cases, especially through the evidence phase of a case. But the committee isn't a police force than can monitor noticeboards and lay down sanctions when complaints are brought to ANI or NPOVN. POV pushing is definitely one form of misconduct that can be considered in arbitration proceedings but its sphere of influence on the project is intentionally restricted to the realm of arbitration cases and private communication. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:52, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8. What is a past ArbCom case that you would have decided or handled differently? Pinguinn 🐧 04:03, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Hello, Pinguinn, thank you for your question but I think I answered this already in Question #2. If you have a different but follow-up question you'd like to ask about a specific case, I'd be happy to address it. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:52, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I have decided that since you phrased the question differently than Question #2, I should supply an answer to it. I think if I was an arbitrator years ago, I would have handled Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS differently than the final consensus of the committee. This case was hampered by the lack of participation of RexxS in this case so while there was an opportunity to hear his defense against the valid accusations that were made, unfortunately, he didn't take advantage of it. But I don't think I would have cast a vote to desysop him.

   The evidence was unquestionably solid that there were instances of incivility and misuse of tools (or the threat of their misuse) but I believe that RexxS had also been a responsible administrator in general. I think an editing restriction or topic ban from the areas of COVID19 or, even broader, MEDRS for a year and an admonishment might have been more appropriate since these were the general subject areas where many of the problems occurred. I don't think any administrator gets a pass from ADMINACCT and some of his conduct was unacceptable. It's just unfortunate that he chose to withdraw from the proceedings and not be responsive to complaints because, ultimately, I think that influenced the committee's decision to desysop him. But I would have supported an alternative sanction in this case. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:51, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9. What are your plans to help the arbitration committee manage its workload effectively? isaacl (talk) 18:45, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Hello, isaacl, this is a difficult quesion to answer given that I've never been on the committee before so I don't have a view behind the scenes to see how large the workload is or how it is currently managed. I think the arbitration clerks are essential to the committee functioning efficiently so a concern of mine would always be to have a full roster of active clerks able to assist the committee with their work.

   As I said in my candidate statement, when I was a clerk and now working as an administrator, I frequently heard complaints from editors, active and blocked ones, who stated that they written email messages and sometimes follow-up emails but stated that they hadn't received any response or, at least, not a timely one, from the committee. I think that while arbitration cases get the lion's share of attention from editors, correspondence via email remains largely hidden but can be a sizeable element of the committee's workload and if I could help out with one aspect of their workload, it would be to ensure that editors sending messages received a timely receipt that, yes, their message had been received and an estimated time when they could expect a fuller response from the committe. I understand that this estimate may be difficult to approximate but I don't think editors writing to the committee should be faced with silence or months of waiting to hear back. Again, I don't know what email system is in place right now but I'd like to see some form of structured email response or maybe even have one arbitrator designated the Traffic Manager to ensure that no email requests get lost or forgotten in the committee's Inbox. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:06, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I appreciate your response within the bounds of your experience. isaacl (talk) 23:36, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10. If a request for another arbitrator's recusal was referred to the Committee (e.g., during a case request), what would be your decision-making process? DanCherek (talk) 21:30, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I assume these discussions, should they happen, are done privately, off-wiki, through email until some sort of consensus is reached. If there is a general agreement that recusal is appropriate and the arbitrator disagrees, I assume that these decisions are handled through persuasion, not any kind of committee enforcement. At least, in the past when I have seen clerks and arbitrators recuse themselves, it has appeared to me to be voluntary. I'm not aware of a case where the committee demanded an arbitrator recuse themselves but, as you know, much of the committee's business is done privately. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:32, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

11. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard would you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:30, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I support transparency unless there is a pressing need for privacy to be honored. An example I can think of is during the Gamergate incident back in 2014-2015, I was doxxed for comments I made on social media and I think if a case or request for a motion with a similar highly public profile is taken, the committee might chose just revealing outcomes in order to avoid harrassment of committee members. But I think those occasions are rare and, in general, transparency should be the road taken most often. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:32, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12. I apologize for overestimating your knowledge of the arbitration committee workload based on your clerk experience. I'll ask the question I asked other candidates who were not arbitrators previously (though I appreciate your answer to question 5 covers part of it): What have you done to prepare yourself to understand the arbitration committee's workload, and to manage your time to handle it? isaacl (talk) 23:36, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    isaacl, the work of a clerk is, if I remember rightly, about setting up case pages once a case request has been accepted by the committee and posting a lot of notifications on the user talk pages of involved parties during the course of an open case and then, after it closes. We follow instructions from the committee members and I remember there were a ton of different templates we used to set up cases and post notices. We were sometimes asked to monitor case talk pages in case there were inappropriate comments, check to make sure that statements stayed within the word limits and we also reviewed new candidates who wanted to become clerks. But normally, communication went one-way, the committee told us what was needed and we carried out their requests. So, there was no peak into what the committee's deliberations and correspondence were composed of.

    That's just background to situate my understanding of the committee from the stance of a former arbitration clerk. I haven't done a great deal to prepare for this change of status if I am elected. To answer some questions on this page, I reviewed some recent cases handled by the committee but when I was a clerk, I spent a fair amount of time reading up on older cases so I think I have a good foundational knowledge of the committee's history. The workload of the committee has changed a lot since when it was first established and fewer cases are accepted than in the past. As for the second part of your question, I'll refer you to the question asked by Kudpung, #5 where I go into the time management question and how my editing routine will change if I am put on the committee. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:13, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

13. I have always respected the work you do, especially in coordination with DumbBOT. You have very high activity/edits/deletions. Do you think joining ArbCom might impact/decrease your usual activity? —usernamekiran (talk) 06:21, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello, kiran, thank you for the compliment! Regarding DumbBOT, I'm guessing that you are referring to Proposed deletions. Right now, we have 4 admins who review PROD'd articles and files which is sufficient number to cover the area. But I think if we lost a few admins in this area of the project, we could get more help if we just put out a call on WP:AN, that usually works at least for a temporary boost in admin help.

    As for my current workload, I think I addressed this in Kudpung's Question #5. But just to address your inquiry here, yes, being on the committee will naturally decrease the amount of time I have for my regular routine of editing and admin tasks which mostly involve page deletions and AFD closures. But aside from stale drafts, CSD G13s, I think we have plenty of coverage with PRODs and AFDs to pick up whatever activity I have to step back from. And we have 11 new admins with enthusiasm so I'm positive that none of the areas I work in will "fall behind". The biggest change won't be to the encyclopedia but to me personally...over the past 4 years I have set up a daily routine of tasks I do throughout the day and that routine will need to change. And since most people are creatures of habit, that will be an adjustment for me. But I think change can also be transformative and no area of the project should be "owned" by one or two editors or admins, it's not healthy for our content creation, for our editors, for other admins or for Wikipedia. There always should be multiple admins who can cover a particular task, call it admin redundacy. This also serves to decrease editor or admin burnout. I considered the impact of being appointed to the committee before submitting my candidate's statement and, yeah, as much as I love the work I do, I posted it any way! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:02, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

14. Topical and somewhat urgent question: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. (this question is from User:Martinevans123 Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:05, 18 November 2024 (UTC))[reply]

    I thought this answer would be an immediate and short, "Me, too!" But since I've only been lightly following this crisis, I had to do a lot of reading on WMF privacy and transparency policies before responding.

    • While I agree with the sentiments of the letter, the outrage being expressed at Wikipedia talk:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation has me second-guessing my participation. Speculation, sometimes fueled by brand new accounts who have never edited an article, is running rampant. Jimmy Wales and folks from the WMF occasionally drop into a discussion and repeatedly say "But nothing has happened yet! Stay calm for now." and their claims are dismissed because they are in conflict with sources people find through Google, some of which seem not particularly reliable.
    • As for the RFC, I haven't read ALL of those comments (and I don't have a full day to read them all) but my question would be with the mechanics of this proposal. Should an RFC that ran for 2 days determine whether or not this high profile website is "blacked out" to all of our global readership? Do the viewpoints of participating editors in an RFC reflect that of our editor community? And, how exactly would a blackout function? Why would the WMF staff members, who could actually make a blackout happen, follow guidance from an RFC on the English Wikipedia? It's not like there is a big red button that an admin or arbitrator can push to cause a blackout to happen. For a blackout to happen, there needs to be communication between the English Wikipedia and WMF and most of the comments I read about the WMF on these pages come from a place of doubt and mistrust which I think would not aid our project in obtaining any cooperation from the tech crew at WikiMedia.
    • Finally, I read Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-11-06/In focus and, way at the bottom of the article, under "What is the most negative thing that Wikimedians in India have said about this case?" is a paragraph expressing that our editing community in India might have a very different view of this incident than our editors in Western countries. The fact that some of our Indian editors might support complying with the court order puts a complicated spin on this case. I think their opinions are just as valid as those of editors from the U.S. or other industrialized countries.
    • So, what I'm left with is that the Open Letter is fine but regarding all of the other suggestions being floated, it seems like there is a lot of agitation when we are operating in an environment of knowing very little of what is actually happening between WMF legal counsel and the courts in India. Signing a petition of support for the WMF taking a hard stance on not revealing editor information is laudable but some of the other proposals being suggested are an overreaction and should be tabled until there is actual confirmation, from a very reliable source, not a blog, that there has been some movement in this case. Until then, I just see a lot of speculation and outrage being expressed based on very little information. I understand that anonymity on the Internet strikes home for many of us but this is not the best climate to make decisions that could impact the situation. And there is still the unasked question on whether our editing community has any influence over this situation at all, which, I believe, is questionable.

    And that is my very long answer to what seemed like a simple question. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:04, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Many thanks for your very thorough and thoughtful answer. I'll even sign my comment here. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:12, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15. I'm not sure if I'm doing this properly (as it is my first time participating in one of these forums). However, I am curious if you feel that certain articles on Wikipedia have political bias. I would also like to know if you have any solutions to combat NPOV violations on the website. Thank you, Microplastic Consumer (talk) 01:48, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, you doing so properly, Microplastic Consumer, so congratulations!

    Because I haven't read all of the articles on Wikipedia, which is getting close to 7 million now, I can't say for certain that there are no articles on the project which contain a political bias. It's likely there are some out there which have yet to be discovered. Luckily, we have our WP:NPOVN and WP:RSN noticeboards where questions about POV in articles and the quality of sources can be discussed.

    But I think it's an ongoing problem to combat POV on this project because, as the NPOV policy page states, Editors, while naturally having their own points of view, should strive in good faith to provide complete information and not to promote one particular point of view over another. So, all editors come to the project with their own biases that they have to learn to keep in check when editing, especially in controversial subjects. I think adopting a more neutral stance when contributing to articles is an acquired skill and it is typically newer editors who both complain that there is bias present on the project and who can lean into POV writing habits. So, POV problems are partially an issue of editor education. If I was to grade this project, I'd say our efforts to educate problematic editors, rather than bringing them to ANI are okay, I'd rate it as a B-. Some editors are better than others at spending time trying to correct bad habits. We have to do better at this and start considering editor education as an investment into future editing, not as POV policing. A good start is to write personal messages on subjects like this rather than relying only on templates. But this is a subject that I can go on about at length and is veering away from your initial question so I'll stop myself here. I hope I addressed your concerns. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:57, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

16. Given the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in, do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unreliable in certain areas? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on antisemitism issues at ArbCom level and has been in denial of its scale thus far? Luxofluxo (talk) 21:22, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I assume that by "the current antisemitism scandal" that involves Wikipedia you are referring to the online story making claims that there is off-wiki coordination in editing certain Wikipedia articles, is that right? Right now, a case request to look into these claims has been put forward at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Covert canvassing and proxying in the Israel-Arab conflict topic area and is being considered so that is one way that ARBCOM can look into charges like this.

    As to the more general comment about antisemitism on the project, I do think that this is a problem but I wouldn't call it widespread. But it does occasionally appear in complaints brought to WP:ANI where the offending editors are generally indefinitely blocked very quickly. But Wikipedia, like any social institution, especially one that exists online, is subject to participation by bad faith actors who bring all sorts of bias with them against certain religions, ethnicities, nationalities, races, genders, gender orientation and gender identity, I think we've seen it all and I think I can confidently claim that there is a zero tolerance for discriminatory statements to fellow editors or POV pushing in editing articles when it is brought to the attention of the community. If you are arguing that ARBCOM has been "in denial of its scale", I'd like more specifics of where you have seen this because nothing is coming to my mind of where this has occurred. Thank you for your question, I think it's an ongoing struggle to maintain our article's integrity and our editors safe. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:25, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Addendum: It looks like the case request I mentioned above has been declined by the committee but according to a message on the ARBCOM noticeboard, (Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration motions regarding Palestine-Israel articles), a new case, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5 will be opening on November 30th to examine the dynamics of the current situation involving PIA articles and some involved editors on Wikipedia. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:12, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

17. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:04, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello, Robert. Thank you for your questions. I believe I addressed the issue of private evidence in Question #3 (above).

    Additionally, reading over the recently declined PIA case request again yesterday, I saw several ideas suggested in the statements made by editors that I think might be considered. The most promising is to for the filing editor to post a case request, say that the case is dependent, in large part, on private evidence and just have this be an announcement. Statements from other editors would not help resolve whether or not the committee should accept or decline the case since no one but the committee and the filing party has access to this evidence. But editors on the project would be informed that there was an open case that the committee was considering, know what the subject was and what other parties might be involved. And that would be all that was allowed to be posted so that there wouldn't be the inappropriate speculation that occurred at times with this recent case request. Then, after the committee decided whether or not to accept the case, it would either be opened, if there was also public evidence to be considered, or the case resolution would be announced if it was not possible to hold a case in public. That is not transparent but this seems to be a development that has to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:32, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

18. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:04, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I think it is valid for the arbitration committee to accept cases focused on a specific editor, on a group of editors or on a subject area if this issue has come before the community before and a resolution has not been found. The determination of whether or not to accept a case would be determined in large part of the previous discussions that have been held about this subject along with preliminary statements from members of the community on whether they believe that the situation is not resolvable except through an arbitration case or, perhaps, just a motion. I've seen several declined case requests that resulted because a subject was still being discussed in an ANI complaint and it was not clear yet that the community could not find a resolution so the case request was premature. I should add that what I outlined is the current process for arbitration cases and I'm not proposing anything different from the status quo. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:33, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

19. (With respect to Q14) Apologies if this is not the right place for this, but it's also the highest profile place to point this out. Liz, I will note that the "In focus" section says "What is the most negative thing" not "What is the consensus view". I'd be wary of extrapolating from that specific section as it will lead to false conclusions about what the Indian editing community wants.
    But to make this a proper question as well, What do you think Enwiki's Arbcom can do to help here? I believe there's a thing that can be done, just not what precisely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Soni (talk • contribs) 05:15, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello, Soni. You're correct, the opinions expressed in that section of Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-11-06/In focus story were just a sample of editors who were willing to discuss the issue and so don't represent the consensus of editors in India. By mentioning this point in that story, I meant to imply that the subject is more complicated than was reflected by talk page comments I was seeing on Wikipedia talk:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation. Since ARBCOM's jurisdictional area is the English Wikipedia, I'm not sure of their role in this legal dispute. The only avenue of influence I can see is the more informal role the committee has as a liaison between the English Wikipedia community of editors and the WMF. But, my gut feeling is that once a conflict enters the legal/court realm, it's the lawyers who are calling the shots and, at best, the community can restate their concerns to the Foundation. But that's just my opinion from my limited knowledge of how WMF operates. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:46, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

21. ARBCOM serves a unique role in proceedings that desysop an admin, that sanction or reinstate editing privileges of an editor when on-wiki and/or off-wiki evidence is compelling. Two questions: [1] what factors will you consider in deciding to desysop an admin when evidence shows that they have been WP:INVOLVED with an editor, yet have taken admin action against that editor or have threatened or scolded or sent hostile messages to that editor off-wiki through email or other forms of private messaging; [2] what factors will you consider in deciding to discipline editor (or a cabal of editors) with WP:COI who insert misinformation or who grossly misrepresent peer-reviewed scholarly sources in en-Wikipedia articles to further their off-wiki advocacy, social media campaigns, political causes and such. Particularly when there is compelling evidence that this behavior is by an editor who has long standing, off-wiki friendship with one or more admin(s). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 05:10, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    My familiarity with past cases has demonstrated that probably the biggest influence on the deposition of a case, whether for admin misconduct or another subject, is the persuasiveness of the evidence presented in that phase of a case. I have seen, multiple times, that the committee wanted to a different case result (in a little or big way) but the evidence presented was perhaps only partial or incomplete. I think this highlights the role of Wikipedia editors in the outcome of cases, often in findings, specific evidence presented by an editor is cited as the chief reason for the committee's decision. That's why I think it is a mistake for involved editors to "sit out" arbitration cases, as if what they say will have no effect on the outcome because, on the contrary, the cogent statement of evidence can greatly influence what the eventual decision is.

    I'm not sure if this answers your two questions, I just want to highlight that arbitrators don't act on their own knowledge of the involved parties in a case but come to their decision based on the earlier phases of the case. I think if you review questions posted to current or past arbitrators in this phase of the election, you can see that some arbitrators have stated that they might have wished for a different outcome in a case but that was not where the evidence led the committee members.Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:46, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

22. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator?Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:51, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Actually, I've never acted as an arbitrator before, this is my first election and I've never served on the committee. As for my work as an editor, I guess the thorniest area that I have worked in was during the Gamergate crisis around 2014-2016 when I spent a lot of time on the article talk page, trying to deescalate disputes. I had mixed success as the sides of the argument were pretty entrenched.

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1. Thank you for standing as a candidate and for your service as an arbitrator. Please describe your self-assessment of your successes and failures as a member of the committee with as much specificity as you feel comfortable with. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:27, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I think one of my largest successes as an Arbitrator was as a drafter for WP:HJP; we had an unusual case structure with a huge body of evidence to work through, and the three drafters communicated really well to make sure things went as smoothly as they could. With all of the recent talk about (in)activity of Arbitrators, I would note that I have been officially inactive for approximately three weeks across my tenure, and only unofficially for a little longer than that.

   As far as failures go, I think the largest one was around the COI management case; I got caught up in the drama, made some mistakes, and did not really act in the most professional manner.

2. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:27, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I am optimistic to still see new accounts joining the project; while Wikipedia does tend to have a high turnover, seeing new editors making efforts to write drafts or even just make grammatical corrections means that we have not stopped being relevant in society.

   On the pessimistic side, I feel like we have seen an explosion of intractable disagreements; there have always been disputes on Wikipedia but I feel like the number of highly-contentious RFCs and drama spreading across multiple pages has increased significantly in the last five years or so. This is not necessarily something unique to Wikipedia — as it really is more of a societal/global issue — but it is in stark contrast to my optimistic point, especially when new(er) users get harassed or otherwise harangued by experienced editors who sometimes act insulted that someone would have an opposing view. It makes me somewhat concerned that our rules and policies will start being ignored or removed simply because a vocal minority manages to push everyone else in that direction.

3. In Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conflict of interest management, there were 2 negative FoF about you. You were one of the four parties to the case, but claimed that "as I was recused from the get-go I was not following the case" (here) and elsewhere even (as an excuse for why you used your tools while involved) "I am not involved in that case" about a case to which you were a party! Why should we trust someone to be a good Arb who shows such disdain for or complete ignorance of ArbCom cases? Fram (talk) 08:55, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   As I mentioned in the answer to Q1: I made some mistakes and did not act in the most professional manner when it came to the COI case and the related events. I admitted as much, attempted to clarify some of the related editing around the recusal, and the Committee found that acceptable for moving forward. I know I cannot win back the trust of anyone who feels as you do regarding this case, but I would hope that for those who are on the fence they will see my actions following the initial incidents have indicated that I learned from this situation and will do my utmost to avoid it in the future.

   Doesn't really answer the questions posed, "Why should we trust someone to be a good Arb who shows such disdain for or complete ignorance of ArbCom cases?" I am not talking here about your actions before the case opened, but about your actions (and lack of them) during the case, and your bewildering comments that you claimed not to be involved in a case where you were a party and so on. Fram (talk) 16:54, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I do not believe I showed disdain or ignorance of an ArbCom case, as I explained in the Workshop. If that means I cannot answer your question, then so be it. Primefac (talk) 17:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Then how would you describe someone who is a party to a case but can't be bother to follow it and even claims they aren't involved in it? What, if not ignorance or disdain, is your explanation for this? Fram (talk) 17:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   It is not that I "[couldn't] be bothered to follow it", it was that I knew that my part in the case was small, and that I did not need to watch every piece of evidence coming in the case that I would need to rebut or explain something. As I have said multiple times now in multiple locations, my "I am not involved" was a poorly-worded reply indicating that I was not involved as a member of ArbCom in the matter. Primefac (talk) 18:08, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. Are there any topic areas from which you would recuse yourself from while acting as an arbitrator? If so, what set of facts informs that decision? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:47, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I cannot think of anything specific off-hand, though some advice I was given as a new arb was to not become involved with disputes regarding administrators (e.g. conduct issues at AN) because those issues might make their way to ARC and if I were involved in the lower levels it would be much more difficult for me to remain neutral overseeing a case. For similar reasons I do not edit in CTOP areas or work AE, though for the latter it is also that I am not really interested in editing those subjects.

5. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:46, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I know this is a bit of a cop-out answer, but the standard should be the same for a case request based on public evidence: we should be reasonably convinced that the preliminary statement is enough to demonstrate that a case is needed. We have handled a number of cases with private evidence involved in them in the near past; I was going to list them but the historical elections case has a motion stating basically what my answer would be: if private evidence is collected, the editor(s) to which that evidence relates will be informed of what it is so they can have a chance to explain or otherwise reply to that evidence.

6. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC); edited, 01:44, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   On a day-to-day basis, I do not think it will affect us much. We have seen a number of cases in the last few years of admins making mistakes and (with very small exception) not owning up to them, and there have been a couple of cases which were so big and mighty that we almost had to take them (I am thinking specifically of this case but there are others as well). Administrator recall will likely help out with some of the former instances, as disengaged admins will do so whether at recall or before arbcom, but since those cases are usually closed by motion or end up as suspended anyway it is not necessarily going to save us a ton of time or deliberation since we were not going to be expending that much in the first place. Recall is also not a fast process, so if someone must be desysopped we will likely be dealing with it anyway.

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:44, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

7. Your comment above: ...cases in the last few years of admins making mistakes and (with very small exception) not owning up to them... reminds me of a proverb attributed to Seneca: errare humanum est, perseverare autem diabolicum. Considering that such mistakes may or may not be evidence of an egregious pattern, when hearing a case do you believe that before pronouncing its verdict, sentence, or acquittal, the committee should examine the evidence more deeply, or simply as in the practice of RfC, evaluate, report, and action the consensus of the opinion of those requesting/demanding sanctions balanced with those providing arguments for mitigation? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:51, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   The Committee should always look at the evidence deeply; it does not (or should not) particularly matter how many people advocate for one position or another when it comes to sanctions, we need to look at the evidence and see where it leads us in relation to existing policies, guidelines, and norms. For a case such as WP:HJP, we even set up a separate summary page for evidence, not only to make this evaluation easier for the non-drafting arbs but also to further remove the evidence from the people giving it.

   Thank you for your answer, Primefac

8. Why was momentary admin candidate Saqib BLOCKED? {{ArbComBlock}} only answers the question "who?", not "why?" – wbm1058 (talk) 15:59, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Unfortunately I am not free to discuss the matter or provide information on what prompted this block.

9. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:36, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Original "silly" answer in Special:Diff/1257540801

   In a similar vein, we should delete articles about people who are not public figures if they ask for it. I agree with this sentiment, but I know why people do not agree with it - once someone has "attained notability" then the attitude on Wikipedia is that they will always be notable. Despite WP:SUSTAINED and WP:BLP1E, even those with a mere 15 seconds of fame find themselves indelibly printed on the electronic ink of this encyclopedia (my personal bugbear on the subject, which is not a BLP, is Unicorn Frappuccino, which I have been trying to redirect pretty much since it was written). As you say elsewhere in your musings, we really do need to tighten down our notability criteria for living people, but we should also respect that if someone just barely surpasses 1E and wants to be removed, we should weight that consideration much more heavily than is done at the current time.

10. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:57, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As stated in the essay, it is hard for ArbCom to address these issues; on the surface they are not necessarily conduct issues but instead long-running content issues where people get tired of arguing the same points and eventually giving up (for whatever reason). I think that is where we come in, though; we are one of the few bodies that has a structure wherein we can look at mountains of evidence, collate them, and determine whether long-term sealioning is happening.

11. What is a past ArbCom case that you would have decided or handled differently? Pinguinn 🐧 04:03, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    We should have been more forceful and not accepted the request to hold this case publicly; we already had all of the information around the incident, the damage was done, and for once the case really did feel like a foregone conclusion with little chance of any different outcome than the one we arrived at. The case provided nothing except a forum for grievances to be aired during the Evidence phase.

12. What are your plans to help the arbitration committee manage its workload effectively? isaacl (talk) 18:45, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I plan to keep throwing things at the wall and see what sticks. We have tried a number of things over the last four years to keep on top of our workload; some of them have worked (e.g. no longer routinely hearing CU blocks) while others have not done as well (e.g. finding a platform where we can triage and track incoming emails). One of the best (and worst) things has been having a single Arb who is really good at keeping on top of a specific task; for example, Maxim and Izno were really good at keeping our list of unblock requests updated, but when their terms ended we did not have anyone that stepped into that role. We continue to have discussions internally (and occasionally externally) to keep thinking of ideas of how best to track our workload, and I will probably be a part of any future discussions on the matter.

    As a followup, based on your experiences with the various roles arbitrators have played, what plans do you have to garner the beneficial aspects? isaacl (talk) 19:40, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    This is just me spitballing, but I almost feel like we need to have "official" positions within ArbCom (voluntarily taken up, of course). For example, someone should respond to incoming mail (e.g. "we have received this" usually), someone should be tracking status on ArbWiki, someone should be making sure business that has been delayed or forgotten gets bumped back to the top. If each position has 1-2 arbs working it, we won't be assuming that just because Arb X responded to the last fifteen emails, they will respond to the sixteenth. Primefac (talk) 19:48, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

13. When a request for another arbitrator's recusal is referred to the Committee (e.g., during a case request), what is your decision-making process? DanCherek (talk) 21:31, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    If we are formally asked to consider a recusal, our decision is usually based on past interactions of that arbitrator with the subject, be it an editor or a topic. Arbitrators do not exist in a vacuum but at the same time recusal is as much about being seen to do the right thing as it is actually doing it. That being said, as I have said (on-list) during such discussions, requests to recuse need to include a substantial reason why the normal day-to-day editing of the arbitrator in question are in conflict with the case.

14. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard do you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:31, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    For me, it largely comes down to why we are posting the decision. If the rationale and the ruling is fairly clear, it is likely people will know how the voting broke down. For something that may be contentious or otherwise confusing, we may release the tally, either as an implied statement of "the committee all agreed on this" or "the Committee was divided but this is our final decision". One reason not to post would be for things like functionary appointments; it largely does not matter if a person is appointed with 71% or 100%, they are still a functionary and are held to the same standards, but posting the votes might make people think that an editor with the first value was somehow less capable.

15. There are currently ten active arbitrators out of a possible 15, and arbitrator activity appears to have been the cause of some matters before the Committee stalling – for example, motions in the recent ARBPIA amendment request were only recently enacted almost three months after the initial referral from AE, and it has been noted that an email sent to the Committee in the summer containing private evidence may have fell by the wayside as [an] enormous issue that no one had the energy to dive into. As someone who has served on ArbCom, is there anything that you think the community, the committee, and/or the WMF could/should do in order to (either directly or indirectly) improve arbitrator retention, and/or prevent arbitrator burnout? ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 12:59, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    See my answers in #12 for more, but I think it is because for a long time we had one or two arbs who tracked ongoing matters, and I think no one really realised exactly how much that affected our workflow, not just the new arbs, and their absence meant that things slowly slipped. I will do my best to make sure this year does not repeat itself as far as productivity goes.

16. Topical and somewhat urgent question: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:43, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    It is flawed, panicky, and the Foundation is considering disclosing identifying private information about volunteer editors is patently false because it is built on a lack of information.

    Thanks for answering before I even remembered to sign. Full marks for succinctness. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:43, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

17. You are the only arbitrator running for re-election that has not yet commented on the CheckUser and COIVRT appointments noticeboard discussion. I'd be interested to learn your thoughts on how the Committee handled Bishonen's unexpected rejection, and –if you are comfortable with sharing it– what your vote on Bishonen was. Ian P. Tetriss (talk) 17:51, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I have not commented primarily because the other Arbs have said most of what I would have said myself, but I fully agree with HJ Mitchell's statement That the appointments were announced publicly before an unsuccessful candidate was told the reasons for their failure is disgraceful. This was not handled well, for various reasons, and we are taking steps that means it hopefully does not happen again.

    Thank you. Ian P. Tetriss (talk) 00:20, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

18. How do you propose to deal with the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in? Do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unrealiable? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on this at ArbCom level? Luxofluxo (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    This is a rather loaded question, and not one that I am sure I can give a proper answer to without spending an inordinate amount of time researching; I am not even sure what "the current antisemitism scandal" is referring to. I will note that WP:RSPADL indicates that ADL is "generally considered reliable" outwith the ARBPIA areas.

    I suppose the best answer I can give to the question of How do you propose to deal with [it] is to suggest filing a case request; if there really is an intractable issue that the community cannot deal with on its own, then ArbCom should take a look.

19. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:06, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I know this may sound like a simplistic solution to a complex problem, but posting as much information as possible maximizes transparency. Just like at COIN or other dispute resolution boards, it is possible to say something like "User:Joe Bloggs has a COI with Acme Corp <private evidence>" without needing to indicate what that private evidence may be, or its provenance. Following the evidence phase of a case, if there is private evidence we will almost always let the party/parties related to that evidence know what has been presented (so they can rebut) and we generally post a top-level summary of that private evidence so if necessary it can be referred to in the PD.

20. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:06, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    ArbCom can (and does) occasionally hear cases on individual editors, though lately it has ended up looking at a subject area even if the case request was against a specific editor (mainly due to how the case request is laid out). I think the criteria should be the same for any case request: that the filer and commentors make a reasonable case why the community is unable to handle the issue(s) with the editor in question.

22. Could you link me to some of your edits that deal with highly complex moral or controversial topics (sexual crimes, political repression, colonization history, high profile entertainers and such) and edits on talk pages regarding similar themes in which you acted as an arbitrator? Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 11:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    To be honest, I tend to stay away from those sorts of areas in my daily editing. I have mediated discussions in which participants were being unruly, but nothing immediately comes to mind neither in the near past nor in the areas in which you are asking. I have acted as an Arbitrator (big A) in almost every case we have taken over the last four years, in particular WP:HJP and WP:KURDS where I was one of the drafters.

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There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

1. I think many would say the activity levels of the committee this year has been a concern. Your last 250 edits go back to February 2023. Are you sure that you can commit to the activity levels necessary to make ArbCom productive? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:19, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Yes. As I explained in my statement, I've had difficulty seeing; vision during daylight hours has been just awful. I've had two operations over the summer and need one more; it's been painful and I don't think the pain is over just yet, but I'm much improved. I've also been able to keep up with the functionary activity requirements, though my CU activity hasn't been as high because that takes a different kind of attention to detail than OS does. I'll get back to regular CU work in a couple of weeks. Katie^talk 00:30, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2. Thank you for standing as a candidate and for your past service as an arbitrator. Please describe your self-assessment of your successes and failures as a former member of the committee with as much specificity as you feel comfortable with. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:27, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Well, I kept you in line, didn't I? ;-) (not sure if that's a success or a failure tbh) I think my favorite successes were ban appeals that needed the attention of an experienced CU. Sometimes we get things wrong, and the good-faith editors who get caught up in that need serious help. I'm glad I was there and able to assist in a few cases. Failures are legion, but the worst for me was the Fram ban, because I think we (and previous committees) could have intervened sooner on multiple occasions on multiple fronts, and that's all I'll say about that. Katie^talk 00:59, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

3. Please describe what makes you feel (a) optimistic and (b) pessimistic about the future of the project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:27, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I'm optimistic because the WMF is on sound financial ground, the servers are going to keep running for the foreseeable future (y'all, you do not want to know how bad it was 15 years ago), and we've got lots of new editors and admins to keep on keepin' on, so to speak. It's encouraging to see the new admin elections process and I'm eager to see how it works out. I'm worried, though, that while the smaller projects under the WMF umbrella are important, attention to enwiki's needs isn't always paid to the extent I feel it should be. They're not ignoring us but the shift to the affiliate structure is worrisome to me. And while I have not (yet) signed the petition to the WMF over the issue in India, I share the concerns of those who have signed, and I fear that the WMF is going to come under more pressure from more governments and outside entities who want more control and less freedom. Katie^talk 00:59, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. Are there any topic areas from which you would recuse yourself from while acting as an arbitrator? If so, what set of facts informs that decision? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:48, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I did recuse from the process which ultimately ended with Bbb23 losing his CU bit, and I did that for personal reasons. Other than that, I can't think of anything going forward that I'd recuse from. If I missed something that I recused from in my first stint on the committee, please jog my memory. Katie^talk 17:57, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5. What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? Carrite (talk) 19:47, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Up there where Kevin asked about failures? This is one of them. IIRC, we wanted to outline a procedure for private evidence in 2020 but didn't for whatever reason – probably it got buried under the deluge of stuff that comes in unexpectedly. I wish we had. It's a difficult question you've asked, because everybody has rights in a case. On one hand we need to protect the privacy of someone who genuinely feels they need it, and on the other hand we don't want to have things disappear into a star chamber-like process.

   So let's say, off the top of my very simplistic head here, that we've got a dispute between Editor A, who wants a private case, and Editor B. In my mind, we start with reviewing the private evidence of Editor A, discussing it, and as a body come to an agreement that a private case is or is not warranted. If it's rejected, Editor A has to be allowed the choice of backing out or taking it the normal route to file. If it's accepted as a private case, then Editor B has to be allowed to see that evidence. How can Editor B pull in diffs and support from Editors C and D – how do we allow C and D to be approached? Does Arbcom do it? Does B do it? And how do we get all these people to agree to confidentiality? Do we get a simple agreement? Do we have them sign the ANPDP and put it under that umbrella? Do we have to bake it into the ToU or the UCoC, something like 'if you're a party to a private case and you disclose private evidence, it's a one-way ticket to Indef Block Land'?

   Now, having said all that, I don't know what the current procedures are since I left the group at the end of 2021. That's all behind the curtain to me now, so I don't want to throw the current arbs under my magic privacy bus. Like I said, it's hard, but I think answering these questions is a place to start. Katie^talk 20:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6. Recently, the WP:Administrator recall, including WP:RRFA, has become procedural policy. Theoretically and practically, how would the admin recalling process affect the activity of ArbCom in any way? George Ho (talk) 23:57, 13 November 2024 (UTC); edited, 01:45, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   I think it's too soon to tell. Level I and II procedures remain in place, so there's no change there at the moment. Whether the community or the committee decide to make RRFA the sole method of admin recall remains to be seen. I think it's good to have two routes for editors troubled by admin conduct, because we've seen in the past that it can be difficult to get a desysop case through when that sanction is warranted, and sometimes a case can result in a desysop when many community members feel that punishment is too harsh. OTOH, RRFA could – not saying it will, definitely not saying it should, but could – turn into an example of a joke some people make about grand juries here in the United States, which is that even a semi-zealous prosecutor can convince a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. We've seen repeatedly at RFA that once the snowball starts rolling, it can be hard to stop, and 25 signatures isn't exactly a big chunk of the editor base. I hate to say we'll have to wait and see, but I think this election is a little too soon after the policy went into effect to answer the question with any clarity. Next year we should know a lot more. Katie^talk 00:39, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Just for an update, the consensus at a VP discussion decided (diff) to no longer label RRFA a "policy". George Ho (talk) 01:45, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

7. In your answer to Q6 above you said: ...we've seen in the past that it can be difficult to get a desysop case through when that sanction is warranted, and sometimes a case can result in a desysop when many community members feel that punishment is too harsh. It's been quipped many times that Arbcom is 'judge, jury, and executioner'; when hearing a case do you believe that before pronouncing its verdict, sentence, or acquittal, the committee should examine the evidence more deeply, or simply as in the practice of RfC, evaluate, report, and action the consensus of the opinion of those requesting/demanding sanctions balanced with those providing arguments for mitigation? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:24, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Oh, we have to examine the evidence. Portals is an example. I was a drafter on that, and I went into it having read the opening statements and the back-and-forth at /Evidence nearly sure that we were going to lose two admins and some people were going to get blocked. (Don't misunderstand me – I didn't prejudge it, it was just the feeling I had at the beginning.) It turned out to be as one-sided as anything I've seen on this site. On occasion, things are not as they seem. Everybody brings their own biases and relationships, and I feel it's Arbcom's job to wade in and figure out what actually happened. Katie^talk 15:52, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8. I'm interested to hear people's thought processes beyond just reciting project-space shortcuts. Please would you pick one of my musings to fight me on and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Alternatively, you could pick one that resonates with you and tell me why you think it doesn't enjoy wider community support. Thank you, both for taking the time to answer this question and for volunteering to serve. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:40, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   Your stance on bylines for featured articles is a nonstarter for me, and I apologize in advance for my tone. I do not like ownership at all, period, full stop. And that's what you're suggesting. This is not a newspaper and we are not journalists who work on a piece alone or with one or two other people. If we want a collaborative project, the way to get it isn't by slapping someone's name onto an FA like it's some kind of prize they've won. And let's argue about who gets the byline, by all means, because there's a shortage of things to argue about on this site. Do you need a certain number of edits to the page in order to get a byline? Who gets included in the byline if it's one of your 'small groups'? Who gets to make substantial edits to an FA with a byline, because those edits will alter the work of the byline holder? Taking credit for one's work is human nature, but I'm not here for credit, and by giving that credit you automatically put those like me into a 'lesser than' category. I'm all for the FA and GA topicons if people want to use them, but I don't want to be asked why my byline isn't on an article. If that makes me an outlier, so be it. Katie^talk 01:41, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9. In your opinion, what is Arbcom's role in addressing non-neutral editing and WP:CPUSH behavior? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:57, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

   That essay was created in 2008, and though it's been expanded and revised, and though the problem definitely still exists, I think the creation of discretionary sanctions and now contentious topics has helped somewhat. The admin toolset is a little more robust to help with these editors. It's by no means perfect, but I feel that Arbcom's role is to enable admins here. Katie^talk 12:58, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10. What is a past ArbCom case that you would have decided or handled differently? Pinguinn 🐧 04:03, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As I said above, I think the Fram issue should have been handled differently, and I've said all I have to say about it. Katie^talk 12:58, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

11. What are your plans to help the arbitration committee manage its workload effectively? isaacl (talk) 18:46, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    This isn't my first rodeo, so to speak, so I have a clear knowledge of what the workload is like. It's a largely reactive, not proactive, system, and you don't know what's coming your way. If there's one thing I'd like to see, and I've said this to the list before, it's some kind of CMS to keep email requests and other tasks from falling through the cracks. Katie^talk 19:01, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    As a followup, do you have any plans to work towards having a content management system deployed? As I recall, once upon a time something along those lines had been planned, but never got put in place. isaacl (talk) 19:19, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    There's a discussion right now on the clerks list about the topic but it's in its first stages, the 'we really need to do something, here's what I think, what do you think' part. And it's really up to the WMF to pay for, so we can push (and I will, again) but it probably won't happen soon. Katie^talk 20:00, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12. Topical and somewhat urgent question: what's your view on the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation and the RfC here? Many thanks.

    As I said above, I share the concerns, because authoritarianism is on the rise worldwide; I hope the letter has the desired effect. As for the blackout, if it gains consensus, I'm fine with it, though I think it's a largely symbolic gesture that won't have a lot of real effect other than press coverage, which is what the Indian court is upset about in the first place. I have to be careful, so I'm going to leave it there. But I'm supportive. Katie^talk 20:07, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks for your answer, Katie. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:04, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

13. If a request for another arbitrator's recusal was referred to the Committee (e.g., during a case request), what would be your decision-making process?

    It would probably be some parallel to determining if I think an admin is involved. I don't want to leave you hanging, but it didn't come up during my first stint on the committee and it's not something I've considered in depth. I will say that, with one exception, each of the arbs I've served with are people of integrity, and absent evidence to the contrary, I would most likely believe them if they said they could participate in a case impartially. Katie^talk 22:18, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

14. When ArbCom posts the result of a private deliberation, it sometimes releases the vote breakdown (listing which arbitrators supported, opposed, or abstained) and other times it doesn't. What standard would you personally apply in terms of considering whether to include that? DanCherek (talk) 21:32, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I think motions regarding user conduct should probably have the breakdown published, or votes where there's more than minor deviation from all support or all oppose. The votes for CU/OS appointments need to stay private. In my experience, unless there's some underlying issue where we shouldn't publish it (for legal or privacy reasons, for example), if someone asks, we should probably tell them. Katie^talk 22:43, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15. There are currently ten active arbitrators out of a possible 15, and arbitrator activity appears to have been the cause of some matters before the Committee stalling – for example, motions in the recent ARBPIA amendment request were only recently enacted almost three months after the initial referral from AE, and it has been noted that an email sent to the Committee in the summer containing private evidence may have fell by the wayside as [an] enormous issue that no one had the energy to dive into. As someone who has served on ArbCom, is there anything that you think the community, the committee, and/or the WMF could/should do in order to (either directly or indirectly) improve arbitrator retention, and/or prevent arbitrator burnout? ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 13:06, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    A stipend would be nice and I hear French Polynesia is a lovely place to visit. ;-) In all seriousness, I'm not sure what, if anything, could be done. I think some people who haven't served in this group seriously underestimate the time required and what exactly the job is. I've seen new arbs come in thinking they're going to change the world, so to speak, and that is just not how this gig works. There are 15 people scattered around the world, in about eight different time zones, and we're all trying to get on the same page. You guys cannot imagine the email that comes in; from what I understand it's better now that they've kicked CU block appeals back to the CUs, but every January and February a bunch of annual ban appeals come in and that's a ton of email that has to go around the world until we get a net+4 to act. It can take a week or more to do that. Was I supposed to send the committee response to that guy or was, say, Eek supposed to do it? Imposter syndrome is a real thing – you don't stop feeling like you know what you're doing in the job until around this time of year, then it's time for elections again. And nothing, nothing anybody does is good enough. You get elected to this group and all of a sudden you turn into an imbecile.

    So that describes part of the problem. In an ideal world, someone who thinks they want to be on Arbcom could shadow an arbitrator, but we can't do that. I think realistic expectations on the part of the arbs and on the part of the community are important if we're going to get to a solution on arb retention. I can tell you all that stuff up there, but unless you believe me, you're going to be disappointed and disillusioned in the middle of January when the workload has smacked you in the face. In the beginning in particular, you're going to spend an hour or more a day on committee business, not all at once, but scattered throughout the day. If you're a drafter on a case, that goes up until you get the PD done. The community has a part here too. It needs to grok that we're all humans trying our best. We're not getting paid for this, and mistakes will happen, but we'll try to fix them. Short of a salary and an annual trip to Tahiti, In the words of the Traveling Wilburys, please handle us with care. Katie^talk 16:00, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Tahiti is a magical place (I can't hear the name without making that comment but I actually wanted to say that's the best answer to a question I've read in this election). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:42, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

16. You were an arb in the past - 2018 to 2021. (And I'll note in passing that I have huge sympathies for the loss of your parents AND for your moving ... I'm still processing my mother's death and it's been five years since we moved and I'm still not settled in, ugh!) Which of the decisions you were active in do you think have stood the test of time, and which ones do not? What do you think you've learned from those cases and what would you do differently now if you are elected? Do you have any votes that you have come to regret? Ealdgyth (talk) 14:34, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks very much for your kind thoughts. :-) I don't think many of them have stood the test of time. We're about to have ARBPIA5, and I was part of ARBPIA4. We've had a bunch of World War II cases to varying degrees of success. I believe the best way to think about it is that we did what we could with what was in front of us at the time, and as time passes, the situations change and our past decisions may need revision. Katie^talk 16:13, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

17. In line with the above, what do you think you've learned from those cases and what would you do differently now if you are elected? Do you have any votes that you have come to regret? Ealdgyth (talk) 14:34, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't spend a lot of time regretting votes. I've regretted sometimes that evidence persuaded me to vote in a manner that I did not want to have to do, but that was why I was elected – to be fair and go where the evidence took me. I don't have to like it, I just have to do it. Katie^talk 16:13, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

18. Many thanks for your answer to my Q7 in which you stated: On occasion, things are not as they seem.[...] I feel it's Arbcom's job to wade in and figure out what actually happened. ARBPIA cases concern editing policy regarding contentious articles and/or the application of DS. On the other hand, much of Arbcom’s public-facing work involves claims about editor or admin behaviour. Arbcom is judge and jury, and in the case of individuals brought before it, also the executioner. You said to Q17 above: I've regretted sometimes that evidence persuaded me to vote in a manner that I did not want to have to do... I'm not asking how you would have voted in hindsight in instances of your regrets, but in such a situation a conflict of conscience would you ever consider abstaining or recusing, and why you might not have done so in the past? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:36, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Maybe I didn't express myself well. I'm not saying that I regretted my vote itself; I'm saying that I regretted that circumstances brought us to whatever point it was that took us into the process that ended with a desysop or sanctions or bans. I'll go back to the Portals example I referred to earlier. I did not want to have to cast my vote in favor of a desysop of BrownHairedGirl, and I had no prior substantive interaction with her, NA1K, or with the Portals namespace. In that instance my regret was that BHG could or would not conduct herself in a manner that would prevent me from casting that vote, because she was understandably hurt and upset by the result and the result of SmallCat in 2023. I don't like to hurt people, but sometimes it's unavoidable. It's not a matter of conscience about the topic area or person involved; if it were, I'd certainly abstain or recuse, but that's not what I was talking about. If that didn't answer your question with more clarity, let me know and I'll try again. ;-) Katie^talk 03:34, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks for your answer Katie. (If you prefer not to expand on this follow up question, feel free to give it a miss.) Could it also be accurate to say that sometimes a regret could be for having voted a certain way 'because the evidence persuaded [you] to vote in a manner that [you] did not want to have to do', when in hindsight you felt that the committee had in fact not 'waded in and figured out what actually happened'? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:02, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Mmm, I think I've said all I really have to say on the subject. Thanks for the questions, they're good ones. :-) Katie^talk 00:44, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

19. Given the current antisemitism scandal the encyclopaedia is embroiled in, do you understand the anxieties of Jewish editors and users, as well as the 15 million jews worldwide, whose safety is ultimately put at risk when Wikipedia's processes are hijacked to list resources like the ADL as unreliable in certain areas? Will you acknowledge that the encyclopaedia needs to take much firmer action on antisemitism issues at ArbCom level and has been in denial of its scale thus far? Luxofluxo (talk) 21:22, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't normally edit in the ARBPIA area and I have no position on the reliability or unreliability of the ADL as a source. That's a community matter that appears to be settled through more than one RFC, the last one very recent. Arbcom does not make policy in a preemptive manner, so if there's antisemitism you feel is not being addressed adequately, you're welcome to file a case. Katie^talk 21:54, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

20. There have been and will be public cases involving private evidence. In your opinion, how should the ArbCom maximize transparency with the community in cases involving private evidence while maintaining privacy when necessary?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:08, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Please see my answer to question #5. Katie^talk 21:54, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

21. Sometimes the community is divided as to how to deal with editors who make significant content contributions but who are habitually uncivil or otherwise disruptive, and who have accumulated long block logs. Do you think that ArbCom should occasionally hear cases focused on individual editors, and, if so, what criteria should ArbCom use in deciding whether to accept such a case?Robert McClenon (talk) 06:08, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I've been a part of several cases focused on individual editors. For me, the standard remains as a dispute that the community is unable to solve itself through established processes. Katie^talk 21:54, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]