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

Ask a general question: post a question on that link. All candidates will then be able to copy the question over to their Question page and will respond as they see fit.
Ask an individual question: pick the statement of the candidate you wish to pose the question to from Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Candidate statements, click the "Questions for the candidate" link, go to #Individual questions, and post the question there. Only this candidate will respond to that question.

Please keep questions succinct and relevant, and do make an effort to ensure you aren't overlapping a general question that has already been asked (even if the candidate hasn't yet copied it over to his or her individual question page), or indeed an individual question that has already been asked of this candidate.

Guidance for candidates:
Candidates are requested to answer all questions that are put to them, including all general questions, to ensure the Community is as fully informed as it wishes to be before voting commences. You are, of course, welcome to refuse to answer a question if you feel uncomfortable doing so, but do remember that that may well result in a voter choosing to oppose you. If a question is a near-duplication of another, you are—of course—welcome to as an answer to that question simply refer the editor to your response to the similar question.

Personal election schedule and notes

Please see the talk page.

General questions

A couple of days ago I printed off the General questions list and am making notes while offline. I will then use these notes when answering these questions after the general questions list has closed on 17 November, plus adding answers to questions submitted since I printed off the questions. I will continue to answer the individual questions as I find time to deal with them. 16:06, 15 November 2008 (UTC) Update: The general questions have now been added. I have collapsed all the unanswered questions on this page, and will uncollapse them as I answer them, to allow follow-up questions to be added if needed. Carcharoth (talk) 00:58, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Ultraexactzz

Good luck with your candidacy. UltraExactZZ ^Claims~ Evidence 15:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you had to describe the ideal role of an Arbitrator in one word, what would that word be?
Thorough. Carcharoth (talk) 01:21, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Giggy

a/s/l?
Early 30s; male; London, UK. Carcharoth (talk) 02:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What is your opinion on the apparent divide in editors who focus primarily in mainspace, and those who focus primarily in project space? What would you do to help ease conflicts that come as a result of clashes between these editors? This is a deliberately open ended question.
My opinion is that, in order to thrive, Wikipedia needs a diverse community of editors with a range of skills to cover all the different areas, from writing, to image work, to template work, to technical work, to community management and outreach work, to copyediting work, to administrative work. Some editors will concentrate mainly in one area, and the content of the encyclopedia (what the readers see) should always come first, but it is harmful to have any hierarchy among types of editors. Clashes should be de-escalated where possible, and both sides encouraged to respect the work that the other side does. If the editors clashing agree to it, doing work in the other areas is a good way to ensure more understanding in the future. Carcharoth (talk) 02:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What is your opinion on the mass reversion of useful mainspace edits made by banned users?
Mass reversion (for whatever reason) should not be done in mainspace unless the editor doing the mass reversion is sure that the action of reverting the edits is not re-adding vandalism, copyright violations, or potentially libellous material that had been removed by the banned user. If each edit has been examined, then mass reverting the edits may be an appropriate way to discourage banned editors from editing. The best approach, in my view, is to block the banned user's sock account, examine all the edits, revert the harmful ones, or ones that there is any doubt about, and then move on. If there is any chance of confusion over whether an edit is good or not, it may be best to revert it and redo the edit the way you would have done it. Attempts by the banned user to claim credit for any useful edits should be resolutely ignored as trolling. Carcharoth (talk) 02:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Pick one arbitration case opened in the last year that contains a final decision with which you disagree. How do you think the case should have been handled, what different proposals would you have made, etc.? Again, somewhat open ended.
I had intended to comment on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman, since I was heavily involved in that case and was dismayed at the way it spiralled out of control. I was waiting for the current request for the case to be vacated to conclude (see here), but the courtesy blanking of the case pages and the joint statement made by Shoemaker's Holiday and Charles Matthews has changed things somewhat. Rather than go into detail about a divisive case where the main (still-active) participants are ready to move on, I will make a very brief statement here, and then move on myself (though I do intend to link to sections in the history of the case pages as part of my arbitration portfolio, as my work in that case is something voters should be able to directly assess for themselves):
Since the Matthew Hoffman case ended, and when I became aware of Shoemaker's Holiday (sometime earlier this year), I wrote to him offering my support. I have otherwise tried to avoid commenting in detail on this case. I can't be absolutely certain, but I believe my comment in this thread (in March 2008, full comment here) was the last time I commented on the matter. What I said at the end there I still stand by today: "That arbitration case going out of control was due to many factors, not all of which were under the control of the Arbcom or the community." This should be my final comment on the matter (if I were elected, I would recuse from any motions involving this case). I hope that the other participants in that case can, like Charles Matthews and Shoemaker's Holiday, move on from this and refrain from commenting on or raising it again.
I will try and find another case to answer your question with. Carcharoth (talk) 11:32, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please select and describe what you consider to be your five "best" contributions to Wikipedia.
In no particular order:
- Astronomische Nachrichten (major expansion and rewrite of an article on an astronomy journal founded in 1821)
- La Ferté-sous-Jouarre memorial plus the images (I created, wrote and illustrated this article on a First World War memorial)
- Frieze of Parnassus (an art history article that I spun out from the parent article, one of several lists I have worked on - added to later by others)
- Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects (an essay I wrote on categorising redirects, later bringing it to guideline status)
- Category:Arctic and its subcategories (reorganised and populated the category structure for articles on Arctic topics)
If I find other articles or pages or contributions that I think would be better here, I will update this answer. Carcharoth (talk) 02:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Will you be voting in this year's arbcom elections? Why/why not?
Probably not, and certainly not where it might affect the outcome of the election. If the outcome is clear in the final hours of the election, I may add my votes at that time, but they are likely to be supports only. Carcharoth (talk) 02:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

Questions from Sarcasticidealist

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

To what extent do you believe that Wikipedia policy is or should be binding and prescriptive?
Wikipedia policy should be descriptive of actual practice or consensus to change practice, except in those cases where prescribed practice and enforcement is needed, such as in legal or quasi-legal areas (libellous statements, copyright violations, use of non-free images, and so on). Having said that, some policies are more cast-in-stone (non-negotiable) than others, such as the four in the Five pillars that "define the character of the project". The rest of the policies and guidelines should flow from those basic principles (not forgetting the Foundation issues). On a personal level, I find that once you know the basic policies, Wikipedia:Use common sense is all most people need, though when explaining things it does help to point users towards the basic policy pages. Carcharoth (talk) 04:00, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What is your view of the presence of former Arbitrators on the main Arb Comm mailing list?
The practice is probably helpful for some purposes (such as asking ex-arbitrators about old cases), but unhelpful if ex-arbitrators opine on current cases (unless directly asked to give advice). In theory, the mailing list archives could be used to view past discussions, so my view is that ultimately having the main mailing list for current arbitrators only is the best practice, with both arbitrators and ex-arbitrators on a subsidiary list used only to discuss old cases. I believe that, at present, there is a separate mailing list for the current arbitration committee only, though this appears to be poorly documented. WP:ARBCOM gives the list for subscribers to arbcom-l (the public mailing list address), so complaints sent there are viewed by all subscribers (including ex-arbitrators). I presume that discussion which (for whatever reason) needs to exclude former arbitrators takes place on the "current arbitrators" mailing list, so this is an improvement on the previous situation. My main concern would be whether the presence of ex-arbitrators on the main arbitration committee mailing list is inhibiting people from sending e-mails to the current arbitration committee. Carcharoth (talk) 04:00, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At least one candidate has committed to being "open to recall" in much the same way as administrators in Category:Administrators open to recall. What is your view of the wisdom of this, and do you see yourself making a comparable commitment?
I think that the comparison between administrators and arbitrators breaks down because there are 1,600+ admins but only 15 or so arbitrators. Having arbitrators open to recall could easily lead to paralysis and be used to game the system, so I won't be making a comparable commitment. Having said that, there should be some way for the community to review the performance of arbitrators (be it dissatisfaction with rulings or simply wanting to see an inactive arbitrator replaced). The user requests for comments system has been used in the past, but possibly a better system would be for the community or arbitration clerks to keep a record of the activity of each arbitrator indicating the cases participated in and the details of the votes. This would aid the community if they wanted to review the actions or activity of a particular arbitrator. One other possibility, which I will mention again in my answer to Davewild's question (see below) is requiring arbitrators to undergo a "term extension" vote after one year (at the same time as the ArbCom elections), in order to take their seat for the final two years of their term. If they failed this term extension vote, this might function as a recall process. Carcharoth (talk) 04:00, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

You are welcome. Carcharoth (talk) 04:00, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Celarnor

What limits, if any, do you perceive in the ability of the Committee to write remedies with effects beyond those involved in a given case (.e,g, types other than those outlined in Arbitration policy, having an effect beyond "User X is subject to penalty/restriction Y")?
There should be limits. New types of remedies should be adopted with care to avoid writing new policy by promoting new practices that eventually become policy. If the new types of remedies don't work well in practice, they should be considered to have failed. In addition, writing remedies that impact articles and users beyond those covered in a case can have unintended consequences. Gradual change, driven by the community, is usually better than radical change forced from above. Having said that, sometimes a sea-change imposed from above is the best way to implement reform (the biographies of living people policy was created in such fashion). Carcharoth (talk) 04:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
UPDATE: Clarification posted here. Carcharoth (talk) 00:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What, if any, non-written obligations do you believe a member of the Committee has outside of their immediate duties on the committee?
The main one I can think of at the moment is the obligation for arbitrators, both individually and collectively, to listen to the concerns of the community that elected them. Carcharoth (talk) 04:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from LessHeard vanU

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

Given that the ArbCom already has the powers to investigate the conduct of Administrators, and to decide to withdraw access to the sysop flags, will you be willing to more readily accept Requests for Arbitration in respect of concerns raised generally on an administrators use of their tools than that has apparently been the case previously. Would you indeed promote the more frequent acceptance of such cases. If not, why not? LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:47, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I would more readily accept cases concerning use of administrative tools. I would hold administrators to higher standards than non-administrators (though only for use of their tools, not for their editing behaviour). Also, regardless of whether they are administrators or not, I would hold long-term editors (who should have become familiar with the site policies) to higher standards than new editors (unless new editors show familiarity with the site policies). In the case of administrators, if the evidence backs up the claims, desysopping should be one of the options on the table, but it is important to recognize that people are human and make mistakes. Acknowledging mistakes and avoiding future repetition of the actions in question would be a mitigating factor when considering remedies. Carcharoth (talk) 13:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

You are welcome. Carcharoth (talk) 13:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Carnildo

How many hours a week do you expect to spend on arbitration-related activities?
On a good week I would have at least 3 weekday evenings free, and I would expect to be able to spend 2-3 hours on arbitration-related activities on each of those three weekday evenings. I would aim to take a break on the other evenings, but would be able to spend an hour on those evenings dealing with things if needed. If I was unable to spend time on cases on weekday evenings, I would aim to catch up at the weekends, when longer stints of 4-6 hours might be possible. I would have around 2 weekends a month available. Annually, about 3-4 weekends a year would be taken up by holiday periods, and roughly two 2-week holiday periods. I would ensure I left notices at the relevant pages if I went inactive for any extended period of time. Overall, the time I spend per week on arbitration matters would range from 10 to 20 hours. Carcharoth (talk) 14:00, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from WilyD

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

Is it appropriate for an admin to block another admin over a regular editing issue? Are there any special considerations? If it is not appropriate, what kind of sanctions would you issue as an arbitrator?
It depends on the exact issue involved. Sometimes it would be appropriate if the editing issue was blatantly obvious and previous warnings and discussions had been ignored. If a particular block over an editing issue was shown by the evidence to not be appropriate, the status of the blocked editor as an admin should not be an issue. The sanctions should be the same as if the admin who blocked had blocked any editor inappropriately. The sanctions issued would depend on the extent and history of the problems, and the response of the administrator whose block was being questioned. Carcharoth (talk) 14:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is it appropriate for an admin to block another admin over misuse of their administrative tools? If so, when? If not, what kind of sanctions would you issue as an arbitrator?
No, I don't believe it is appropriate to block another administrator over misuse of their administrative tools. That only escalates the situation. An appropriate course of action, if discussion with the administrator in question fails, would be to start an ANI discussion to get input from other administrators and editors. Even if the situation is urgent, an ANI discussion should show a consensus fairly quickly. If the situation is not urgent (and it may not be as urgent as you think), then a longer ANI discussion can help. If another noticeboard, such as arbitration enforcemnet (AE) is more appropriate, then that should be used. Care should be taken not to let the ANI discussion get out of control, or to misrepresent what happened. If there are longer term concerns, then a user request for comment on the administrator's handling of the tools may help. If there are repeated concerns over an administrator's use of the tools, then a request for arbitration may be needed, but that should still be a last resort. A premature request being rejected rarely helps anyone. Emergency requests to the arbitration committee and thence to stewards may also be needed, but again, only in genuine emergencies. The response, following an accepted request for arbitration, would depend, again, on the extent and history of the problems, and the response of the administrator in question, as well as the exact nature of the incident. Desysopping, if the evidence showed misuse of the tools in that incident, would certainly be an option, but recognition of the issues and contrition would be mitigating factors, though some explanation would be needed if the opinion of the administrator had changed between the time of the incident and the arbitration case. I would also look at the evidence for a consistent and sustained pattern of misuse of tools, and not just focus on one incident, or a few isolated and unrelated incidents. The latter would lead to lesser remedies, the former would likely lead to me voting for desysopping. Carcharoth (talk) 14:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from PhilKnight

In what situations would you recuse yourself? Obviously, I'm not asking for a generic answer, but instead I'm genuinely interested in what subject areas, or conflicts involving which users, you would recuse yourself. PhilKnight (talk) 02:20, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would recuse myself from motions involving previous cases where I had been a party (the Matthew Hoffman case and the Betacommand 2 case) or had been heavily involved (the IRC and Geogre-William M. Connolley cases). New cases related to those previous cases or users would depend on the circumstances of the cases. For a full listing of the arbitration cases I have been involved in (to various degrees, ranging from brief comments to evidence submission and workshop proposals), please see here. I am also considering whether recusal would be necessary in cases where I had been involved in previous stages of dispute resolution. For example, there are some specific users where I have been involved in block or unblock (or other) discussions at AN or ANI where I might consider recusing, but I don't think it would be helpful to name specific users now, if only because that would attract attention where it may not be helpful (e.g. where a user is trying to reform or improve on previous behaviour). I don't yet have a list of such AN/ANI discussions, but I am preparing one - I am aware that my heavy involvement at AN and ANI may make such a list of potential recusals necessary. Having said that, as others have pointed out, I have an almost non-existent history of blocking users, so the question of whether to recuse in cases where I have blocked or unblocked a user is unlikely to arise. I have also commented in some user requests for comments (a list is available here), again, sometimes heavily and sometimes in passing. Recusal would depend on the extent of involvement (e.g. statement or endorsing another statement or commenting on the talk page). As for article areas, I would recuse myself from disputes where I had been heavily involved with editing the articles. Specifically, I would recuse from cases involving articles related to Tolkien and Middle-earth, or Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth, though I might add myself as a party and present evidence if that was considered helpful. One other area I have been heavily involved in (at least earlier in the year and late last year) is non-free images, so I would, depending on how heavily the case involved that policy recuse in cases involving non-free use policy, though again as someone with a background in the area in question, I would reserve the right to present evidence. I would also, though this should be a given for all arbitrators, recuse in cases where I was named as a party or filed a case (though I don't intend to file cases during the term of office, if elected). If I disputed the validity of being named as a party, I would ask the rest of the arbitration committee to decide whether I should remain named as a party, but also take note of what the wider community was saying (which I would also do in any cases where there were calls for me to recuse). Finally, there are articles and users (sometimes unknown to them) that relate to my real-world identity (one of the disadvantages of editing pseudonymously), and users where I have had friendly (or less-than-friendly) on-wiki and off-wiki interactions - I would reserve the right to recuse without explanation in such cases, though I would explain in private to one or more other members of the arbitration committee. That was a longer and more generic answer than I intended. I hope it had enough specifics to answer your question. Carcharoth (talk) 15:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Imagine there is a case involving an editor who had been pushing a scientific racist viewpoint, and then another editor describes them as racist. Then an uninvolved admin blocks the second editor for a personal attack. How should this be handled?
This could be a misunderstanding over terminology. I would attempt to get the blocked editor and the blocking administrator to discuss things and take things from there. The issue of (point-of-view) POV-pushing is serious (as that affects article content) and that should be addressed, but separately from the dispute over the personal attack. What should not be done is to let the dispute over the personal attack overshadow the content issues. Coverage of scientific racism should be balanced, as required by WP:NPOV, and the scientific racist point-of-view (where significant to an article) should be represented, but not pushed to the extent that it unbalances the article. If there is independent agreement that an editor is pushing a POV, then sanctions may be needed against that editor. Carcharoth (talk) 15:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Thatcher

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

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

From what I can tell, this looks like it was the right call. I would have to learn more about what the "user agent" evidence means. Simply blocking the IP outright would have not produced the extra circumstantial evidence of the "hiatus". As things now stand, the unannounced hiatus, while not proving anything directly, does leave open the possibility that the administrator was running a vandal-farm. This is a serious concern and further follow-up checks and/or informal and formal discussions may be needed. It is also possible that the hiatus was co-incidental, and that the administrator is innocent, so caution is needed with further investigations. An immediate public accusation and RFCU involving a workplace IP could cause more drama than is needed. Very serious vandalism does make a difference, but even minor vandalism is still very worrying. I couldn't say much more without knowing the specifics of the case. Carcharoth (talk) 16:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

(c) Write your own answer.

I would say not (a) and possibly (b). If there is a lot of doubt, then (c) filing a public request for checkuser would bring more eyes to the problem and maximise the transparency. In general, if in doubt, more transparency is better than less. Carcharoth (talk) 16:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

This is a difficult question, and again the specifics (including the nature of the negative comments) matter here. My initial response is that Smith should have e-mailed the Committee and disclosed the Smythe account earlier or before creating that account. That may have ameliorated future problems. However, the fact that the Committee decided to ignore the Smythe account when discovered by checkuser means that blocking the Smythe account now would be inconsistent, though they could block the Smythe account (not disclosing to Smythe/Smith that he had already been discovered by checkuser - that would be too much information) and wait to see what happens (i.e. if a new account gets created again or whether Smith twigs and asks upfront if he can create an account to edit while avoiding Jones). One possible reason for not blocking the Smythe account on discovery is to keep the Smythe account (and hence Smith) under observation. The sticking point in a lot of this is the negative comments being posted on the blog. The arbitration committee cannot ask for these comments to be taken down (that process, if Jones wants it to happen, is up to Jones to initiate against Smith off-wiki), but they can make clear that the Smith account cannot be unblocked while Jones still disputes whether the account should be allowed to edit, and that the on-wiki harassment played a large role in the banning, and that the same comments are being made on the blog. Whether Smith then connects the dots or not is up to him. Carcharoth (talk) 16:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

The middle-of-the-road sanctions should be proposed during the private discussions. If there is strong disagreement, the open vote should cover all three options, not just the mild and severe sanctions. This might avoid the question over what to do if neither the mild or severe sanctions get the required support. Public disagreement can impact the Committee's credibility, but so can excessive private discussion and "done deals" thrashed out on the mailing list. What is needed is a balance between the two. Don't air all disagreements in public, but do make public the severe or crucial disagreements, both to keep things transparent to a degree, and to include the input of the community on critical issues. Carcharoth (talk) 16:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

I was initially aiming for a 50/50 split between arbitration and non-arbitration work, but I now realise that this is unrealistic and that the split will likely have to be closer to 60/40 or 70/30. I do intend, though, to continue with non-arbitration work because I enjoy editing articles (that is what this is all about, after all). I am aware that I will have to reduce my on-wiki commitments elsewhere, but I am prepared to do that. I should point out here that my editing over the past two years has included a fair amount of editing of arbitration pages (though obviously nowhere near as much as some sitting arbitrators) or being active in other areas of dispute resolution (my longer statement will go into more detail on that), so I don't think the switch-over would be too tramatic. I also have experience from off-wiki work of dealing with high-volume mailing lists (that will have to be taken on trust, I'm afraid). My feeling on missed arbitration work is that some things have to be missed anyway, due to the need to avoid burn out and to take scheduled breaks. Some degree of "catching up" may be possible, but some things will have to be let go if too much time has passed. I would largely trust my fellow arbitrators to deal with such matters that I did not get time to participate in, and I would expect to do the same for them. I do intend to read through all final decisions even if I did not participate in the case. If some decisions or matters are truly objectionable or too much like "precedent" for my liking, then I may raise that, but I would only briefly raise the matter "for the record" privately, and then wait until a new case came along before making my case on-wiki within the bounds of the new case. If the previous case was raised as "precedent", I would point out that precedent doesn't really exist in arbitration cases, and that I was away/inactive when that case was held. I believe this would balance the need to raise objections where needed (staying silent can sometimes be worse), but not to the extent of rehashing old cases or arguing with previous decisions. Carcharoth (talk) 16:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

I have not disclosed my real name and employer (though I am aware of the need to identify name and age to the Foundation if elected, and am willing to do so). I am aware of the potential for information about name and employer to be involuntarily disclosed by others. At present, such disclosure would not impact my service on the Arbitration Committee, though that may change over the course of three years. Carcharoth (talk) 16:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Newyorkbrad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For my experience with arbitration pages, please see User:Carcharoth/Contributions/Arbitration pages, which includes details and links to my contributions at the requests for arbitration page (both initial requests and later clarification requests), and examples of evidence submission and workshop proposals in specific cases, and my contributions at other arbitration pages as well. Not as much as some, but enough I think to give an idea of what kind of work I would produce. I would be prepared to do (A), though with initial guidance and discussion and not immediately. I would also be prepared to do (B), (C) and (E), and possibly (D). I would be unlikely to get involved with checkuser activity (F), though if it was thought checkuser access was needed (to help review evidence in such cases) then I would request the tool. I don't intend to get involved with actual checkusers or checkuser requests without more experience with that area, and certainly not without more technical knowledge. As for (G), there are a few other areas I can think of, though you may have had other areas in mind. The oversight tool may be required to review evidence in some cases, and depending on the complexity of the tool, I may request the tool and help out with oversight requests, though that is not strictly an arbitration-related tool. Arbitration clerks is an arbitration-related area, and as someone who knows my way around some of the more obscure arbitration pages and archives, and who has made clerk-type edits in the past and has followed the history of the arbitration committee, I would be willing to communicate with the clerks if needed, though I am aware that several arbitration clerks and former clerks are running in this election who may be better suited to that role (this also means that there may be a high turnover and need to find [and train] new clerks after the election). If there is any communications role within the arbitration committee, to keep the committee aware of things happening elsewhere in the encyclopedia, and to keep the community informed of what is happening, I would be willing to help out with that as well. Carcharoth (talk) 17:06, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

Those proposals are both excellent. Many thanks to you and FT2 for taking the time to write them. I think that it is important to have the reasons for such changes documented, and if there are specific examples that have prompted a change, then it would be helpful to explain that and point to the incident that motivated the change. FT2 has used footnotes to explain the changes in his proposal - would you be planning to do the same? Some points I like, FT2's "If any stage of a case extends (or seems likely to extend) beyond the usual time allocated, then any Arbitrator should advise the community, and post an update giving details of progress and explanation no less than once every seven days" and I like your rewriting of the "proposed decisions" section. My one concern in all this is that you might both be codifying working practices too much, when it might be better to have a core policy that remains unchanged, but to leave the details of the working practices up to the current arbitration committee with input from the community. Balancing stability with flexibility. See also what I've written elsewhere on this page, for Mailer Diablo's question 4, and UninvitedCompany's question 14, and in particular the idea of having changes to core policies like the arbitration one presented for approval to the community during the ArbCom elections, on an x-year cycle (x could be 2 or 3 years). Carcharoth (talk) 21:45, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

My impression is that administrators in general have been more empowered by "discretionary sanctions" and the like. This is a good thing if admins are using these tools properly, but it is a bad thing if they are not. Over time, as different editors and admins arrive and leave, the situation may change, so the arbitration committee will always need to be prepared for a sudden increase in requests. There may be other causes for this reduced case load, but I would have to do further reading before speculating on this here. Carcharoth (talk) 17:06, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Mailer Diablo

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

I don't think it would be appropriate to exercise such power, so I don't think answering such a question is helpful. Sorry. Carcharoth (talk) 18:18, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

ArbCom should not write or extend policy. It can suggest and (with care) guide, but the community should write the policies and decide on the direction. If any policies are implemented by fiat (for example, by the Foundation), there should be discussion with the community beforehand, or at least continuing leadership, help and guidance. The situations with the non-free content policy and the biography of living people policy could have done (and still could do) with a lot more guidance and help, and more impetus from the community and the arbitration committee and other entities to resolve differences rather then perpetuate disagreements. Carcharoth (talk) 18:18, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

From the link you provide, I see you mean en-Wikipedia IRC channels (the IRC channels for meta and other Wikimedia projects would fall outside the remit of the en-Wikipedia Arbitration Committee anyway). My view is that behaviour in the channels bearing the same name as this language-version of the encyclopedia (i.e. "en-wikipedia") should be available for the en-Wikipedia ArbCom to review, but that direct governance and day-to-day matters should fall to the channel operators. Carcharoth (talk) 18:18, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

I think that gradual reform is better than radical change. It should also be accepted that fundamental policies are not changed overnight. The current process (taking several months) where there was a request for comments on the arbitration committee, followed by a summary of that RfC, followed by two arbitrators using that summary to write proposals for changes, is a reasonable method in my view. There was a proposal to have the changes incorporated into the election to get voted on, but I don't think that got anywhere. In my view, the fundamental core of a non-negotiable founding policy should hardly ever be changed, and surrounding core policies should also be resistant to change, though not immutable. The long drawn-out community processes may seem broken, but they can work and act as a guard against too-radical a set of changes. The wording of policies can be freely debated by the community, and guidelines and (further out from the core) essays are more fluid still. Having said that, there are ways to appreciably change the look of what happens at arbitration, and that can be done by questioning and reforming the working practices. An example of this is the way in which the acceptance method for cases was tweaked and formalised to include a 24-hour proviso, partly with prompting from me. See here and here. Whether or not that actually is what has been happening since, I don't know, though I did note that Newyorkbrad said here that this particular case could be opened without waiting the full 24 hours, which seems to me to indicate that the wording could be changed some more, but that is a debate for another day. In other words, if elected I would continue to suggest minor changes to the working practices of the committee (depending on what being on the inside shows about those practices), and I would continue to engage in community processes aimed at reforming policies, but as an editor, not an arbitrator. My interaction with the community processes to fundamentally reform the arbitration committee would change (of necessity), but I would still encourage slow reform driven by an interaction between the community and the committee, rather than radical change imposed by the community (or resisted by the committee) or from elsewhere. I won't promise radical reform, but I can promise to encourage the current reform process whether elected or not. I might even go so far as to propose that the reform process, if it carries through to completion, be formalised around an x-year cycle (involving the elections), rather than the current ad-hoc process. Carcharoth (talk) 18:18, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Rschen7754

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

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

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

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

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways 2: Just over three months is too long for a case of that nature. However, it may have been one of the only ones recently (maybe ever?) to involve WikiProjects, so I can understand a desire to handle the case properly and give it the requisite amount of time. I think the initial delay was due to the Arbitration Committee being occupied with other cases and other matters. Still, it shouldn't have happened and the communication could have been better between the committee and the parties to the case. Carcharoth (talk) 19:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(a) WikiProjects should be there to co-ordinate and assist article improvements. (b) I don't think WikiProjects should be able to enforce standards (such as article layouts) on articles. Article standards should come from the wider community. In practice, though, WikiProjects are generally able to standardise layout across a set of articles, and this can be a good thing. If there is significant dispute, then outside opinons should be sought. Carcharoth (talk) 19:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't think parent WikiProjects should have control over child WikiProjects. Wikiprojects can organise into logical hierarchies if they want to, but the focus should remain on article improvement, not power struggles. If there are disputes, then, as I said previously, outside opinions should be requested. Carcharoth (talk) 19:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC) Signature added later. 14:45, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding canvassing, newsletters, if written properly, are OK and should be able to demonstrate that they are not deliberately canvassing opinion. IRC, on the other hand, like several other off-wiki communication methods, can most certainly be mis-used this way. Clear ethical standards and on-wiki summaries and on-wiki consensus is needed to avoid this. Carcharoth (talk) 19:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(a) Vandalism can and should be met with blocking if warnings are ignored. Good-faith, but really bad edits, are not vandalism and need a bit more work (which may eventually show them to be trolling). (b) The vital thing to do is to try and start discussion. If there is no response from the editor in question (and they should be given time to respond) and they carry on with the edits that are disrupting articles in ways that cannot be easily fixed, then reverting the edits with a request to see the talk page may bring them to the talk page to discuss things (though this is unlikely). If the edits are not re-added, then the problem may have been resolved, but some warning should still be left so that other admins are aware in the future of these problems if the behaviour resumes. Rollback should only be used if you have a tool that can leave a custom edit summary tailored for this situation. Page protection is hardly ever the right response to a single editor disrupting an article - protection prevents everyone from editing the article. If there is absolutely no response to requests for discussion, if the edits continue, and if they are widespread and difficult to keep contained (especially if the edits appear bot-like), then a block may be needed (if the option is ever enabled, a block from a specific set of pages, rather than a total block, may be an option). If the same behaviour starts up again, with another account, and a checkuser confirms it is a sockpuppet, then block swiftly and indefinitely without going through the previous process. Some problems of "lack of discussion" can be due to editors not knowing the English language well enough to engage in conversation, so do check that this is not the reason and make some effort to see if they respond in other languages, but only if you think there is a reasonable chance of success. If in doubt, ask others for opinions. Carcharoth (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Several stages here. First, encourage them to make productive edits to articles, while ignoring whatever it is they do that irritates you. Leave for a while and then come back and see how things are going. If they haven't changed their behaviour, point out the previous discussion and ask them again if there are any articles they would be interested in editing. Point out that there are productive things they can do in other namespaces as well. If they still don't change, and if the 'gadfly' behaviour is only borderline, there may not be much that can be done except to ignore it (the problem with cracking down on borderline stuff is that you are, in effect, redefining where the border of acceptable behaviour is, and that can have unexpected consequences). If the 'gadfly' behaviour starts to genuinely disrupt things or affect new users (experienced users should learn to ignore such things), then politely step in and refute the statement or link to a summary of issues. If the 'gadfly' behaviour starts to disrupt things even more ("pushing the envelope"), consider a request for comments. A few caveats, though: if the issue starts to divide the community, consider that pursuing matters to a conclusion might be more disruptive than the 'gadfly' behaviour itself. Also, if the 'gadfly' behaviour is making genuine criticisms in the Wikipedia namespace, do respond to that criticism as you would any if any other editor had offered that criticism - don't let who is criticising bias your response. Finally, administrators do need to know how to deal with being ignored, and how to deal with it in a way other than getting angry, though that can be difficult. Sometimes it is best to recognise that things have gone as far as they can, and to let the matter drop for a while. Carcharoth (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First, "does not understand English" does not equate with intelligence. There are many intelligent people in this world who do not understand English. It may not be the best idea for them to try and edit an English-language encyclopedia, but explain that to them (in their language if possible). If this would take too much of your time, try and find someone who does have the time to do this. If someone doesn't get how to edit, then point them to the various ways they can learn how to edit. If the reason for being unable to edit properly will not change (limited understanding or they are writing gibberish), or they are not understanding discussion or responding to discussion, then, first, try and find someone else who might do better than you in communicating. If that fails, and the editing is getting to disruptive levels in article space, then, regrettably, polite warnings and a block may be needed. Sometimes you need to be ruthless to avoid such things becoming a time sink, but there is no need to be rude or brusque about it. Carcharoth (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(a) What justifies a community ban? Goodness, that's a hard question. Sometimes it is obvious (extremely disruptive and unacceptable behaviour that might justifiably be met with an indefinite block anyway). The key thing here is the "exhausting of community patience", and a solid consensus in the community (and by that I mean a genuine discussion on a noticeboard that is allowed to run for a set period of time and, crucially, where those involved state how they became aware of the discussion and what their level of involvement is. The other important point is to have someone genuinely uninvolved closing the discussion, and also to have the result logged in the right place (with a link to the discussion). It is also important to conduct ban discussions calmly, to clearly lay out the evidence, to avoid mob mentality, and to not start a ban discussion as an exasperated knee-jerk reaction to the "latest incident". That approach skews the result (or at least makes its validity doubtful, in my view). But I cover this again in my answer to your question 9. I think what you are asking here is more about what behaviour justifies a community ban, not what process. My view is that it is repeated, unrepentant, and unacceptable behaviour, continuing over a long period of time, that justifies a community ban. Some things that personally leads me to oppose community bans are: (i) failure to follow dispute resolution by those calling for a ban; (ii) long periods of productive editing by the editor in question, interspersed by the occasional lapse; (iii) suspect blocks in the block log being used as justification for a "this editor has a long block log" reason for a ban. But, yes, when behaviour is unacceptable, repeated, and unrepentant, then community bans are needed. (b) I don't think any of the behaviour described in questions 5-7 automatically justifies a community ban. Escalating blocks should deal with 5 and 7 (and the editor in question may then lose interest and leave), but not bans. There has to be clear and ongoing disruption where shorter blocks have failed. The only situation where a ban might be needed is question 6, and that depends on the nature of the disruption and the exact circumstances. Carcharoth (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The main problems I see with the Wikipedia community is size and mob mentality. The two are related, in my opinion. I have a history of around two years of participation at AN and ANI, and it is only in the last nine months or so that I have seen real mob mentality there (I never participated at the Community sanctions noticeboard). One of the problems, in my view, is that the Wikipedia community has a longer memory than individuals. It only takes one person with a chip on their shoulder, or a grudge, to raise a particular issue, and old wounds are reopened again and people start flooding out of the woodwork to give their opinions (I suspect IRC might also be a factor here). Community opinion can also be fickle. One mistake or ill-judged comment can turn the crowd against a particular user. And the point at which "community patience exhausted" is reached is incredibly difficult to judge, though over time it is clear that the community opinion does harden against serial borderline transgressors. The solutions, I think, are to have mechanisms in place to slow things down sometimes, and to allow enough time to pass for more considered opinions, rather than having instant snap judgments. Some of these considerations were considered at User:MBisanz/RfBan (my comments there are on the talk page), which is an attempt at creating a requests for bans process with safeguards, that is better than what happened at WP:CSN, and avoids some of the mob mentality that can be seen at ANI. One the changes that I boldly implemented was to add the following to the ANI header: "To start a ban discussion, see the administrators' noticeboard." The idea was to have serious ban discussions take place at the quieter AN, rather than the more active ANI. However, in practice, it seems few people read that header or follow the updates to it (there was notification and discussion of my change somewhere, and I can locate that if needed). There is currently a discussion at ANI about a blocked ArbCom election candidate, with unblock, maintain block and community ban options being discussed. As a candidate in the same elections, I'm not getting involved in that, but it shows the problems involved in finding consensus in community discussions. The community size problem also leads to problems with processes scaling, but I intend to answer that question elsewhere (Lar's question three). Carcharoth (talk) 19:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Maxim

What is your stance on wheel-warring? What do you define as wheel-warring? As an arbitrator, how would you respond to a case surrounding a wheel war?
Wheel-warring, is, in my opinions, nearly always a bad thing. It shows a propensity to escalate rather than discuss. My definition of wheel-warring is the undoing of an administrative action without discussion. This would include actions such as one admin, without discussion, reversing another admin's 'articles for discussion' close or other role usually reserved for administrators, even if no tools were used (the same arguments apply to the exercising of discretionary sanctions). It is more to do with the authority and (hopefully) decorum associated with the role, rather than the technical use of the tool. Having said that, administrators are not super-users, and most certainly do not own their actions, and they should always be open to reasonable requests to discuss their actions and give way to rational arguments and community consensus. All admins (indeed all users, whoever they are) should be prepared to admit when they have got something wrong. The usual exceptions apply to legal issues (copyvio and BLP issues), but the administrator must be absolutely certain they can justify their actions and if they find themselves in dispute with another administrator should rapidly work towards an interim compromise solution (usually involving removing the content until the status can be determined), and then follow dispute resolution, or get an outside opinion, until a full solution can be worked out. There is another common exception as well: undeletion of PROD deletions can be assumed to be undeletion of a contested PROD, though a courtesy note to the deleting admin and/or PROD tagger would be polite. Other undeletions nearly always require deletion review or other discussion. Page protection wheel wars and block wheel wars are the other types of wheel wars. Page protections should nearly always be discussed before being undone - there is very rarely a need to unprotect immediately, one possible exception being protection and unprotections of the main page featured article. Wheel wars over blocks are more tricky, as often admins leave instructions as to whether a block can be undone or not. If it can be undone, fine. If not, then discussion is needed. But equally if a short block expires before discussion finishes, someone may have an inaccurate entry in their block log. Sometimes bold action is needed, but repeated blocking and unblocking and re-blocking without disucssion should never happen. There are also the cases where an admin shortens or extends a block without full discussion - this can be seen as over-riding the previous admin's action, and so is technically, in my view, a form of wheel-warring. But in practice this sort of shortening and extending of blocks is boldy done nearly every day. The interaction of the {{unblock}} request system with wheel warring is also unclear. Some admins discuss with the blocking admin, whereas others unblock if they are confident there is a clear reason to unblock. In the latter case, a courtesy note should still be left with the original blocking admin. In cases involving wheel-warring, it would depend on the particulars of the case and what the latest agreed definition of wheel-warring was, but I would still look to see what role (if any) discussion played in the admin actions (on both sides). However, given the seriousness of wheel-warring, remedies up to and including desysopping should be on the table. Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What is your opinion on letting the community desysop admins?
I think there is too much potential for inconsistent results from such discussions, especially for admins that do good work and get flack from users that resent policies being enforced. Desysopping is best left to the Arbitration Committee. To be fair, though, the same comment about inconsistency applies to the requests for adminship process that gives editors the admin tools. I don't know if anyone has pointed it out before, but there is an imbalance in the way that the promotion process is community-drive, but the desysopping process goes through the Arbitration Committee. This was, in all likelihood, by design, but one way to make the system equal is to have the Arbitration Committee be able to hand out sysop tools if needed. This would allow users who are unlikely to pass a community-driven RFA to have the tools under the supervision of the Arbitration Committee. This would, however, be an extremely radical proposal (I only offer it during an ArbCom election as an example of radical thinking - in reality, I think policy reform processes should be gradual). Any change like this would, of course, have to be approved by the community (maybe along with an approval for a community-desysop process). So that may be a bit of a Catch-22 situation. After saying that, I should state unequivocally that I think that the idea of a divide between the Arbitration Committee and the Community is an unhelpful one. It should be possible for there to be useful dialogue between arbitrators and other members of the community as part of general community discussions - part of the problem, I suspect, is that arbitrators have precious little time for anything else other than the more traditional aspects of arbitration, and sometimes too much weight is placed on the opinions of arbitrators (who should be allowed to take off their arbitrator hats and engage in community discussions as ordinary users). Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What is your opinion on adminbots? The bot policy was updated to allow adminbots to bypass RfA, going only through BRfA, and fully-automated unapproved adminbots were required to be approved via BRfA. What is your opinion on handling unapproved adminbots? What is your general opinion on high-speed admin tools, which are not fully automated (like Twinkle)?
A shorter answer here! I agree with the update to the bot policy. Following this, unapproved admin bots should be blocked on sight, followed by discussion. Tools like Twinkle are usually OK if humans are checking each edit (either beforehand or as the edits are done), but very high volumes and speeds should require explanation and approval, as a courtesy if nothing else. Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from FT2

These are some questions about WP:CLUE and insight, focussing on a role as a member of Arbcom. Research is allowed and encouraged. (Arbitrators need to be 'on the ball' and able to pick up impressions fairly accurately.)

(Questions removed. I have decided, on reflection, to ask them individually to candidates, this year at least. I'll see how it goes in deciding if that has worked better than asking them centrally. Also may help with follow-up. To see the questions, look at a candidates' Q&A page where I've asked them.)

I expect to add a couple more to these, and will be interested to see the results. They are intended to be searching. Feedback will be provided. Thank you. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:28, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For my answers to FT2's questions, please see here (answers still pending at the time of writing this note). Carcharoth (talk) 20:58, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from rootology

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

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

In the short term, no, because the long periods of apparent inaction made it look like the Arbitration Committee was avoiding the case, possibly because of the sheer size of the task (a consequence of the bundling together), and the community got upset about that. Once the decision was written, things moved to a relatively swift conclusion (in the context of how long it had been open for), with one or two twists in the tail at the end. In the long term though, it may end up having been helpful to have all this done together. It's really too early to tell yet. Carcharoth (talk) 20:34, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

My view on that specific case is that the findings in question, though proposed with the best of intentions to satisfy all sides, were too subjective and always had the potential to be derailed in this fashion, and so such subjective findings may be less likely to be proposed in future. Setting aside the specific case, in the general case, arbitrators should be self-aware enough to recuse. On the other hand, leaving recusal decisions up to individual arbitrators will lead to widely varying standards (especially when you have 15 arbitrators), so maybe there is an argument for some clearly defined code of conduct and standards for recusal. To specifically answer your question, yes, arbitrators should always strive to be as impartial as possible when participating in a case. If it is clear that they are not impartial, their fellow arbitrators should have the power to enforce recusal. Quite how that would work in practice, though, is a real can of worms. If elected, and I was aware of a clear reason why a fellow arbitrator should recuse, I would certainly ask them privately to recuse and explain my reasoning. If things went further than that, well, that is a bridge that should not have to be crossed, and I don't want to speculate here as to how things would proceed from there. I'm not actually asking any questions in this election, but how arbitrators act when they are aware of a clear reason why a fellow arbitrator should be recusing is an interesting question. There are, however, borderline cases where is it not clear whether recusal is required or not. In such cases, yes, arbitrators should recuse if they cannot be impartial at all times. Carcharoth (talk) 00:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

My view, also expressed in answers to other questions, is that there should be a core stable arbitration policy to which changes can be proposed by the community on cycle of x years (x being 2-3 years, with the changes ratified, or not, at ArbCom elections). From this core policy, a set of processes should follow that give the Arbitration Committee and the community the flexibility to change things within this x-year cycle, specifically to decide (within the constraints of the core policy) the specific wording and guidance (e.g. Wikipedia:Arbitration guide). In addition, there should be enough flexibility for the arbitration committee and clerks to handle the day-to-day running of the committee and arbitration matters. At some point, however, people need to step back and let the committee do their jobs and the peanut gallery (of which I have been a member) needs to know when to stop commenting in a chaotic and unhelpful manner. In return, the committee needs to stick to the constraints of the arbitration policy, communicate their intent clearly, and also to listen to the concerns of the community (which should be presented with care and coherency). When things stray from those ideals, everyone should work to get things back on track. It might be hopelessly idealistic, but that is my view of how things should work. Carcharoth (talk) 00:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

I would support this, provided the elections were carefully checked and monitored to avoid fraud. There would also need to be an extensive discussion of which voting method to use. The voting method has been discussed this election, though as a candidate I have carefully refrained from commenting in those discussions. Carcharoth (talk) 00:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

No. I think an arbitrator needs to have a minimum level of support. The 50% cut-off level of support that Jimbo uses is the minimum that should be required. It should be noted, though, that the electorate at an ArbCom election, although large, only really represents the people active at the time. If elected, I would serve not only that electorate (including those who may have opposed me), but also those who didn't vote, and those who will be editing Wikipedia in future. It is a point that is sometimes forgotten, but over the next three years there will be a large number of new editors just starting to edit Wikipedia, and they need to be welcomed and encouraged as well, not just the established users. Carcharoth (talk) 00:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

"Don't allow one-sentence mandates to be 'the law of the land' forever". See paradox. To expand on this, as I said in answer to Mailer diablo above (his first question, about abolishing policy by fiat) I don't think such power by fiat is appropriate (unless, and still not in all cases, wielded by the Wikimedia Foundation), so the same concerns would apply here. I also agree with what Phil Sandifer wrote elsewhere:

"Complex issues are not best served by simplifying. They're best served by careful, nuanced attention. And I will not be party to the reduction of debate over complex issues into one word and twelve word answers. This should not be a standard political campaign filled with slogans and branding. It should be a substantive, real debate about issues on Wikipedia. And those issues deserve better than micro-summaries."

Those are Phil's words, but I would heartily endorse them. Though I did answer the 'one-word' question, I share his frustration at those type of questions. Carcharoth (talk) 00:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

a) The Community

b) Jimbo Wales

c) Arbiters/The Arbitration Committee

d) The Wikimedia Foundation

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

The premise here seems to be that those the ArbCom "serves and answers to" is related to those who "have power over the ArbCom". It is quite possible to serve an entity without that entity having power over you. Having said that, I will say that I do believe that the Arbitration Committee serves the community in its efforts to build an encyclopedia, and to that extent the community should have some degree of power over the committee, but equally the committee has power over individual members of the community (if they are breaching policies and communal norms). It is not a simple hierarchial relationship. So in that sense, I think questions of power and hierarchial arrangement miss the point. But I will expand on this and this may approach the sort of answer you are looking for. The main reason I think hierarchial arrangements are not useful here is that the four entities you mention have different purposes and functions, and hence the "power" they wield is expressed in different ways.

(a) The Community (a very diverse and fluid entity) expresses its power through voting and supplying those it votes for with a mandate, and also through the mechanism of public discussions and public opinion. It also exerts its power by writing the encyclopedia, which is an important point. A dysfunctional community that produces poor content has less moral power.
(b) Jimbo Wales expresses his power through the ability to make appointments and dismissals, and the potential to take a leadership role on certain issues. This derives primarily from his status in the community as founder of the encyclopedia.
(c) The arbitrators and the Arbitration Committee, acting both individually and collectively, with a mandate from the community, exercise their power through their day-to-day operations and functions, acting to resolve disputes and hand out sanctions.
(d) The Wikimedia Foundation should, in theory, act solely as a legal advice and support and enabling agency. In other words, providing the support and technical facilities and legal counsel and hardware and staff to run things in the background and take the content and enable people to do stuff with it, and operate the charitable side of things. In one sense, as the "owners" they wield the ultimate power, and the ability to "pull the plug" (and also, within the constraints of the GFDL license, to take the community-edited content and pass it over to a professional process to finish up the job), but in the other sense they are, quite rightly, hands off, letting things operate without interfering. So while they may have the ultimate power, they are, in theory, unlikely to exercise it, but that is why it is important to vote in the WMF Board elections and to engage in discussions on the strategy and direction of the WMF. But to focus directly on the power the WMF should have on the en-Wikipedia Arbitration Committee, the answer is "very little". But that is mainly because the two entities are doing completely different things.

So my answer to your question is that D is irrelevant, and the "power order" within en-Wikipedia should be A(CB): Community first, then the Arbitration Committee and Jimbo together on the next level. The Foundation, in some sense over-rides all, but in other senses has (or should have) no power at all over the day-to-day running of the encyclopedia or any of the WMF projects. If, however, you were to arrange the entities by order in the ultimate "power" they could (not should) express, then the order would be DABC. A unified community could, by sheer numbers, over-ride both Jimbo and the Arbitration Committee, while Jimbo could dissolve the Arbitration Committee (though the community might promptly set up a new one). However, the Foundation could over-ride everyone by shutting the servers down (though that would effectively shut down the Foundation as well). The community could theoretically fork, but as Wikipedia becomes larger and more difficult to run, that possibility becomes more remote. In some sense as well, the Community and the Foundation exist on the same "power level", locked in a mutually dependent relationship (similar to Jimbo and the Arbitration Committee). The Foundation would not exist without the community of editors creating the encyclopedia, and the community would not exist unless the Foundation was there to provide the environment and resources. And that, I think, is the key point. All other "power" arrangements pale into insignificance beside the twin pillars of the Foundation and the Community. Apologies for the long answer, but though I've written about this before, I think these fundamental issues need to be discussed anew and at length when they are broached in venues such as this. Carcharoth (talk) 00:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

You are welcome. I've answered (or will answer) your questions inline. Carcharoth (talk) 00:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Davewild

Do you support reducing the length of Arbitrators terms to under 3 years, and if you do and are elected, how will you go about trying to get this implemented?
I would support arbitrators standing down after two years (no-one can predict how they will feel after a year or two of participating in arbitration), but I would also support those who stand for three years or one year, or who would defer the choice. Personally, I am standing for three years, but reserve the right to resign if my circumstances change (this should go without saying for all arbitrators). If I am elected, I would comment on any proposals to change term lengths, but the ultimate decision should be the community's, with input from the current arbitrators. Speaking as an ordinary editor, one possibility that I would propose is to have all or some arbitrators (e.g. those who agree to it) to stand for a "term extension" vote one year after being elected. This would be a simple up/down (50%) vote on whether the community is happy for that arbitrator to serve another two years. There are other possibilities, such as agreeing to stand down after two years depending on the result of the "term extension" vote. This sort of approach would make the first year of an arbitrator's tenure more probationary in nature. This would have its advantages and disadvantages. The main objection is that the community should trust those they vote in. The advantage is that it gives an opportunity to assess an arbitrator after seeing them in action, rather than based on election promises and trying to guess how they would act as an arbitrator. On the other hand, a second disadvantage is that people might try and vote out a 1-year arbitrator (even if performing well) to make room for a new candidate from that year's elections. I don't know how this idea would be received, or if it has been suggested before, but it is one thing that I might well propose formally somewhere if it hasn't been suggested. I must stress, though, that this is not something I would do as an arbitrator, but is something I would propose as a member of the community, whether elected or not. See also my answers elsewhere on this page concerning arbitrators willing to be open to recall, and the issue of the community reviewing the performance of an arbitrator, as I think those issues relate to term lengths as well. Carcharoth (talk) 10:39, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

No problem. Thanks for asking the question. Carcharoth (talk) 10:39, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from roux

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

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

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

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

Thank you for answering, and best of luck with the election. [roux » x] 22:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Haven't had time to answer this question specifically. I think my opinions on civility are covered by my answers to other questions. If you would still like an answer here, please let me know. Carcharoth (talk) 00:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Iridescent (sort of – see remarks below)

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

Would you accept appointment by Jimbo if you were not one of the top candidates (that is, someone else was passed over so that you could be appointed)?
This would depend on the reaction from the candidate passed over by Jimbo and the reasons given by Jimbo. If the candidate who was passed over objected, I would want to have: (a) assurances that Jimbo had explained his reasons in private to the candidate being passed over; and (b) if possible that Jimbo also explained his decision in public. I say "if possible" because it is entirely possible that any candidate passed over would want to keep any discussions with Jimbo private. I presume this sort of thing takes place in the background after the elections, but in my view such discussions should be as public as possible so it is clear what is going on. Public announcements should also be done out of respect to the electorate who voted for the candidate potentially being passed over. If I was not satisfied with the transparency of the process, or the public explanation, I would either not accept appointment, or would resign shortly afterwards (depending on the timing of the process). Carcharoth (talk) 02:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Lar

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

Is the English Wikipedia's current BLP approach correct in all aspects? Why or why not? If not, what needs changing?
- "Is the English Wikipedia's current BLP approach correct in all aspects?" - No. Although the current approach is better than it was, I don't think it is correct in all aspects, and this is a concern because while our other policies can be gradually improved, it is important to get our approach to biographies of living people as good as it can be, as quickly as possible. Ideally, this policy would have been in place from the beginning of Wikipedia (either explicitly as it is now, or implicitly as a natural consequence of the policies at the time), but that didn't happen so we have to deal with the situation we have now. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- "Why or why not?" - Why is the current approach not correct in all aspects? Where I think things fall down is in practice. We need more people who are willing to do rewrites as opposed to excisions. Failing a rewrite, an excision may be the only option, but it is not the ideal option as excision may adversely affect the balance (NPOV) of an article (see the example below of the stubbing of Ian Blair). Our handling of borderline cases could be improved as well, as you point out in your questions below. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- "If not, what needs changing?" - Some parts of the approach needs changing, with more good writers getting involved and doing rewrites. Sometimes getting claims sourced or removed is not enough - the real need is to get a better-written article that avoids bias and imbalances (far harder to detect and fix). I'll give three examples. There is this case, which I raised at the BLP noticeboard. Another example is Ian Blair. See this section of the talk page and subsequent discussions. The BLP noticeboard discussion was here. The final example is the Shawn Hornbeck article. I created the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation page explicitly in response to a discussion about the page on the individual. Shawn Hornbeck is currently a redirect to that page (and links from these articles). The redirect (which was protected at the time), was changed at my request, as can be seen here (I was not an admin at the time). Having pointed out those three examples, I do recognise that the sheer scale of the problem means that deletions, stubbings, redirects and merges may be needed rather than rewrites, but editors considering a BLP problem should be aware of the full range of options available. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In particular, how do you feel about the following suggestions:
a) "Opt Out" - Marginally notable individuals can opt out, or opt in, at their request. If it's a tossup, the individual's wishes prevail, either way. George W. Bush clearly does not get to opt out, too notable. I (Lar) clearly do not get to opt in, not notable enough.
My concern here would be that the argument then shifts to notability arguments, which may not please the individuals concerned. If I'm understanding this right, if an individual has contacted OTRS or the WMF and made their wishes for deletion known, this would presumably trigger a notability debate and if the notability was established as marginal or non-notable, then the article would be deleted. The trouble here is that someone has to assess consensus and decide what is "enough" for an article to be kept. How would you explain to someone that their article was kept because a consensus of Wikipedia editors said thet they were notable enough for an article, and that this over-rides their wishes not to have an article? Equally, how do you explain to an individual who wants their article kept that a debate decided they were non-notable? In the cases where the editors discussing this and the individual concerned, were in agreement, no problem. But the disagreements would still cause problems. There is also the problem of what to do where the subject of the article has made no request at all (and may not be aware of the article). Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

b) "Default to Delete" - If a BLP AfD or DRv discussion ends up as "no consensus" the default is to delete. A clear consensus to KEEP is required, else the article is removed.
This would work better in practice (though a combination of both approaches might be better still), and is certainly worth trying. I believe that some admins do this already, or have tried to do so. It was proposed by Doc Glasgow at one point, and I would support this approach. I have quite a bit more to say about BLP, but what I've said in the past is scattered across too many pages to count. If there is time, I will try and summarise some of the thoughts and add a link somewhere round here. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Given that it is said that the English Wikipedia ArbCom does not set policy, only enforce the community's will, and that ArbCom does not decide content questions:
a) Is question 1 a question of content or of policy?
It is a question of both content and policy, since it is a policy that directly affects content. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

b) ArbCom in the past has taken some actions with respect to BLP that some viewed as mandating policy. Do you agree or disagree? Did they go far enough? Too far? Just right?
I agree that some viewed it as mandating policy. If you are asking for my views on whether ArbCom were mandating policy in cases like special enforcement of BLP, I would say it depends on what you mean by "mandating policy". The initial part of that remedy states:
"Administrators are authorized to use any and all means at their disposal to ensure that every Wikipedia article is in full compliance with the letter and spirit of the biographies of living persons policy. Administrators may use the page protection and deletion tools as they believe to be reasonably necessary to effect compliance."
The policy that is actually most directly affected there is not WP:BLP (the remedy there says nothing new about BLP), but is in fact WP:ADMIN. In other words, with that (and other similar remedies, such as discretionary sanctions), the Arbitration Committee were extending (or explicitly reinforcing) the powers of administrators, so yes, they were (and have been) mandating changes to that policy (rather than BLP). Several arbitrators have explicitly stated that this was the intent of this and similar rulings. Whether or not they went far enough is not yet clear. The jury is still out on that. In my view, they went far enough to be able to assess the effectiveness of the change, but giving a definite answer as to whether the increased powers given to admins has improved things on the ground with the articles, is more difficult. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
c) If you answered question 1 to the effect that you did not agree in every respect with the BLP approach, how would you go about changing the approach? Take your answers to 2a and 2b into account.
You asked above "...what needs changing?", which seems to be the same as this question. I answered that question there, but as I said I had more to say on BLPs (an important issue which needs to be discussed in this election), I will expand on some things here, taking my answers to 2a and 2b into account.
My previous answer focused on the editorial approach, on how editors can improve or fix BLP articles - that relates directly to my answer to 2a where I said the policy concerns content and the ultimate solutions lie at the content level - get the content right and most problems are solved. 2b relates to administrative powers to deal with BLP problems, and the wide-ranging powers mandated by the Arbitration Committee should, in theory, be adequate to deal with things if the admins are clued-up enough to work together and deal with BLPs. One of the problems though is that not all admins agree on how to handle some cases, so finding some way to get admins and editors agreeing on simple clear ways to handle BLP disputes is a priority.

The elephant in the room is the scale of the problem. Approximate numbers, at the time of writing, are 2,634,916 articles (from Special:Statistics) 548,950 articles on "people" (tagged by WikiProject Biography), and 323,987 articles on living people (from the category). Finding ways to scale the approaches is an urgent problem. Keeping an eye on all the articles to prevent vandalism is also a problem - semi-protection of BLPs is one possibility.

Although the focus on living people and articles on living people is good, it is important not to forget that living people are mentioned in other articles as well - equal attention must be paid to the text in those articles, especially following mergers of an article on a living person to another article. One idea here would be to have a special template to mark such redirects, both to keep people aware that text about that person is in the redirect destination article, and to allow the redirects to be monitored in case they are turned back into articles (I believe the approach is sometimes to leave the "living people" category on the redirect). And there are many non-people articles that needs as much attention as the articles on living people. Articles about companies are a case in point. Articles about existing companies need to avoid libellous statements, as companies are as likely, if not more likely, to take action than individuals.

Given the above, my main approach (as an editor, not an arbitrator) would be to continue to improve the guidelines and projects available to get people (editors and admins) working on this problem efficiently and in ways that will scale. Some examples of this can be seen at WT:BLP. See in particular my Workflow and project management proposal. Not many responses at the time, but ideas there for someone to pick up and run with if they want - I identified statistics and a reliable way of marking patrolled articles as important steps towards improving the situation. See also the listing I made of BLP-relevant pages here. Again, some interesting ideas there that might help move the debate forward. I also created Category:User essays on BLP in an attempt to get more cross-pollination of ideas. Hopefully, this sort of organisation will eventually lead to something, though the stumbling block, as always, is getting people interested in this area and keeping them interested.

As an arbitrator, I would take a hardline approach on BLP matters. Any editing or administrative actions that strayed over the line with respect to BLP would entail harsh sanctions. In other words, those acting on BLP matters would be held to the highest standards. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
UPDATE: Roger Davies (another candidate in these elections) has summarised his views on BLP here. I fully endorse and agree with what he has written there, and I hope that the ideas there are proposed to the community for discussion and implemented as soon as possible. This is an issue which, in my opinion, should transcend these elections, though the elections are a chance to obtain broad exposure for them. Carcharoth (talk) 07:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It has been said that the English Wikipedia has outgrown itself, that the consensus based approach doesn't scale this big. Do you agree or disagree, and why? If you agree, what should be done about it? Can the project be moved to a different model (other wikis, for example, use much more explicit voting mechanisms)? Should it be?
I think that the consensus based approach can still be applied on a large scale, provided clear advertising mechanisms are provided to garner the participation needed. To that end, I had been intending to write a proposed "Advertising discussions" guidline. At the moment, all we have is WP:CANVASS, which is more aimed at discouraging inappropriate advertising. I believe more should be done to validate advertising where it is needed. This would involve systems like the existing WP:CENT and a more rigorous process to decide what can be put on the watchlist notice. Also, systems that combine discussion and voting might help. My ideas on the advertising (including a list of places to advertise at) are here. The places I suggested were:
- Relevant policy talk page (obligatory)
- The relevant village pump (obligatory)
- The community portal (not sure how active this is)
- AN as well as ANI (if needed)
- The {{cent}} template (obligatory to aim for community-wide consensus)
- Various mailing lists (where relevant)
- The Signpost (at Ral's discretion)
- The site watchnotice (very, very rare - for the largest discussions)
- Others as needed
If this was done properly, and proposed change discussions had clearly defined start and end points, I think it might be easier to gain consensus on some of the proposals that have failed to gain traction in the past. Sometimes a little extra bureaucracy is needed to get things moving forward. Carcharoth (talk) 21:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please discuss your personal views on Sighted/Flagged revisions. Should we implement some form of this? What form? Do you think the community has irretrievably failed to come to a decision about this? Why? What is the role, if any, of ArbCom in this matter?
OK, I didn't have time to go the background reading I had hoped. I have read some of the discussion on the talk page of Wikipedia:Flagged revisions in the past, but have only briefly skimmed the current talk page. I see that there is also a page at Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions, and more at Wikipedia:FlaggedRevs fact sheet, Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Quality versions, Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/reliable revisions, and Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Checkpoints and grading. Sorry, that's too much reading for now, but I will aim to read it at some point. From memory, I remember reading that it had been implemented on the German Wikipedia, and that that was meant to be the precursor to implementing something here. My view is that if discussions have got bogged down, it might be necessary to summarise things up to this point, archive the rest, and re-present the proposal. Until I've read the proposals in detail, I can't comment on whether I think it is a good thing or not, or what form it should take if anything. The failure is either due to the way it was presented, or because a substantial portion of the community are not sure about this. I did notice a post from Jimbo at the top of the talk page warning that the proposal had been misreported in various places as a "closing up of Wikipedia", so maybe that had something to do with it as well. As for the role of ArbCom, I don't think ArbCom should have a role in deciding this sort of thing at all. It is purely a community matter. Having said that, I do remember the furore when WP:ROLLBACK was switched on, and how things don't seem to have collapsed despite that. The request for arbitration thread from that ROLLBACK incident is here, and my comment there is here. I added to that later, as can be seen here. However, this proposed change (flagged/sighted revisions) is a much, much bigger change, and implementing this without a clear strategy and exit plan if needed, could result in chaos and community meltdown. Or not. But again, nothing to do with ArbCom, unless they have to deal with very specific rogue behaviour by people attempting to disrupt things or push things forward prematurely, but even then it's not really ArbCom's role to act as a referee in that sort of situation. It can try and act as a calming influence, and maybe a lightning rod for grievances to be aired, but not much more than that. Carcharoth (talk) 21:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia was founded on the principle that anonymity, or at least pseudonymity, is OK. You do not need to disclose your real identity, if you do not wish to, to edit here. You are not forbidden from doing so if you wish.
a) Do you support this principle? Why or why not?
I support this principle because the ease of creating an account was one of the reasons I started editing and is one factor that I think will keep bringing new people here to edit Wikipedia. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

b) If you do not support it, is there a way to change it at this late date? How? Should it be (even if you do not support it, you may think it should not be changed)?
N/A. It could be changed in principle, but not without alienating large parts of the community. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

c) With anonymity comes outing. Lately there has been some controversy about what is outing and what is not... if someone has previously disclosed their real identity and now wishes to change that decision, how far should the project go to honor that? Should oversight be used? Deletion? Editing away data? Nothing?
Some assistance should be given, but the assistance should not go too far. If the 'identity fingerprint' is too widespread or entangled with other things, then the better option might be to advise the person in question to retire their account and then (with care if they want to avoid any connections being made) to start editing under a new account. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

d) If someone has their real identity disclosed elsewhere in a way that clearly correlates to their Wikipedia identity, is it outing to report or reveal that link? Why or why not?
Making a direct link on-wiki between off-wiki evidence and a Wikipedia account is still outing. If the editor in question did this, it would be considered self-outing or self-identification, so another editor doing it doesn't change things. If the "outed" editor makes clear he or she does not want the link to be made, then on-wiki references should be removed. Having said that, there are borderline cases. There is at least one 'open secret' where someone edits here under one name and at another WMF project under a different name. Making links between different accounts on WMF projects is sometimes needed, but if the editor does not want the connection to be made, then this should be respected. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

e) Do you openly acknowledge your real identity? Should all Arbitrators openly acknowledge their real identity? Why or why not? If you are currently pseudonymous, do you plan to disclose it if elected? (this is somewhat different than Thatcher's 1C in that it's more extensive)
I don't openly acknowledge my real identity, and as I've chosen to run in this election, no, I don't think arbitrators should have to openly acknowledge their real identity, and, if elected, I don't plan on disclosing my identity (other than to the Wikimedia Foundation to confirm age and name). My reasoning is that arbitrators are elected on the basis of their Wikipedia contributions and record, not on the basis of their name or real identity. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

f) Does the WMF make it clear enough that pseudonymity is a goal but not a guarantee? What should the WMF be doing, in your opinion, if anything, about loss of pseudonymity? What should ArbCom be doing, in your opinion, if anything, about loss of pseudonymity?
I don't think the WMF does make this clear enough. Once pseudonymity is lost, there is not a lot that can be done (unless it is caught early). Some effort should be made to reduce the 'identity footprint', but ultimately this sort of thing is up to the individual, as they made the choice to edit Wikipedia. One good idea would be to have more notices and warnings when people create an account, and links in the welcome templates that are left for people (such as links to this essay - I didn't write that, but I did comment on the talk page). ArbCom should sanction on-wiki outing, and arbitrators with oversight tools should help where needed, but they can't really do much more than that. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

g) If an editor clearly and deliberately outs someone who does not wish to be outed, what is the appropriate sanction, if any? Does the question differ if the outing occurs on wiki vs off-wiki? (this is somewhat similar but different from Thatcher's 1D)
On-wiki outing can and should be sanctioned. Off-wiki outing is more difficult. ArbCom does not (and should not ever think it can) have jurisdiction over external sites. The correct way to tackle material on an external site is for individuals to take the necessary steps to request or demand removal of that material, but they would be acting as individuals, not in any Wikipedia capacity. Actually proving links between a Wikipedia account and an external site that has outed someone can be difficult. If there is any doubt, it is best not to have a witch-hunt. If an on-wiki account directly admits on-wiki to having posted off-wiki outing material, then sanctions would be appropriate. In most cases, this would count as harassment, and the appropriate sanction would be a long or indefinite block and in severe (or repeated) cases, a ban. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Stalking is a problem, both in real life and in the Wikipedia context.
a) Should the WMF be highlighting (disclaiming) the possible hazards of editing a high visibility website such as Wikipedia? Should some other body do so?
Ethically, yes, unless that leaves them open to legal liability. If that would be the case, then some other body should do so. At the very least, I think the templates used to welcome editors should contain some links on this topic, though by that stage people will have already chosen their username. Possibly something on the account creation screen (though not many people would read it there). Carcharoth (talk) 18:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

b) What responsibility, if any, does WMF have to try to prevent real life stalking? What aid, if any, should the WMF give to someone victimised. Balance your answer against the provisions of the privacy policy.
If someone who is being victimised or stalked takes off-wiki action (e.g. contacting the police or other authorities), then the WMF should, where the privacy policy allows this and the correct legal procedures have been followed, divulge the information needed. In other words, in the situations noted in the six points made here. I've also read through the WMF privacy policy and the en-Wikipedia harassment policy to ensure I'm aware of the latest version of these policies. Carcharoth (talk) 18:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

c) If someone has previously been stalked in real life, what allowances or special provisions should be made, if any?
None. The processes in place should aim to provide adequate protection for everyone, regardless of previous history. You can't tell which cases are more likely to be a credible threat than others, and trying to make that distinction would create more problems than it solves. Having said that, if someone is being stalked by the same person again, they really need to get the authorities involved as soon as possible. The WMF and Wikipedia can only do so much to help in such situations, though they should do what they can to help. Carcharoth (talk) 18:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

d) What special provisions should be made, if any, to deal with stalkers who are using Wikipedia to harass victims? Consider the case where the stalkee is a real life person and the harassment is done by manipulating their article, as well as the case where the stalkee is an editor here.
If it is clear that a stalker is using Wikipedia to harass someone, then the account should be blocked (though the case where the police ask for an account to be left unblocked for evidence to be accumulated, or traceback information to be gathered, is one possible exception, if that was even legal - again, that would be a matter for the person being stalked, the police, and the WMF's legal counsel). If the stalking consists of edits to that person's article (i.e. not trying to contact the person themselves), then a block and monitoring of the article may be all that is needed (treating the symptom). If the target is an editor on Wikipedia, that is a more direct form of stalking and while a block may help, further assistance (e.g. checkuser to find sockpuppets) may be needed. As in my answer to 6b though, the actual divulging of information to outside bodies needs to follow the privacy policy. Carcharoth (talk) 18:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

e) Where is the line between stalking or harassing an editor and reviewing the contributions of a problematic editor to see if there are other problems not yet revealed?
Reviewing the contributions of a problematic editor is fine, but it should be done in a polite and firm way. If the editor concerned gets upset and starts making accusations of harassment, the important thing is to get at least one other person involved, so it doesn't look like it is just you and the other editor. More than two people, though, would be unhelpful. If another editor can be found to carry on the review instead of you, that might work as well. At all stages, explain to the editor what is happening and encourage them to help and get involved with reviewing their own contributions. Also, try and complete the review before returning to the editor concerned, instead of popping up on their watchlist or talk page at random intervals. Another way to approach things is to review the area the editor contributes in, rather than the editor themselves, and include their edits alongside reviews of other people's edits. Reviewing someone's contributions, can, in my view, cross the line into harassment, especially if done with malicious intent. Judging that, however, is difficult. Carcharoth (talk) 18:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A certain editor has been characterised as "remarkably unwelcome" here, and the "revert all edits" principle has been invoked, to remove all their edits when discovered. In the case of very unwelcome and problematic editors, do you support that? What about for more run of the mill problem editors? What about in the case of someone making a large number of good edits merely to test this principle? Do you think blanket unreverting removed edits is appropriate or would you suggest that each edit be replaced with a specific summary standing behind it, or some other variant?
This is a special case, and as such although my answer to Giggy's question 3 still applies for the run-of-the-mill editors and this editor ("Mass reversion (for whatever reason) should not be done in mainspace unless the editor doing the mass reversion is sure that the action of reverting the edits is not re-adding vandalism, copyright violations, or potentially libellous material that had been removed by the banned user."), in this case of the "remarkably unwelcome" editor, reverting all the edits is appropriate (with the good edits redone as needed). The seeming silliness of this is outweighed by the need to discourage participation. Ultimately, obtaining some injunction in such cases may be needed, but the possibility of copycat actions and the need to deny recognition should also be taken into consideration. Carcharoth (talk) 18:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What is the appropriate role of outside criticism:
a) Should all discussion of Wikipedia remain ON Wikipedia, or is it acceptable that some occur off Wikipedia?
Off-wiki discussion is both acceptable and unavoidable. See The Real World (TM). Carcharoth (talk) 12:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

b) Do you have a blog or other vehicle for making outside comments about Wikipedia? If so what is the link, or why do you choose not to disclose it? Why do you have (or not have) such an individual vehicle?
No blog, though I have started contributing to the wiki-en-l mailing list and some posts there may be blog-like in nature. Really, though, I have very little time for such external contributions. I may blog about Wikipedia at some point, but I haven't reached that point yet. If elected, I would have even less time for such things. If things changed over the course of three years, I would state any intention to start a blog before I did so (and take advice on what was appropriate), and I would certainly never blog about arbitration itself while a sitting arbitrator, and, after my term was up, I would not blog about what happened during the term - that discussion (where appropriate) would remain on Wikipedia or Wikipedia mailing lists. I take this stance because I think a certain degree of decorum is needed for arbitrators. I would certainly aim to maintain decorum at all times and act as a role model as an arbitrator, in as much as I do as an editor and admin, and I would consciously aim to avoid friviolity. Carcharoth (talk) 12:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

c) Please state your opinion of Wikipedia Review and of the notion of participating there. Please state your opinion of Wikback, and of the notion of participating there. Why did Wikback fail? Describe your ideal outside criticism site, (if any)?
I am aware of Wikipedia Review, and I ocassionally read some threads there, though I do not have an account there. My view is that people should be free to join such sites, or criticise them (within reason), as they see fit. The same would apply at Wikipedia Review (people should be free to join Wikipedia or criticise it as appropriate). The same holds for sites like Wikback, which I followed for a short while. I believe I even posted on-wiki in response to some threads over there (and did the same for many wiki-en-l mailing list posts before I went ahead and joined that list recently). Wikback appeared to fail due to decreased participation, along with voluminous posting by some individuals (a pattern I've seen at other sites that similarly faded away). The ideal outside criticism site? One that is independent (i.e. not run by those involved in Wikipedia, but equally not run by those who fiercely oppose Wikipedia), and one where everyone both feels able to contribute safely and actually can, in practice, contribute. It should also, ideally, actually result in changes for the better on Wikipedia, but as that is hard enough to achieve on Wikipedia, that has to be an optional extra. It should be the aim, though, no matter how difficult. Ways of summarising and bringing on board external criticisms would be helpful in the future, and also ways of generating more professional reviews (like the Nature study) would also be good (though maybe aimed at the governance and social structures of Wikipedia). One of the problems, though, is that despite repeating many mistakes made before, Wikipedia is also breaking new ground, so there has to be a balance of learning from previous mistakes and also identifying what is new and different about the wiki-model and Wikipedia in particular (as one of the largest of the wikis). Carcharoth (talk) 12:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

d) Do you think it appropriate or inappropriate for an editor to participate in an outside criticism site? For an admin? For an Arbitrator? Why or why not?
Yes. Yes. Yes. i.e. Appropriate in all three cases, though see my comments elsewhere about about decorum for arbitrators. Again, I feel strongly that people should be left to make their own choices about whether they chose to participate on other sites or not. They should, however, be prepared to face criticism about what they say elsewhere, though care must be taken to avoid bringing off-wiki disputes to Wikipedia, and to avoid being critical in one place but not here on Wikipedia. It should be possible to raise the same issue in both places. Carcharoth (talk) 12:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

e) Do you have an account at an outside criticism site? If it is not obvious already, will you be disclosing it if elected? Conversely, is it acceptable to have an anonymous or pseudonymous account at such a site? Why or why not? Assuming an arbitrator has one, some folk may try to discover and "out" it. Is that something that should be sanctioned on wiki? (that is, is it actually a form of outing as addressed in question 5? )
No, I don't have an account at an outside criticism site. Again, the way in which people chose to contribute elsewhere should be left up to them. If they chose to contribute elsewhere under a different name, they should be clear to themselves why they are doing this and what they would say if this was discovered (and be prepared to take criticism for it). The advisability or not of such an approach would depend on what the two accounts were doing in relation to each other. It is simplest in most cases to contribute under the same name, or to be open about using different names. If an arbitrator has an undisclosed account elsewhere, it would depend on what was done with that account, and whether it related to arbitration matters (e.g. if the account was merely for access purposes or to access reading options, that would be different to an account that actively posted on arbitration topics). The consequences of outing the account depends on whether the other account was linked to a real name. I think what you are asking here is what is acceptable if both accounts are pseudonymous. In that case, my view is that posting on an external site to link an account on that external site with a Wikipedia account is outing that editor within the external site (and would depend on the social norms within that site). This is different to posting here, on-wiki, and making a link between an account here and an account on an external site. That kind of outing, posted here on Wikipedia, would have to be judged by the social norms here. This dichotomy arises from the initial decision by the editor (or arbitrator) to contribute at the external site under a different name. As I said, it really is simplest not to do so, or if you do, to keep activities on each site completely separated. Carcharoth (talk) 12:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with meatball:VestedContributors? Why or why not? What is to be done about it (if there is a problem)?
I think en-Wikipedia does have a problem with Vested Contributors. There are many editors here that could be easily described as Vested Contributors, and some of the problems that arise are difficult to deal with because of their status and contributions. One of the more radical options I proposed once was, as opposed to banning someone for a year, or permanently, to require people to retire their current accounts and to start a new account. That would reduce some of the "recognition" factor of a Vested Contributor. Ultimately, that probably wouldn't be workable, but those who have been through several different name changes might be more aware of the effect this can have (both good and bad). Another option is to require splitting of contributions between two accounts: doing article work on this account and other stuff on this account. This can avoid some of the overspill between different areas, but can run into problems with WP:SOCK. Most Vested Contributors do, eventually, fade away or get replaced by new ones, so the problem is not as bad as it seems. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What is your favorite color? :) Why? :) :)
My favourite colour is Lar. Because it smiles a lot. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Heimstern

Nationalist and ethnic edit wars: It's widely accepted that edit warring and POV-pushing along national and ethnic lines is one of the bigger problems at Wikipedia. Do you have any thoughts on how to solve this problem? For example, should the Arbcom be more willing to issue sanctions, such as bans, topic restrictions and revert restrictions (and if possible, maybe comment on when different types of sanctions are appropriate)? Should the community, particularly administrators, take on more of the responsibility for this problem? If so, how?
In the short-term, topic restrictions and bans on the most blatant transgressors are certainly needed to ensure a workable environment in which to edit such articles, and admins and the Arbitration Committee play an important role in crafting and enforcing such restrictions, but in the long-term, I firmly believe that the best defence against POV pushing and attempts to bias or distort an article, is the careful production of a well-written article using the very best sources available. It is much harder to distort an article once it has reached a certain high standard. The additional advantage of this approach is that rather than merely being defensive, it actively aims to improve an article or set of articles. In practice, if the area doesn't have able writers or editors willing to spend a long time improving the articles, then one possible approach to adopt is writing for the enemy. This can, when it works, be extraordinarily productive in moving a disputed article forward. The other approach, when encountering an editor who is pushing a point-of-view in a single narrow area (see single-purpose account - SPA), but who doesn't quite understand how Wikipedia works, is to encourage them to diversify. The genuine SPAs will rarely do this, but those editors who do take that opportunity to look around at other articles, sometimes less contentious ones, can work better in other areas and develop into productive editors. The alternative is to radicalise editors who will then continue to try and push their POV in whichever way they can, and this usually leads to sanctions sooner rather than later, and (depending on the reaction of those sanctioned) continuing disruption at the articles, which wastes everyone's time. As for whether the community should take on more responsibility, I think editors should get more involved in discussion of content issues for contentious articles (though in practice, editing works best for smaller groups rather than larger ones), and that admins should also get more involved in maintaining a productive working environment (currently, a lot is done by all too few admins, and I, for one, have been guilty of not helping out in such areas). The other point I've raised is that when some areas are constantly policed by the same people, that can lead to problems and appearances of excessive involvement. One possibility of overcoming this, and increasing participation by more admins, is to have a rotation system, whereby admins are rotated in and out of an article or area of articles. This means that admins are better able to remain uninvolved, and can take a break from their usual areas, and allow other admins the chance to look after things for a while. One of the starting points for such a rotation system would be a page such as the admin enforcement requested page. In extreme cases, I would also support extensive and indiscrimiate topics bans for several months on all currently involved editors (with exceptions for talk page discussion), with the aim of allowing editors with a track record of good work in other areas to turn the article around and possibly produce an article that takes a different approach, is of a higher quality, and less prone to edit warring (the same approach is possible using a draft in a sandbox). Finally, an approach that can work well in some really high-profile areas is to have a FAQ (frequently asked questions page) as a talk page subpage. For example: evolution article FAQ and global warming article FAQ. What is crucial though is that admins and the Arbitration Committee (as last resort) do get involved and act decisively, fairly and impartially. Limited or no action and 'gatekeeping' by a single admin rarely leads to an overall improvement, and discourages other editors and admins from getting involved. I should stress, though, that this highly structured approach is only needed in areas that are repeatedly and unrelentingly contentious or prone to disruption. For the vast majority of articles, the normal approach of resolving the occasional dispute and then moving on is fine. Carcharoth (talk) 07:05, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Civility restrictions: Civility restrictions imposed by the Arbcom seem to frequently prove divisive among administrators enforcing them. Frequently, one administrator feels the user in question has been uncivil and should be blocked, while another disagrees and unblocks shortly thereafter. Should the committee seek to change this? If so, how? Different restrictions? Different wording? Using them less frequently or not at all? Is there anything you would change about the committee's approach to the civility policy?
The root of the problem here is people disagreeing over what is incivil. For several cogent (and widely varying) views on this, see Category:User essays on civility, which I created and populated earlier this year. User:FayssalF/Civility pages should also be of interest. Recently, it has finally been recognised that, in practice, civility restrictions and paroles, at least as they are currently structured, are not working very well (a failed attempt was made to find one that has worked). One of the most high-profile civility restrictions was recently severely restricted in a request for arbitration motion, essentially bringing to an end the era of "any admin can judge incivility when interpreting an arbitration remedy". Of course, admins can still enforce civility under general site policies, but they will have to use their own judgment when doing so and will not be relying on often-divisive civility restrictions imposed by the Arbitration Committee. My view is that civility is a social matter, and that peer pressure and warnings from within the community is the best way to handle it (if you see someone you respect being incivil, don't let it slide, do politely, and without scolding, call them out on it, either on-wiki or privately). The alternative concept, of a "civility police" is unworkable in my view. In other words, the civility policy is one that the Arbitration Committee would do well to let the community enforce, and a minimum requirement of a specific user request for comment on civility (i.e. focused solely on incivility and not other matters) should be required before the matter reaches arbitration (an example is here). If there are continuing and borderline problems with specific users that the community is unable to resolve, then the best approach is to either craft extremely specific remedies, or to limit general civility enforcement following arbitration to a smaller group, even, if needed, the Arbitration Committee itself. I also agree with the assertion made by others that tackling such problems earlier, before they have had a chance to take hold, would avoid a lot of problems, but in practice it is difficult to keep social issues such as civility under control, especially in an online environment. One final point is that it is important to keep an eye on the policy itself and for the community to rewrite it if the page gets bloated or unwieldy. One such rewrite was undertaken back in September 2008. See here, and the subsequent discussions also listed at that archive page. Carcharoth (talk) 07:05, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from User:NuclearWarfare

What percentage would your vote have to be before you would accept an appointment from Jimmy Wales?
Over 50% - the same criterion applied by Jimmy Wales. Carcharoth (talk) 07:33, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Would you support any system of recall similar to the administrator's one (with possibly tougher restrictions for any Arbitrator?
Possibly, but it would have to be different to the way administrator recall works - see my answer to Sarcasticidealist's question 3 and Davewild's question above, where I propose a "term extension" vote after one year in office. What is definitely needed, in my view, is a system for the community to easily review an arbitrator and their activity. In the past, requests for comments have been used to assess arbitrators (for whatever reason), as seen here. One possibility is for arbitration clerks to keep an up-to-date record, with links, for each arbitrator, indicating the cases they participated in and how they voted, though it should be remembered that this will not take into account off-wiki work. If I am elected, I intend to maintain such a record of my own arbitration activity, similar to but different to that seen in my arbitration portfolio. I believe that this would be an important step in aiding transparency and accountability for arbitrators (inactivity and disproportionate spread of the workload would become particularly obvious), while avoiding the disadvantages of a recall system. Carcharoth (talk) 07:33, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from UninvitedCompany

Can you summarize briefly the kind of editing you've done at Wikipedia?
I've edited science articles and articles related to J. R. R. Tolkien and Middle-earth, but I've also taken an interest in history articles and almost anything that I find interesting. I also often look things up using Wikipedia, and I find myself making notes about things to correct or improve, though most of that is wikignome work. Outside of the articles, I contribute in the other namespaces as well, most obviously in the Wikipedia namespace, but also in template and category areas. For more details, see the (incomplete and ongoing) attempt to summarise areas I have contributed to, which is here. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can you summarize your education and your professional background?
Undergraduate level university education (science degree). Full-time employment involving writing. As I'm editing pseudonymously, though, that will have to be taken on trust. I certainly don't think judging people on the level of their education or the work they do is helpful. It is their on-wiki activities that they should be judged by. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can you summarize your involvement in other on-line projects and communities, including the identities under which you have participated at those communities?
I have participated heavily in one other online area, but under my real name, so I would prefer not to reveal further details. This other online area does not involve Wikipedia or any Wikimedia Foundation projects. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can you summarize any non-routine involvement you've had in disputes here or on other WMF projects, under this or any other username?
No disputes on any other WMF projects as far as I can remember. Most of my activity has been here in any case. I have been involved in disputes here on Wikipedia, but I would call them all fairly routine. If by non-routine, you mean being a formal mediator or member of MEDCOM or something like that, then no, I've only ever been involved in routine dispute resolution at the article level, or user talk page level, or the level of administrators' noticeboards, or arbitration requests and cases. My dispute involvement and (sometimes) resolution work at the level of articles, user talk pages and administrators' noticeboards is scattered and difficult to summarise or point to (though I am working on finding examples). I have managed to summarise my activity on arbitration pages, and this can be seen here. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any significant allegiance to any political, national, advocacy, or faith-based organizations? If so, do you see any potential conflict of interest?
No political, national (if by which you mean national government), advocacy or faith-based allegiances. If in the future any possible conflict of interest arose, I would take care to avoid problems in those areas. I would also be prepared to deposit details of potential COIs with an independent body, if that was deemed necessary, but until then I would ask that people trust me (and others) based on the history of my (and our) contributions here. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can you describe any other leadership roles you now hold or have held in the real world?
Not without revealing personal details. I can say that I have held organisational roles within voluntary organisations, but not leadership roles. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Have you publicly revealed your actual name and address? Do you plan to do so if elected? If not, how do you plan to respond to any threats you may receive to publicize this information?
No and no. I would respond with minor annoyance depending on the degree or credibility of the threats (I would ignore threats that I judged not to be credible). Serious threats, I would treat the same way regardless of who sent the threat, where it was sent to, and when it was sent. Credible threats and actual harassment should be taken seriously and responded to robustly, even if carried out over the internet. Having said that, this is a bridge that though I am aware might need to be crossed, I cannot say precisely what I would do until the moment came that this bridge needed to be crossed. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any friends, family members, or other people close to you IRL who edit Wikipedia? What are their user names and their relationships to you?
Not that I am aware of. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Other than the wiki itself, where do you discuss Wikipedia matters (e.g. IRC, mailing list, meetups)?
Mailing list, e-mails, and one-to-one chat. I choose not to engage in group chat like IRC channels. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What constituencies do you imagine that you would serve as a member of the committee? Do they all carry equal weight?
I would aim to serve all editors, new and old, and of all types as long as they have the potential to be, or are, productive editors, contributing to building this encyclopedia. About the "equal weight" question, issues regarding content take priority, and that can relate to many types of contributors, not just those that write the content, but also those types of editors that affect content in any way, for example by running bots. I disagree that any arbitrators should be serving a particular "constituency" within the overall editing community. What arbitrators should be aiming to do is working to maintain a cohesive and collaborative environment that is conducive to producing the encyclopedia. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC) Answer updated 15:36, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What kinds of cases do you think the committee should accept? Refuse?
The committee should accept cases that haven't been resolved by prior dispute resolution, and where extraordinarily divisive disputes have erupted between administrators. The committee should reject cases where no prior dispute resolution has taken place, or where it is a simple content dispute with no behavioural problems. Saying more than generalities like this would prejudice future requests. Carcharoth (talk) 20:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How do you believe the committee should address problematic behavior that takes place off-wiki but affects conflict here?
I believe the Arbitration Committee should only rarely issue sanctions here to address problematic behaviour that takes place off-wiki. This is purely because the committee's jurisdiction does not extend off-wiki (for obvious reasons). In any case, there should be an on-wiki incident to justify involvement by the en-Wikipedia Arbitration Committee. If there is no such connection, the best advice is for the affected editor or editors to pursue off-wiki action themselves, or petition the Wikimedia Foundation to aid them in such actions. This does not preclude making people here aware of off-wiki actions, and taking the appropriate action to ensure the integrity of Wikipedia is not compromised, but there should, as I said, be clear reasons on-wiki for taking any action. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What kinds of arbitration remedies do you believe are most effective (e.g. Bans, editing restrictions, article restrictions, other "creative remedies")?
It would probably be more useful to do an actual survey to find out which remedies have worked best. I suspect that you will find that different remedies work best depending on the situation being arbitrated. Some people are fine with editing restrictions and happily sit them out and then go back to productive editing. Others chafe under restrictions and in this case a ban might have been better. Some people react to bans by creating sockpuppets, thinking they won't get caught. And so on. If they work, certain creative remedies should be used in future cases, and that is where a survey of how remedies have worked in practice might help. Carcharoth (talk) 20:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any specific plans for change to the arbitration system or the project as a whole that you would seek to carry out as a member of the committee?
If I am elected, I would spend time gaining an idea of how things work, and I might then suggest some changes to working practices within the arbitration process, but that is all I would do as an arbitrator. Major changes to the form of the arbitration committee and the arbitration policy would need to be approved by the community, and the impetus for change should come from the community, not the committee. This doesn't mean, however, that the arbitration committee, or individual arbitrators, should not have input. Various stages, including stages for communal input, and committee and arbitrator input, are needed (and this is what has been happening over the past few months, with the Arbitration Committee RfC and the drafts by two sitting arbitrators), though the final approval needs to come from the community. At the end of the day, if current arbitrators disagree with that process, they have the option to resign if a community vote approves the changes. As for changes to the project (Wikipedia) as a whole, that should be made by the community and the community alone (though the Wikimedia Foundation would need to approve changes as well, as their approval would be needed for continued support). If I participated in such a process affecting the project as a whole, it would be as an ordinary editor, not an admin or arbitrator, and I would make that clear (though it should really go without saying). Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Which past or current members of the committee do you admire the most? Why?
I do have admiration for some past and current members of the committee, but I don't think it would be helpful to single anyone out, or imply anything about those I don't mention. This is partly because, if elected, I will need to work with other people on the committee, and while I would do that regardless of any personal feelings I had, I wouldn't want anything I said here to impede that process. I can say, here and now, that I would be prepared to work with any one of the past and current arbitrators, and also the current candidates, provided they were willing to work with me. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To what standard of proof do you believe the committee should work?
A high standard, though not in any sense a legal standard (that would be unhelpful and unworkable). The standard of proof should be weighed against the need to be pragmatic, and the unique requirements of a particular case (e.g. privacy concerns and other matters). I would personally look closely at the evidence in a particular case, and investigate further or ask further questions if I felt that was needed. In general, if there was reasonable doubt, I would be hesitant to vote for a finding of fact. However, if there was clear and unambiguous evidence, then a line in the sand would need to be drawn with an appropriate remedy. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What are your feelings regarding the Wikimedia Foundation, its governance, officers, board, and employees?
That's a rather broad topic. I haven't followed all the stories about the WMF over the past few years, but I do take with a large pinch of salt the stories I have read. I would assume things were OK unless it was obvious that something had gone wrong. From what I can tell, they do a lot of work and keep things running. Whether more could be done, or done differently, is, I think, a matter for the WMF-specific wiki (both the private one to read announcements, and things like meta, which though different from the WMF wiki is still a place for such meta-issues), the WMF-specific mailing list and, of course, the elections to the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To what extent do you support the work of the OTRS team?
I am aware of OTRS and the work they do (which I wholeheartedly endorse as a vital aspect of the whole process), but not much more than that. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any plans to publicize information that the committee has kept confidential in the past?
No, and if such possibilities were discussed by Arbitration Committee while I was on it, if elected, I would insist that all parties were contacted to grant permission for full or part-disclosure. If this was not granted, or such persons were uncontactable, then it is unlikely that such information would be verifiable anyway (unless independent sources could be used), and it should be discounted and not used in any way. See also my answer to the confidentiality question in my Signpost responses. Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from TomasBat

In general, which of these 2 concepts do you regard as higher priority? The concept of "user" as another human being or "what's best for the encyclopedia"? (would you be 200% fair and patient to a relatively new good faith user at the expense of commiting to something that you know will most probably, at an overall, not benefit the encyclopedia?)
I see this as an issue of short-term and long-term harm and gain. Being patient and fair with a new user can have a range of results, from that user losing interest in Wikipedia and leaving (you can't expect everyone to stay), to that user maintaining interest and becoming a strong and valued editor and established part of the Wikipedia community. A good example is the story User:Jehochman (one of those running in this election) tells in his candidate statement where he was politely warned about apparent advertising, rather than aggressively denounced for spamming. The moral of this story is, in my view, that you can't ever be certain that treating another user as another human being will "not benefit the encyclopedia" (so I disagree with the way you have presented the choice). You can't predict the future like that. Having said that, if I was certain that an action would benefit the encyclopedia, I would take that action, and if an action needed to be taken or reversed to protect the encyclopedia, I would do that as well. Carcharoth (talk) 16:52, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from MBisanz

In the past there have been issues with arbitrators who did not reveal their real life identity onwiki, being harassed offwiki with the threat of revealing it. If you have not revealed your identity publicly and were threatened with someone revealing it with the intent to harass you, how would you respond? If your identity is already public, feel free to ignore this question.
I've answered this question elsewhere (see the answer to UninvitedCompany's qusetion 7). To respond in brief here (with some extra points as well), I would evaluate the seriousness and credibility of the threat and either ignore it (if I judged it to be not credible), or, if it was serious and credible, respond to it robustly (there are various options that would be available at that stage). I used the metaphor of crossing a bridge when you get there, in my response to UninvitedCompany, and I do feel that some issues can't be addressed until they arise. There is a difference between making sure candidates are made aware of the possible consequences of standing in an election like this (which is fine), and asking what actions people would take in certain scenarios (too much information). I have said, in response to Thatcher's question 4 that such disclosure (or 'outing') would not impact on my service on the Arbitration Committee (though things can change in three years), and I think that what I've said here is all that can be reasonably said without revealing too much about possible responses, or veering over a line and starting to encourage such efforts. Carcharoth (talk) 17:19, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Pixelface

Please list all the arbitration cases (accepted by the arbitration committee) where you were listed as an involved party. (I am speaking of closed cases as well as active cases). Do you think the remedies given in the case(s) were helpful in resolving any disputes?
I have been listed as a party in two cases:
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman (December 2007)
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2 (March 2008)
In the Matthew Hoffman case, the first remedy (the annotation of a block log, which I agreed with) was not really aimed at resolving any actual dispute. The second remedy (the waiving of the adminship, titled "provisionally desysopped for six months", which I disagreed with in its earlier form - see the proposed decision talk page) also didn't really resolve any dispute. Rather it created an ongoing one that has rumbled on all year, but shows signs that it might finally be resolved once and for all (there is still, at the time of writing, an open motion at WP:RFARB about this case). I'm a bit conflicted here, as I said previously (see elsewhere on this page) that I wasn't going to comment on the Matthew Hoffman case again, but I needed to do so to adequately answer your question. After the elections have finished, that really will be it for me, as far as commenting on this case is concerned. It is, however, a sobering thought that no actual dispute was resolved here, though the case was, in any case, more about admin culture and admin noticeboard culture at the time. If you rephrase the question to ask whether those issues ever got resolved, I would have to say, frankly, no. The same issues are still around, and at least one sitting arbitrator (the bainer) said the same thing at the recent RfArb motion (November 2008). Anyway, as I said, I don't want to go into that amount of detail here as the two main parties have agreed to move on from this, and the underlying issues are something the community needs to resolve itself at some point. Turning to the Betacommand 2 case instead, there were five remedies there. The dispute didn't end there, though, as can be seen by the log of blocks, bans and restrictions for that case. There have been several massive discussions about Betacommand since the case, some of which I participated in. There was this one and this one (both in May 2008, which resulted in, I think, what became known as the "Sam Korn solution") and then this one in August 2008. In the latter, I proposed the formation of an ad-hoc committee (though I wasn't on it myself), which led to the community-imposed restrictions logged at the case page. I think the upshot of all this is not so much to resolve the disputes (Betacommand has been blocked twice in November for breaching the community-imposed civility parole), as to keep things "contained". The real solution will only come when the community of non-free policy editors (and that includes me) and the uploaders and enforcers of policy take notice of their responsibilities laid out in remedy 4, and set up processes to allow non-free image disputes to be resolved with less acrimony. I have a couple of unfinished pages in that regards, which I won't point to (they are embarassingly unfinished), but this is something the community still needs to resolve. I've said it elsewhere, but I'll repeat here that if elected I would recuse in new motions or requests concerning these two cases. Carcharoth (talk) 20:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please list all the arbitration cases (accepted by the arbitration committee) where you, acting as a non-member of the committee, have provided a statement, or evidence, or /Workshop material. Do you feel it was worth your time in each case?
I have compiled an arbitration portfolio here. It covers my activity on arbitration pages over the period from June 2006 to October 2008, but I will do a brief summary here. I have made a total of 23 statements at declined requests for arbitration, and 9 statements at cases that were accepted (I haven't looked yet at how many times I agreed or disagreed with the decision to open a case). I have been involved to varying extents in 26 arbitration cases (ranging from commentary or participation after the case, such as logging a block or warning, to full participation with evidence and workshop proposals). This doesn't include participation at motions or appeals in other cases. I provided evidence in 5 cases (Husnock, IRC, Matthew Hoffman, Betacommand 2, and Geogre-William M. Connolley - links are direct to my evidence sections), and workshop proposals in 4 cases (Badlydrawnjeff, IRC, Matthew Hoffman and Geogre-William M. Connolley). Direct links to my workshop page sections or proposals are on that portfolio page. I feel that giving a statement at a request for arbitration was nearly always worthwhile, as was giving evidence. Workshop proposals were less helpful, as in most cases the arbitrators prefer to use their own wording. I think it would be helpful if more arbitrators participated at the workshop pages, and I would certainly plan on doing that if elected. Carcharoth (talk) 20:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please list all the requests for arbitration you've made. (If you can't remember them all, please describe some of the ones you *do* remember).
I haven't opened any requests for arbitration. The requests I have participated in were mentioned in the answer to the previous question. It might also be worth mentioning here that I have filed one request for clarification after a case closed. It was the IRC case, and the clarification request can be seen here (March 2008). Carcharoth (talk) 20:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Badger Drink

It is important that members of an "small but powerful" group such as ArbCom be able to offer criticism, and to admit that no person - neither themselves nor their fellow members of the Committee - is perfect. Nor should it be assumed that one's fellow members are sensitive waifs, unable or unfit to handle criticism - even public, on-Wiki, criticism. Choosing to always err in favor of preserving harmony in the workplace will inevitably lead to a workplace less deserving of harmony in the first place. With this in mind, looking over the Closed Case Files, such as they are, it becomes more and more evident that the ArbCom is not always right. Can you give an example or two of recent (i.e., within the past two years) cases (opened, rejected, or even clarifications) where you feel the ArbCom, to put it bluntly, screwed the pooch? If you were a member of the ArbCom at the time of this pooch-screwing, what would you or could you have said or done to make matters better?
I think the Arbitration Committee did mishandle the Matthew Hoffman case. In my view, the filing by a sitting arbitrator and the rapid opening of a proposed decision pages set the tone for what followed. The real mistake, though, came later. There was a point when the Committee could, and should, have moved to a private case to settle the matter, due to privacy concerns. Indeed, the whole matter could have been handled like that from the start. Carcharoth (talk) 22:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What are your thoughts regarding the OrangeMarlin case?
Mishandled due to failures of communication. Carcharoth (talk) 22:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This final question may be frustratingly broad - and might be superceded by smaller, more focused questions on individual aspects of the incident. But let's just get a broad overview for the time being: What are your thoughts on the bombastic RFC/AC? Are there any issues raised within that RfC that you find particularly prudent?
It started with good intentions (it started as a draft in userspace long before the events that precipitated it going live took place) and had some good results (see the summary), but in-between it got rather unwieldy, despite attempts to split it up into a more manageable set of pages. Better management of the process would have helped, but the editing was rather heavy. I added my point here. Other points I agree with or thought were sensible, were the suggestions by Neil here (Neil is running in these elections as Fish and Karate). My other thoughts on arbitration policy and the role played by this RfC can be found elsewhere on these pages - see Mailer Diablo's question 4, UninvitedCompany's question 14, and Newyorkbrad's question 2. Carcharoth (talk) 22:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from BirgitteSB

Due to concerns over the way a non-public case was handled I once suggested some minimum standards for such cases [1]. Which follow slightly clarified:

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

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

Short answer? I agree wholeheartedly, and I think the ensuring of minimum standards in such cases outweighs the increased workload this would entail. It would be good, though, for arbitrators to indicate on-wiki that their time is being spent on preparing such presentations in private cases, and that the case is proceeding (i.e. periodic updates on-wiki). The drama reduction is an important point as well, as drama wastes everyone's time (though calmly stated criticisms are always helpful). Please let me know if you want a longer answer or have more specific questions. Carcharoth (talk) 13:55, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Kristen Eriksen

1. In the course of ascertaining whether editors have violated our verifiability policy, arbitrators may be called upon to determine questions of source reliability. Should certain peer-reviewed journals be considered reliable sources when they are published by otherwise respectable organizations, but engage in a practice of lending credence to fields of endevour and subject matter widely held in disrepute by the scientific community? As an example, consider the journal "Homeopathy" [2], which is published by Elsevier, but which regularly carries positive experimental results for homeopathic preparations.

Wikipedia should be wary of deciding source reliability in unclear cases. It is much better to rely on a clearly reliable source to itself determine source reliability. For example, if the journal Nature published an editorial piece or other article criticising the journal Homeopathy, then this should be taken into account. This standard of assessment of reliability would only be needed for unclear cases - in most cases, reliability is something that Wikipedia editors are capable of determining themselves through editorial discretion. It should also be noted that even if sourced criticisms were found of the journal Homeopathy, that may not alone justify complete removal of information sourced to that journal. What it might mean is using that journal as a source in a different way, since it is important that our readers know whether or not the journal is reliable or not, rather than a heavy-handed attempt to excise all mention of it. If I may, I'd like to point out here, the WikiProject on Academic Journals, and encourage the production of an article on the Homeopathy journal, if it meets our general notability guidelines (even if it is not an 'academic' journal). In my view, it is better to have accurate articles on such things (including sourced negative criticism), rather than propose them for deletion. If they are deleted, then people will go elsewhere to read about them, and they may end up on websites that mislead them about the reliability or otherwise of the journal. Carcharoth (talk) 13:49, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

The original intent of that section of the WP:NOT policy, as far as I can tell, was to avoid the removal of images that are needed to explain anatomy and sex topics, or to illustrate otherwise controversial material (e.g. religious cartoons). From looking at it at the time of writing, it still says that. I have seen the term used to justify 'free speech', but I don't think that should be a concern at Wikipedia, at least not in article space. People wanting to talk about such things should use blogs or mediums like that. I should also point out that, back in May 2008, I made a proposal for a guideline (more a summary of existing pages) to try and bring some focus to this area and keep a record of the perennial discussions on the topic to avoid constant refrains of the same arguments. See Wikipedia:Image content guidelines and the points I raised on the talk page, such as here and here. One of the points I raised there, that I don't think has been made clear enough elsewhere, is that where images are concerned, we rely heavily on the culture and policies enforced at Wikimedia Commons. I have an account over there (called Carcharoth (Commons) due to usurption problems), and I would encourage anyone with concerns about images to participate over there, or at the Featured Image process here. That is the best way to understand how concerns with images are dealt with. Carcharoth (talk) 13:49, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

Remembering to apply due weight (and that is sometimes horrendously difficult), my view is that both views should be covered. But you are asking directly what the relative weight should be when two views strongly conflict. In my view, the degree to which views conflict should not determine the relative weight (that is too subjective). What should determine relative weight is the weighting and wording used in other reliable sources. In other words, find a reliable or authoritative source that covers both views, and see what weighting they give each view. If necessary, use direct (but limited) quotes to settle a point. This tallys with the general point that when there is virulent disagreement out there, we need to document that disagreement here on Wikipedia, not set ourselves up as editors who claim to be qualified to chose one side or the other. As in my response to your first question, this higher standard of reliable sourcing for weight issues is only needed in the most controversial and conflicted cases. In most articles, normal editorial discretion will be enough. There is an alternative approach, which is to survey literature in a field (e.g. journal paper and books) and try and obtain percentages of which ones take which view, but in my view that borders on original research - unless a reliable source has itself conducted a literature survey and published a report on it. In general, whenever there is conflict or doubt, return to the most reliable and authoritative sources, and see what they say. That, in the end, leads to the most reliable articles and the most informative ones for the readers. Carcharoth (talk) 13:49, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions From Ϣere Spiel Chequers

For the following questions please don't count any cases that you were involved in, or if you'd been on Arbcom would have recused yourself for reasons such as friendship with a participant. Ϣere Spiel Chequers 00:05, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How many arbitration cases have you fully reviewed (or participated in as an Arbcomm member)?
I've looked through the completed requests page and, starting from the date I first started taking an interest in arbitration pages (June 2006), have scanned through all the cases. The earlier cases, from 2004 and 2005, while interesting, I don't think are that helpful to review (e.g. "banned from editing all pages for ten days" and "banned for one day" shows how the nature of the remedies have changed since the early days). I did, though, as a reader and editor of Tolkien articles, note with amusement, the JRR Trollkien case. But to get back to more recent cases, it's not until December 2006 onwards that there are cases that I've reviewed fully. The cases that I've reviewed fully (or intend to review fully) are the ones I've listed here (i.e. the ones that I had some level of involvement in), so that is 26 cases. If I was elected, though, I would take the time to go back and review past cases that were relevant to a present case. It is important to remember, though, that such cases don't set precedents, but should be used more to see what the finding of facts and remedies were at that time, concerning editors involved in present cases. It is also important to judge mostly on present behaviour, not past behaviour, unless it is the past behaviour that is being repeated. Carcharoth (talk) 13:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In what proportion of the unanimous decisions in those cases did you agree with the decision?
An initial answer is that in most cases (I estimate around 90%) I found myself agreeing with the unanimous decisions. A full answer, with details, will take time to prepare, and may not be ready until after voting has commenced, but I will aim to have a full (or at least more detailed answer, with some examples where I disagreed) ready before voting ends. Of course, in some cases, it may not be appropriate to comment, as the cases may come before the committee as an appeal or motion. See also my comments on how to handle disgreements over past cases, and when it is and isn't appropriate to bring this up, as seen in my response to the final part of Thatcher's question 3 "what will you do if those matters are resolved in an unsatisfactory [manner]?". Carcharoth (talk) 13:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In what proportion of the split decisions in those cases did you agree with the majority decision?
By their very nature, the split decisions were more controversial. From memory, my agreement or disagreement depended on the exact nature of the decision. I definitely didn't agree with all of the split decisions. I will find some examples to provide here later. Of course, in some cases, it may not be appropriate to comment, as the cases may come before the committee as an appeal or motion. See also my comments on how to handle disgreements over past cases, and when it is and isn't appropriate to bring this up, as seen in my response to the final part of Thatcher's question 3 "what will you do if those matters are resolved in an unsatisfactory [manner]?". Carcharoth (talk) 13:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How well do you think Arbcom's procedures would handle the situation where new evidence comes to light after a decision has been made?
If presented to the ArbCom mailing list, or on-wiki as an appeal, I think the right conclusion would be reached, including overturning previous decisions if need be. The concern would be that overworked or inactive (but not marked as inactive) arbitrators would hold up the process, and in particular, appeals sent to the mailing list mustn't be allowed to disappear into a "black hole" where nothing is done for months or ever. Regular communications, both on-wiki and via e-mail, are needed to keep the appealing parties informed as to what is going on. But as I said, new evidence is something that should, if clear and obvious, result in a swift decision and correction (if needed) of the result of the case. The only sticking point might be a need to inform the other parties in the case and let them respond to the new evidence. This could hold things up, but hopefully not unduly so. Carcharoth (talk) 13:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question(s) from LtPowers

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

I do agree with your basic assessment. Since your question "relates to those members of the community who might be persuadable if their specific objections were addressed", then the answer seems obvious. Listen to those specific objections and address them. I don't think this requires any change in policy, but changes in working practices would definitely help. The single biggest thing, looking from the outside (obviously, never having been on the inside, I can't suggest improvements to the internal workings of the Committee), seems to be the time taken to get some things done. Sometimes this manifests as cases dragging on for months, and at other times the opposite seems to happen, with an unseemly rush to deal with the cause du jour (forgive my French). An example, in microcosm, is the way in which a motion on the WP:RFARB page that I've been following, one to do with the Matthew Hoffman case, has lingered for days with one motion very close to passing (5 votes with 6 needed to pass). Despite this, the last few days saw a huge drama erupt around a separate issue: a block carried out by an arbitrator, an admin unblocking, a summary motion to deal with that unblock, scads (lots) of text and commentary being thrown at the problem by the community and some of the candidates in this election, and the eventual desysopping of the admin in question. I watched all this unfold (consciously chosing to stay out of it all - it is actually possible to learn restraint and practice it and see benefits from not getting involved in every little thread), but was rather dismayed to see all the other work of the arbitration committee get left to moulder while that was being dealt with. That, more than anything, the feeling that some drama might leave a particular case that you are involved with, left hanging in mid-air (the Highways 2 arbitration case at the beginning of 2008 is a good example, it was left neglected for far too long). That sort of poor organisation can lead to a slow and corrosive loss of faith in the Arbitration Committee to deal with things with decorum and dignity, and in a timely and appropriate matter (paying attention to details such as recusals, for example). It might seem like a little thing, but if ArbCom lead by example as individuals and as a group (and by this I mean every arbitrator being aware of what is needed of them, and keeping up with voting on motions, or going inactive if they will not be around to vote), then the community might also improve its behaviour, and leave the ArbCom to do its job, rather than pile on in a thread worthy of the worst of AN or ANI (and I speak as someone who has done that in the past, but now sees how damaging that can be), then things might improve all round. Finally, not strictly related, but an interesting product of all this is an essay: see User:Scott MacDonald/When to shoot an admiral, and the talk page discussions. Carcharoth (talk) 02:37, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Individual questions

Questions asked individually to each candidate may be placed here.

Question from Gnangarra

What actions would you recommend to users who have;

been sanctioned by ARBCOM
community banned or
long term block

to re-establish their standing with community. Gnan garra 12:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm presuming here that the ARBCOM sanctioned user has not been blocked and is free to edit within the constraints of their sanctions. The ARBCOM sanctioned user should demonstrate that they can edit within those sanctions for a sustained period of time, before appealing or having the sanctions expire.
The banned user and the blocked user have to first of all demonstrate why the ban or block should be lifted, and make their appeals through the appropriate channels. Only then, can they start to re-establish their standing in the community, though having the ban or block lifted is an important step towards the goal of full rehabilitation.
For the blocked and banned users, the one thing I would advise first-and-foremost is to allow some time to pass. Not just days, but weeks and if necessary months. Appealing immediately or too soon is a surefire way to exhaust people's patience. So taking a break is the first thing. Sometimes people find that Wikipedia is not as important to them as they thought. And don't try and use sockpuppets. If you get caught, people will (quite rightly) show no mercy.
If you are banned or blocked from one Wikimedia project, consider doing work in another one to show that you can work productively on a wiki.
After some time has passed, if the blocked or banned user still wants to edit Wikipedia, they should write down why they want to edit, what they have learned from their block or ban, and how they would behave differently if unbanned or unblocked. If the appeal fails, take on board any comments made, wait some time and try again. Try different appeal channels (ArbCom, unblock mailing list, unblock template) if you think a particular appeal channel isn't giving you a fair hearing, but don't try again and again and again with the same appeal. And don't get angry. That will get you nowhere.
Once you are able to edit again (or the sanctions have expired or been lifted), a sustained period of productive editing of articles, and producing good content, and with no 'drama' in project space, will help to restore someone's standing in the community, though it does depend, of course, on the nature of the initial transgression. It is important to be aware of any areas or actions you need to avoid.
To regain full standing in the community, you need to recognise and reject what you did wrong, and make a clear an unequivocal statement that you have changed. Much later, if possible, demonstrate that you have reformed by educating those who are acting like you did, to improve their behaviour. Being aware of what you did wrong and being able to correct it in others will really raise your standing with some people.
Finally, remember to put the past behind you. Don't carry a chip on your shoulder about what happened, even if you think an injustice was done. Don't expect rehabilitation to happen overnight. It will take time. This also works the other way round - some people will always remember what happened and try to bring it up again, but as long as you have regained good standing, try not to be drawn into arguing about what happened.

That was a fairly detailed answer. I've used "you" above in the general sense, and not aimed at anyone in particular. Carcharoth (talk) 09:06, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from FT2

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

There is clear agreement that all is not well, in all ways, at Arbcom. Many users standing will be hoping to change that, as many did last year. What aspects work well, and what are the core changes you feel would help change the ones that don't?
More sustained activity by all arbitrators, and a spreading of the workload, rather than one or two arbitrators doing a lot of the on-wiki work. I'm aware that some of the seemingly less active arbitrators do behind-the-scenes work, but this is not made clear enough to the community. All the arbitrators should remain visible and engaged with the process. Carcharoth (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ex-arbitrators and Jimbo are privy to various Arbcom dialogs. What impressions do you have regarding the nature and extent of their involvement in the sitting arbitrators' discussions? How do you imagine their activity looks, on the Committee's mailing list/s, and in particular when the topic is a controversial matter, one that ex-arbitrators may have views on, or some other significant matter?
Jimbo has said on-wiki, several times, when challenged about the lack of his day-to-day involvement with the encyclopedia, that he does remain engaged off-wiki, and he has included the work he does with the Arbitration Committee in that. Unfortunately, I can't find a diff for that right now. As to how Jimbo and ex-arbitrators participating in mailing list discussions looks like (I think that is what you are asking), I have no idea. I presume they comment and opine where needed, and would hope they don't try to influence discussions about current cases. I would hope they primarily contribute to discussions of non-case arbitration matters and non-arbitration matters, or other matters where advice is being sought. Carcharoth (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Two questions, or two sides of the same question. Your choice.
a) Arbcom involves matters that Arbitrators may decide need to be kept out of the public domain, for various reasons that vary between privacy breach and avoidance of harm, to reducing disruption. You-personally-may come under suspicion from some users regarding such matters if you do so. It is unlikely that you will be able to do the job properly without offending a range of users, and unlikely you will be able to always explain your actions as an admin might in a range of circumstances. Thoughts?

b) As the community has become more versatile in handling everyday forms of disruptive conduct, Arbcom cases have tended to cover a higher proportion of cases where privacy is a significant issue, and cases where there are factors involved that some will argue cannot be fully disclosed due to privacy, WP:BEANS or other effects that would be harmful to the project. At the same time the community wishes greater levels of disclosure, and some will demand it, often without regard to harm (which they may not be aware is a possibility if their requests are met). Communal benefit, or user safety, may be at risk in some of these. And yet you are also there to do right by the project and community. You will be a decision-maker in the question of what to make public, and indeed, when to not even explain why something will not be made public (because of concerns over consequences or fairness). Thoughts?
Answer applies to both (a) and (b). This is a necessary consequence of dealing with private matters and reducing disruption. I recognise that full explanations may not be possible, but I do think that as much explanation as is possible should be provided, possibly after discussion as to what the level of disclosure can or should be. Carcharoth (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Seasoned and respected users appointed to Arbcom routinely believe they will not burn out. Yet, equally routinely, a proportion do (or become markedly less responsive over time, or less likely to keep pushing to reduce long standing issues). Why should users feel you stand a chance of lasting the course and remaining strongly involved in a year's time?
Because I have a consistent record of contributions. See here. I have contributed every month from January 2006 to October 2008. For 24 of those 34 months, I have made over 1000 edits. I also intend to take wikibreaks to avoid burnout, and have carefully scheduled the amount of time available, while maintaining flexibility, aiming for around 10-20 hours of arbitration work. For more details, see my answer to Carnildo's question up above. Carcharoth (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Many disputes stem from poor following of communal norms (including policies), or norms that are problematic, insufficient, disputed or conflicting in the face of some new kind of issue. When standards lapse, or dispute arises due to such issues, how hard should Arbcom push the community in expressing the pursuit of higher standards or better consensus as a "need" rather than a "request"?
The ArbCom shouldn't have to "push" the community in this way. The community (or people within the community) should be taking a lead on this themselves. Possibly a listing of some of the unresolved issues might help, as would individual arbitrators taking off their arbitrator hats and helping to get the processes started. If there is no community support for a proposal, though, it should be marked as rejected or historical, like any other. No 'special treatment' for ArbCom "suggestions". Carcharoth (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If appointed, what would you consider your personal sense of "your mandate" to be? (This is not asking what Arbitrators should do; rather it is asking what you see as your personal special agenda, or "matters and issues to especially focus on", out of all the areas of Arbitrator work and activities, as a Committee member.)
Well, putting aside the idea of a "special agenda", which I don't think is appropriate wording to use, matters to focus on would be working practices and communications, ensuring the Arbitration policy draft proposals don't fall out of sight, staying active day-to-day on cases and requests, and listening to the community. Carcharoth (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How will being on Arbcom affect your actions, or choices about how to act, in other capacities - as an editor, user, admin, or the like?
As an editor/user - no change except having less time to spend on such matters; as an admin - I intend to disengage from participation at AN and ANI (and have scaled down my participation there for the last three months, quite intentionally). One area I hope not to see a decline in participation in, is at various policy and guideline pages, but that would depend on time available and the possibility of being too involved if disputes arose - if I had to chose, I would do just article work and arbitration work (the split being between 60/40 and 70/30 as I've said elsewhere). I would also, if I needed a short break, go and do some work at Wikisource or Commons, or do some article reviews (peer review, FAC and FAR). I'm also aware that being an arbitrator can mean people hanging on your every word, so that might quite dramatically affect my choices on where and when to get involved. I now believe very strongly, despite not doing this in my initial years here, that chosing carefully when to get involved and when not to, is half the problem solved. Sometimes it really is better not to get involved along with everyone else, or if you do get involved, to keep things brief. Unlike on this page! Carcharoth (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I expect to add a couple more to these, and will be interested to see the results. They are intended to be searching. Feedback will be provided. Thank you. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:09, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I look forward to receiving feedback. I apologise for the answers being so delayed. Carcharoth (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Jehochman

We both received sysop tools during the same week, but seem to have radically different approaches to adminship. For instance I have performed many blocks, but you have never blocked anyone.[3] I have closed virtually no article for deletion discussions, whereas other administrators close many of them. What sort of approach do you think is best for ArbCom, or do you think the Committee needs a variety of volunteers with different approaches?

Thanks. Jehochman ^Talk 17:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that the Committee needs a variety of volunteers with different approaches. My approach, as you have pointed out, does not usually involve blocks. I have made a one-second block to annotate a block log, and I have made two unblocks - in all three cases these actions were carried out following discussion at the administrators' noticeboards, as noted in the block logs. For the discussions related to those actions, see here (right at end of thread), here (whole thread on subpage), here (the first unblock) and here (the second unblock). In other words, I rarely use the block tools because my approach involves discussion and debate (usually at the administrators noticeboards), with warnings if needed, aiming to persuade people to change their behaviour or reconsider their actions, though I have also suggested blocks and other sanctions, where appropriate. When the discussion indicates that blocks are needed, someone else has usually stepped up and carried out the actions. There are places where specific requests are made for blocks, such as at AIV (vandalism notices), 3RR (three-revert rule noticeboard) and RFCU (requests for checkuser), but I haven't worked in those areas, and so haven't done much blocking. As far as this relates to work done on the Arbitration Committee, I think being able to research, discuss and judge a case is more important than having direct experience with using specific tools. If there were cases involving technical matters, I would ensure that I understood the technical details before reaching a verdict, and in discussions I would aim to draw on the experience that fellow arbitrators would have in areas that I might not be familiar with. Carcharoth (talk) 03:22, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How do you feel about the escalating warn, block cycle that some editors get into? Do you support that approach, or do you think that discussion and warning is a better way to treat people, followed by an indefinite block or ban if they cannot be coaxed toward productive contribution? (e.g. Do you favor the prevalent Wikipedia model for blocking, or the "indef only" model advocated by Citizendium?) Jehochman ^Talk 03:46, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer the "escalating warn, block cycle" if done consistently and with care (i.e. not increasing a block merely because someone has let off steam on their talk page, and carefully looking at the previous blocks and not assuming that the block log tells the full story), compared to indefinite blocks. In essence, I agree with what Neil (User:Fish and karate) said in his candidate statement: "Targeted editing restrictions rather than wholescale blocks, progressive blocks rather than indefinite bans for those whose intentions are good but methods are poor." As he says, a "light touch" to rehabilitate some problem users is best. I believe that in the long run this causes less problems, though there does come a point where enough is enough. The problem is that this breaking point is different for different editors and admins watching or commenting on a particular case, so we have an obligation not to send mixed messages to the editors being "coaxed toward productive contribution" (also, some editors change their minds about a user if the rate of reform is too slow, or improvement has been minimal). Reform only happens if the user in question is receptive to it (recognises there is a problem), and if a strong, clear and unambiguous statement is made as to what is expected. Looking at the indefinite block model, I strongly object to moving to an indefinite block as the first block, except in clear cases of flagrant abuse or where there has been clear and repeated abuse of multiple accounts (backed up by a checkuser). What I often point to here is the fact that ArbCom only block or ban for a year at most (though I think there are exceptions to this). Citizendium is presumably different, because people are required to self-identify, but even there I would hope opportunities are given for people to learn the ropes and change their behaviour and improve. Here on Wikipedia, we get far more experimentation by pseudonymous accounts, some of which may become the next generation of editors. While we are on the topic, I think that the use of indefinite blocks to block temporarily, while discussion takes place as to what is an appropriate block length, can be a problem. Either the blocking admin should decide themselves what the block length should be, or there should be a separate "temporary" block option that automatically expires after a set period of time, and can be followed up with a definite block length. Carcharoth (talk) 08:57, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How do you feel about the block option that has been added called "Infinite"? Is it just cosmetic to change the name of "Indefinite" to "Temporary"? I've started using Infinite or Indefinite depending on what the situation calls for. When a user has been very naughty and we need to get an undertaking before we allow them to edit again, Indefinite seems to work well. Sometimes I am very concerned about the potential for gaming finite length blocks. Do you think flexibility is called for? Jehochman ^Talk 14:38, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that "indefinite" can work well as a 'shock' block to make an editor realise they need to change their ways, but it can also drive off people who might have reformed and become productive editors. Ultimately, what type of block or other sanction is chosen depends on the nature of the discussions (if any) and the specific transgression in question, so yes, flexibility is the key. If you have other options available to you, it is often worth exploring them to see if they will help (and that includes non-blocking options as well). I don't actually think the "infinite" option on the block logs (which I think has been around for quite a while) is that helpful, as it tends to confuse people who thought that this is what indefinite means (there are several definitions of what 'indefinite' means). I'm not sure what you mean by "gaming finite length block logs". If you want to explain this, or post a further follow-up question, would you mind waiting until I've got through the other questions on this page? I should have worked through them by the end of the coming weekend (say, by 24th November). Carcharoth (talk) 00:54, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are times when an editor has done something seriously wrong (such as outing another editor) and we may need to say, "you will not edit again until you promise never to do X again." My thought on gaming is that a finite length block in such a situation may not work because the editor will just sit it out, and then come back and do X. In such situations, are indefinite blocks appropriate? Jehochman ^Talk 01:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In some situations, yes, requiring a clear acknowledgment of what behaviour needs to be avoided to allow resumption of editing is needed, and serious violations of policy fall under that point, and indefinite blocks are appropriate there. This does, however, have to be balanced against appearing to be extracting apologies or changes in behaviour at the gunpoint of an indefinite block or threat of an indefinite block. It is my view that voluntary changes in behaviour, and persuasion through discussion, are more likely to work in the long term, and are more likely to effect lasting change (thus saving time all round). Situations where an editor sits out a block without comment and then comes back and resumes the same behaviour, even after clear warnings and blocks, are not acceptable. It is important, though, that the original block is valid. If an editor feels that a block is not valid, but doesn't want to contest it (or the block has already expired) there should be a way to address that. My advice would be to use the unblock template once, and if rejected to then post saying that they still contest the block but are willing to wait it out. This does, of course, depend on what exactly the editor was blocked for. For less severe cases, it might be better to start with a fairly long block (a week or month) and indicate a willingness to reduce the block length under the right circumstances (even to the extent of removing it altogether) and then discuss with the blocked editor and negotiate a shorter block (or removal) depending on their reaction to the block, but it is important not to provide answers - the blocked editor has to come up with an adequate response on their own. I've addressed my thoughts on outing in my answers to other questions. Carcharoth (talk) 10:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RfCU comments

Please explain this situation: Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Grburster. In particular, do you think it would have been better if no checkuser would have been performed so that User:Iantresman could have continued to poison wells, attack users, and generally cause disruption all across this encyclopedia? ScienceApologist (talk) 03:31, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The background and follow-up to the Grburster checkuser request can be seen in this archived ANI thread. In particular, please see the six-part response I wrote in that thread, and the comment made here by Tim Vickers, who filed the initial checkuser request. As to whether it would have been better if no checkuser had been performed, I think the best approach in situations like this is to carry out regular checkusers on accounts of banned users to check whether they are running sockpuppets (I believe this would have uncovered Grburster following a check on the Iantresman account). In practice, doing things the other way round (carrying out checks on suspect accounts and uncovering links to banned users) is often easier, or the only practical way to carry out checks, but it means that sometimes other (unrelated) accounts will end up being checkusered as well as the sockpuppet accounts. If incorrect links between accounts are made in public at a checkuser request (as happened here), this can have consequences as well. In this case, the results of the checkuser were useful in identifying the sockpuppet of a banned user, but I think the request could have been handled better. The request should have said that a new account, created on 28 August 2008, had self-identified as an experienced Wikipedian, had immediately started editing the Non-standard cosmology article talk pages (see here and here), and had then started an ANI thread criticising your [ScienceApologist's] actions. With the benefit of hindsight, if the request had said that, I would have had no objections at all to the checkuser. What distracted me in this case was the erronerous connection made with another account - I made the mistake of comparing those two accounts, without looking in more detail at the context of the Grburster account. I was also unaware of the history of the Iantresman case, which can be seen (in part) here and here. I will add that those who were aware of the history with Iantresman, should really have twigged earlier what was going on, and said something at the checkuser request. This has turned out to be rather a long answer. I hope I've managed to answer your questions, and I'm happy to discuss this further with you here or on my talk page if needed. Carcharoth (talk) 02:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from User:The Land Surveyor

These are questions I am putting to all candidates - apologies if they have already been asked you before.

Vested contributor. I'm not sure I understand this term, but the way one defines it seems also to define one's position on Wikipedia itself. On one definition, it is a contributor who feels that because of their contributions, they stand above the ordinary rule of law on the wiki. On the other definition, it is a user who makes strong and positive and lasting contributions to the project, but whose behaviour can be pointed and forthright, leading him or her to come into conflict with the - same might say - narrow-minded and absurd conception of civility that seems to rule on the project these days. Which definition do you prefer?
Both are valid in different circumstances. These are both types of vested contributors, and both types cause damage to the community and the culture here. Humility and respect for others, even if you have forthright views or make strong contributions, is something that more people should have. In addition, avoiding condescension (something I've been accused of and do try to avoid) and being self-aware (while avoiding navel-gazing) and being able to admit when you are wrong, are all other aspects that help when it comes to editing Wikipedia. But it does take all sorts, and the variety of people and types here should be celebrated rather than watered down to a homogenous bland mix. Carcharoth (talk) 20:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reasonable behaviour Some have suggested that the criterion for civility should reflect the legal concept of what is 'reasonable' rather than anything else. What is your take on this?
My view is that a legal concept is not needed here. Common sense, a social contract (of sorts) and peer pressure to enforce those norms, is what is needed. One problem is that Wikipedia is so large. It is easy to go from the talk pages of a few limited articles or user talk pages, where certain standards seem OK, to then end up on a heavily-viewed public page and to look totally crass by breaching the social norms at that page. Learning how to be polite is one of the skills needed to negotiate a large place like Wikipedia, with so many pages and so many people. And equally, it is important not to be over-sensitive. If my take on being reasonable equates with the legal concept, then yes, I agree. Carcharoth (talk) 20:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Content contributors A closely connected question: it is often argued by those who defend the 'narrow concept' of civility above, that there is no harm in blocking or banning an expert contributor because the gap will soon be filled - there is a practically infinite supply of potential contributors to Medieval semantics, say, who will make good the missing expertise of the existing contributors on that subject who have been banned. Do you agree with that argument?
Mixed response here. For general topics where there is, in practice, an endless supply of editors, disruptive behaviour should not be tolerated. For specialist topics, the number of expert contributors will be limited, but this should not give anyone carte blanche to be disruptive. Subject matter experts should be encouraged and even cultivated and mentored, but there should be limits. It's just that people tend to disagree where those limits should be. There is a danger that if cranky subject matter experts are tolerated, that they will be all that is left, and Wikipedia needs more than just that. It needs developers, bot operators, template people, admins, writers in other content areas, and so on. Carcharoth (talk) 20:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Banned users still editing. This question has been put by other users, but I ask it again, if that is all right. It is clearly absurd that a banned user should be secretly allowed back to edit quietly. But that suggests there has been some sort of consensus in the community to allow them back. Which suggests in turn that either there was a clear fault in the policy that caused them to be banned, or that the policy had not been correctly implemented. In either case, should not these cases, however divisive they may be to the community, be taken to Arbcom?
Short answer, yes. I think such matters should be resolved now rather than later, though in some cases the banned editors are, shall we say, editing less quietly than others (see your block log). If such cases are allowed to fester for years, then resentment and bad blood develops, and that's not good for anyone. A crucial question, though, is whether the banned user is aware of what they did and whether they would do it again. That should always be the starting point for any review. Carcharoth (talk) 20:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Criterion for RFAR A connected question: given the limited time available to Arbcom, what criteria should there be for taking a case to RFAR. All the available evidence suggests the committee is slow to react or reply to requests. Would clear criteria for a case being submitted be of use? If so, what should those be?
I thought that the How-to guide (transcluded at WP:RFARB) was clear enough, but maybe not. Reading through the Arbitration guide and How to present a case may help (the former looks OK, not sure about the latter which has been edited and refined a lot less). Possibly one way to do this is to go back over rejected and accepted requests, to look at the reasons for rejection and acceptance, and come up with some sort of guide that way. My personal basic criteria will be to look for evidence of previous dispute resolution, and then to judge whether we can help resolve the dispute. Carcharoth (talk) 20:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wish you the very best with your candidacy, I hope it goes the way you would like, but also that it goes the way that is ultimately of benefit to the community and the project. The Land Surveyor (talk) 10:03, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, and thanks for your questions. Carcharoth (talk) 20:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from M.K.

If you had to choose, would you rather spend more time editing/creating articles or spend more time dealing with Committee matters? M.K. (talk) 10:43, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That choice will, in my opinion, face all the people elected and appointed to the Arbitration Committee following these elections. If elected, I do intend to continue with article work, but, from what I've seen, those elected will need to remain active and will need spend more time on arbitration work than on article work (or indeed any other work), and I'm prepared to do that. Having said that, I am also aware of the need to avoid burnout, and if elected I intend to carefully balance arbitration work with other work and breaks where needed. Carcharoth (talk) 22:27, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from User:Fish and karate

Hi Carcharoth. I believe Arbcom needs people who are unwilling to take action until all other avenues of resolution are exhausted, and thus I think you're a very strong candidate. That being said, with reference to Jehochman's question above, while you have has on occasion agreed or suggested a block is the appropriate course of action, you have never pushed the button yourself, instead asking others to do so. I'm curious; why do you think this is the case? fish&karate 09:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Neil. While I think the answer I gave to Jehochman covers most of what I would say here as well, I've been thinking on this some more, and I think one of the major reasons is that I often wait to see what other people say (including the person to be blocked), and by that point someone else has stepped in and blocked. Some might call that being indecisive (and they may have a point), but I think waiting to see what others say before making a decision is a good quality in an arbitrator. Having said that, I have found some concrete examples of cases where I considered blocking, and I'll be detailing those in my reply to John Vandenberg's questions below. I hope that will cover the question you've asked as well. Carcharoth (talk) 23:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Will Beback

This is a standard set of question I'm asking everyone. Best of luck in the election. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 10:56, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

I've never used other accounts on en-Wikipedia, though I have an account called Carcharoth (Commons) on the Wikimedia Commons (SUL usurption problems), and I have done some IP edits at some points. See here for an example from June 2007 (before I was an administrator). That was a rare case though, where my computer was broken. Going slightly off-topic, but following on from the matter of those IP edits, if I was elected, I would not log in anywhere that I thought was insecure (e.g. public computers) and I would not deal with arbitration matters from an internet cafe (or any public place). Carcharoth (talk) 19:28, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

Such accounts are only acceptable if done with care in limited circumstances. Having said that, sometimes it is better to grin and bear such humour, rather than kick up a fuss. It is all part of getting along with other people on Wikipedia. To get to the point of your question, the Bishzilla candidacy was OK in my view (open and transparent), but the Catherine de Burgh candidacy was not OK in my view (undisclosed account, despite offhand claims that everyone knew who it was). I should also say that I find Bishzilla exceedingly funny, and I found Catherine de Burgh even funnier (before her unfortunate demise). I rather fear, though, that her ghost may come back to haunt us. Carcharoth (talk) 19:28, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

I did propose somewhere that banned accounts regularly get checkusered to ferret out the socks (and I thought this was in some ways done already). If that would work (i.e. is is not against the checkuser or privacy policies) then I think that would help, especially if it could be automated in some way. Probably the best way to handle sock checks and blocks is to have more checkusers, and to have them trained and working as a team (which again, I think happens to some extent anyway). The public RFCU (requests for checkuser) process works well, but is only the tip of the iceberg by all accounts. Carcharoth (talk) 19:28, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from harej

Assess this statement: "The Wikipedia Arbitration Committee exists to promulgate the good times." To what extent is this statement valid, and to what extent should things change to reflect this statement? --harej 01:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The informal sense of promulgation (simply 'to make public') doesn't seem to apply here, so I presume you mean the formal meaning of promulgation, which is "formally proclaiming or declaring new statutory or administrative law when it receives final approval". In the sense that the arbitration committee should interpret existing policy, rather than making it, they shouldn't be announcing changes in policy. But I see that you didn't ask about policy, you asked about "the good times". I may be missing something obvious here, but possibly by "good times" you are asking whether it is the role of the Arbitration Committee to resolve disputes and pave the way for the return of harmonious editing in areas of dispute? So in that sense, yes, an arbitration case should herald an improvement in the situation. But in practice it may take far longer than that, with an initial arbitration case laying out a framework for a disputed area, allowing administrative action or future arbitration cases to apply finer details to individual disputes or problematic users. Once that has happened, the "good times" should return (though new disputes can arise as new users arrive at an article). As I said, though, I may have completely misunderstood what you were asking. If I have, please do rephrase and ask the question again. Carcharoth (talk) 02:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, that was brilliant. Thank you. --harej 02:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Rspeer

Sorry about not getting this in the general questions.

In your view, how does the notion of scientific consensus relate to the Wikipedia notion of NPOV? Is science a point of view, or is it a way of finding the neutral point of view? Does it differ based on the topic of the article?

I did a course on the philosophy of science once, so I hope no-one minds some technical stuff here. Science is both a method and a worldview. It is both a way of thinking about the world (a very successful one) and a way of determining the validity of various theories about the world (and I mean theory in the scientific sense, there, as in "a claim based on a body of evidence"). The way in which scientific consensus emerges is interesting (and not as simple as it sometimes seems), but in general it is evidence-based. Turning to the Wikipedia neutral point of view policy, this is, in my view, nothing more than ensuring that an article includes all reasonable and relevant viewpoints with due weight. Very often, the scientific consensus on a particular topic is the mainstream viewpoint, or the one that requires the most weight. This is usually common sense. An important point there, though, is relevance. While it is correct to make clear that astrology (for example) is not a modern science, it is not acceptable to unbalance the article with long and excessive explanations of why it is not a science, when there is lots of other material (such as the history of astrology) that needs to be covered. Incidentally, the existence of an article covering both, at astrology and astronomy is, um, interesting - whether that is a summary article or a content fork, I'm not sure. Anyway, as I hope is clear from what I've said, I think scientific consensus and NPOV are different things (though for science articles they invariably overlap to a great extent), and while the views and results of science do hold a pre-eminent position in many articles, it shouldn't be overdone at the expense of other points within that article (in other words, science isn't everything - see literature, history, philosophy, religion, and so on). The key thing is to not mislead the reader by either removing information they might be looking for, or misrepresenting that information. One other point is that history of science articles can be tricky to get right in terms of integrating the history and the science - one common trap is to incorrectly use historical primary documents (some of which we have articles about) in articles about modern sciences, when in fact that is a matter rightly left to historians of science. Compare this and this and this. It is a question of staying on topic for a particular article and moving off-topic stuff altogether or into the right article. As for whether these issues differ based on the topic of the article, my views stated at the rejected 'SPOV and civility in fringe articles' request for arbitration thread (in January 2008) might make that clearer: see here. That diff also shows what I said back then about scientific point of view and neutral point of view, but the bit about the topic of an article includes the following:

"...the key here is whether articles such as What the Bleep Do We Know!? count as scientific topics. There is a good case to be made that this is, and should be, an article about the film/documentary, the making of it, the people who made it, the content, and the reaction to it. The article should not be turned into a battleground over the topics being discussed in the film. Instead, it should carefully link to our articles on those topics..."

The whole thread is here, and as can be seen here, the editor I quoted elsewhere in that diff replied and agreed with me. Having said that, I can see why people might be concerned that while those with training in science can see that the film is quantum mysticism, laypeople may not be able to see that. As our article says: "Most laypeople cannot tell where the quantum physics ends and the quantum nonsense begins, and many are susceptible to being misguided". I agree with that, and what role Wikipedia plays in being misleading on science topics is something that needs to be confronted in some way, sooner rather than later, and has to do with when and where within the article such points are made. Essentially, it all comes down to some editors presenting the same information in a different way or in a different order, and with a differing emphasis. When this is biased, it is known as spin (and that can work both ways). When it is unbiased, it is what we call "neutral point of view". Carcharoth (talk) 17:33, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Ncmvocalist

1. This question pertains to the current request to amend the Matthew Hoffman case decided in 2007. Assume you are part of the Committee, and just returned from a wikibreak. You are presented with that request and other statements/comments/replies that are currently viewable. (a) Do you consider this case to be distinct from other cases - if so, how? (b) Would you support a motion to vacate the case? (c) How would you have voted on each of the current motions and why? (d) Would you have made an alternate motion proposal - if so, what would it be? Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My position on this is necessarily different as I was a party to the case (as were Charles Matthews and Jehochman, who are also running in this election). I presented evidence, made workshop proposals and followed the case, the RFC, and the subsequent and current requests closely. This means I can't assume the "just returned from a wikibreak" position you are suggesting. My view is that the electorate, the arbitrators and the candidates in this election (if aware of what is going on here) should be sensitive to what has happened on other pages since that request opened. For example, I have stated elsewhere that I am moving on from this case, in response to the joint statement issued by Charles Matthews and Shoemaker's Holiday (made some time after the most recent request was opened by Shoemaker's Holiday). It is an important principle, I believe, for individuals and the community to be able to move on when ready, to know when discussion is needed and when it is not, and, where possible, for the arbitration committee and community to not make that process more difficult that it needs to be. Part of dispute resolution is being able to step back and not get involved when things may be working out to a reasonably amicable conclusion. I have also stated that I would recuse as an arbitrator if this case came before the committee, so I don't feel that it would be appropriate for me to fully answer your question even in the context of an election question. The statements I made at the time of the case, and in subsequent discussions, are available in my arbitration portfolio for review in lieu of this. See here for the details. Apologies if that is an unsatisfactory answer. If you have specific questions about the general principles involved in the case and requests, and can phrase those questions without specific references to the users involved, then I would be happy to answer those questions instead. Carcharoth (talk) 23:12, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2. The community have, on occasions, found it difficult to have poorly written or handled ArbCom decisions reversed, even today. What mechanisms (if any) would you propose to remedy this issue? Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that part of the issue, quite apart from the need to balance the time spent looking at clarifications with the time spent on new cases, is that the "clarifications and other requests" process doesn't handle complex or lengthy queries well. It would be better, in my opinion, to have the simple clarifications and appeals dealt with at RfArb, but for complex cases, involving multiple motions and drafts of motions, it would be better to transfer to the case pages and have the arbitrators working on proposed motions, and a proper talk page for others to comment on and suggest changes to the motions or possible draft motions. Obviously this might stray into the dangerous territory of "restarting" or "revisiting" the case, but in some cases this may bring resolution quicker than multiple requests for clarification. It might even be possible to have a new subpage for clarifications and appeals - currently archived requests are put on the talk page of the main case page, and this can lead to that page being overwhelmed in cases where there are lots of clarifications filed over the years. As I said, a difficult balancing act to be struck between the need to hear legitimate appeals and the need to avoid frivolous requests. An example of a case where a request has led to the case being effectively re-opened to update the findings is the Franco-Mongol alliance case where PHG filed an appeal that led to a new case being opened - see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/PHG. So the mechanisms I would propose to address the problems surrounding appeals and clarifications is to: (a) keep simple requests at WP:RfArb; (b) move lengthy or complex requests to the case pages to improve ease of participation and presentation of evidence; (c) open new cases for the most complex cases. Carcharoth (talk) 23:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

3. One of the major concerns with certain past and current arbitrators is their failure to handle ArbCom tasks in a prompt or timely manner. What steps will you take to help move things along? Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See my answer to NuclearWarfare's question 2 and Al tally's question 4 and Sarcasticidealist's question 3 ("the community or arbitration clerks to keep a record of the activity of each arbitrator indicating the cases participated in and the details of the votes. This would aid the community if they wanted to review the actions or activity of a particular arbitrator"). I would strongly suggest and support each arbitrator maintaining such a portfolio of their arbitration activities, similar to the one I drew up for these elections to show my participation at the arbitration pages over the past two year (but tailored to suit the activities of sitting arbitrators, which could include the documentation of off-wiki work carried out). This could effectively develop into arbitrators having a combined on-wiki portfolio and diary. This will help to show which arbitrators consistently take longer to deal with their duties than others, and will hopefully encourage arbitrators to declare themselves inactive if they don't have time to take part in a motion or case. There is, as always, a need to strike a balance between ensuring steady progress, and the need to slow down and carry out a careful weighing of the evidence, but it is not fair on the other arbitrators or the parties to a case or request if some arbitrators consistently drag their heels. In practice, having the clerks be more proactive in reminding arbitrators (both on and off wiki) where attention is needed, would help. Carcharoth (talk) 00:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

4. (A) What is your stance on tendentious problem editing? (B) Why do you believe the community is, at times, passive in dealing with this issue? (C) If you are appointed as an ArbCom member, what steps (if any) will you take to help ensure this issue is actively dealt with by ArbCom? (D) What proposals would you make to deal with (or remedy) this issue? Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(a) Tendentious editing is a problem, and needs to be dealt with. What I would look for in cases where this was alleged is whether the same situations were constantly being revisited, and earlier dispute resolution was being ignored. If different disputes were arising in the same topic area, this might be disruptive, but wouldn't qualify as tendentious in my view. (b) I think the community is passive over tendentious editing because it is difficult to identify such behaviour unless you look deeply into a dispute - most of the time the community only sees a small snapshot of the current stage of a dispute. It's only when detailed evidence is presented that things become clearer, and that, in my view, is one of the important roles played by arbitration cases - to allow a detailed look at what is happening, with both sides being able to present their case. (c) If appointed as an arbitrator, I would favour accepting cases where tendentious editing is alleged to be taking place (and some evidence of this shown in the request), and where prior dispute resolution had failed. (d) I would propose that tendentious editors were topic banned for periods from a month to a year, and in severe cases indefinitely. Carcharoth (talk) 00:10, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unless to clarify anything above, I have no further questions for the candidate. Thank you for your time. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I hope my answers made things clearer for you. Thanks for the questions. Carcharoth (talk) 00:10, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Al tally

Who in your opinion should decide who is granted CheckUser/Oversight rights? Community, or a group of 15 people in a super-secret discussion that no-one is allowed to see? Bear in mind, every other Wiki without an ArbCom conducts CU/OS elections publicly, without any issues. Your opinion please, not what so-and-so policy says.
This is a complex issue. My opinion is that checkuser (and oversight) need to have robust audit mechanisms to prevent abuse and to allow any abuse to be detected and the users stripped of their rights if such abuse takes place. Until such mechanisms are in place, I don't think public elections are suitable for such roles, regardless of what happens in other places. I should state here that I would request the checkuser and oversight tools if elected, but only to help review evidence in cases (i.e. not to run checkusers or perform oversights, but only as required and allowed for checking evidence in a case). I had intended to help out with oversight requests, but a recent comment that there is no way to audit oversights has made me think twice about that - I would need to find out exactly how oversight works before I was comfortable using it. However, once such checks and balances are in place (and I'm not totally convinced the current checks and balances are sufficient), I would support open elections to checkuser and oversight roles. One point to make is that checkuser activity is immense - far more than I realised - and is also rather vital for keeping things running smoothly around here. For that reason, a balance needs to be struck between criticising checkusers (the nature of their work means they are often unable to defend themselves without breaching privacy), and supporting them in the work they do. One discussion I participated in was here (back in June 2008). One of the fascinating results from that was an analysis posted by FT2. See here. In my view, regular postings of stats like that would be an important step to take before having elected checkusers, and should be something that is done even with the current checkusers we have. So in essence, I agree that elected checkusers (subject to checks after election) should eventually happen, but the ground needs to be prepared to ensure as much openess, accountability and transparency as possible (remembering that the nature of checkuser means that much information needs to remain private). What is essential, is to have confidence that the checkusers (or independent auditors) are checking the validity of the checks being run (not every check, just regular random checks). Otherwise you end up with confirmation bias and rubber-stamping of decisions. These views are rather forthright, so I should say that I trust the current team of active checkusers and their appointment by the arbitration committee, while being slightly concerned at how the application process was communicated and documented on-wiki. Carcharoth (talk) 16:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See this oppose vote on SirFozzie's RFA, from 2007. I laughed when I read it, because he's opposing something that sounds just like ArbCom. '...the idea that that small, insular group of editors that frequent the page (including the nominator)' [Arbitrators] 'are the "community" and can achieve "consensus," adding substance-less votes to what should be consensus discussions on bans' [Motions, voting to reject, accept etc. Basically, a community version of ArbCom]. Quite amusing, coming from a former arbitrator. Anyway, my point is, Community vs. ArbCom Decisions. Can the community overrule an ArbCom decision? Can the community choose to ban someone without going to ArbCom? (From what I can determine from Dmc's message, he doesn't like the idea the community can ban people, but would rather a "small, insular group of editors that frequent the page" do it instead).
Without commenting directly on what Dmcdevit said (that would properly require asking him to clarify what he meant), I will say that I believe the community can ban someone directly (without an arbitration case), but that such a ban can still be appealed to the Arbitration Committee. I should also point out that I favour carefully structured ban discussions (see my comments on the talk page of WP:RFBAN - a redirect to a proposal in userspace) that avoid the worst of CSN, and the worst of AN/ANI, but which give a clear and calm result without drama, and which allow the community to clearly state their view. It is also my view (a bit radical this) that those subject to a ban discussion should be allowed to chose the option of an arbitration request instead (if rejected, the community ban discussion starts). Don't restrict the options, and always have several avenues of appeal open, and don't forget to look at compromises and creative options if there is deadlock. Having said that, once the avenues of appeal are exhausted, that really should be it (except in obvious cases where things went wrong). There is only so much time that can be spent on such things. As for your other question, "Can the community overrule an ArbCom decision?", that is a bit more tricky. I would say that in practice the community can ignore an ArbCom decision, but an active attempt to undermine the Arbitration Committee is dangerous - I would say assemble the evidence and present appeals and motions and petitions and requests for comments (while not forum shopping or appealing every other day), and trust ArbCom to listen and get it right eventually. If elected, I would certainly listen to and respond to widespread concerns about particular cases. Carcharoth (talk) 16:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Former Arbitrators - should they lose CU/OS privs, and access to the Mailing list? After all, they resigned, so aren't interested in doing the work. Therefore, they have no need for such rights. If you resigned, would you surrender such privs?
If they have done good checkuser and oversight work, it would be cutting off our nose to spite our face to remove the tools if they were prepared to carry on with that work (separate to the arbitration work they resigned from). Access to the mailing list, I think could be safely removed (see my answers elsewhere on this issue). Me personally, I would give up all arbitration-related access rights at the end of my term (including CU and OS), and would stay on the mailing list only as long as needed to conclude cases I was active in at the time. Carcharoth (talk) 16:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Recall - if the community have an issue with your use of CU/OS, or actions as an Arbitrator, what effective way can they address this? (Taking it to ArbCom is the wrong answer, by the way).
My talk page or a request for comments. I would also keep a record of my actions while an arbitrator, similar to my current portfolio, to make it easier to review my actions. See also my reply to Sarcasticidealist's question 3, and NuclearWarfare's question 2. Carcharoth (talk) 16:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck with the election! Al Tally ^talk 19:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Carcharoth (talk) 16:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions by John Vandenberg

Hi, and good luck on election day. I look forward to working closely with you again if it turns out like that; seeing Astronomische Nachrichten on your list of best contributions gave me reason to a smile - it was a wonderful topic to work on, and you did an excellent job of bringing the story to life. I've gone back and re-read the article a few times, just for fun. Onto the questions... feel free to avoid names to protect the living... John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:21, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi John. Thanks for the questions (answered below) and good luck yourself! Carcharoth (talk) 23:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are well known for your stellar blocking log. Could you give an account of a case where a person looking down the barrel of a strong block did take advantage of your guidance, made it through the situation intact, and is now a user in good standing.
Goodness, I have a reputation now for that block log? That certainly wasn't my intention. I just never got round to working in areas that involved blocks where no-one else was around to step in before I did. There may be an example of the sort you describe, but I haven't been able to recall anything yet. It is quite possible there are no examples. Some of my work has been with blocked users who were later unblocked after I commented on an issue, rather than users facing a block. A good example of that is the Oxford Round Table thread at ANI. That led to one comment that I've preserved as a quote here on a user subpage. Carcharoth (talk) 23:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Has there been a time when your finger was on the button, about to block a user? Why did you change your mind? What did you do afterwards?
There was one case recently and a few others as well. For the thread on the user's talk page, see here. The earlier talk page thread is here. The ANI thread in question is here. It's a bit long, but a good example of how I investigate things before taking action. When the editor came back off a block, he resumed the same behaviour as before he was blocked, which is why I said in the ANI thread that I was about to block him. But when I arrive at his talk page (I thought I should check several pages first to see if there were other discussions), I found that Jehochman had already warned him. I added my own warning (don't know if that helped) and after a few more perambulations around the issues, things did get sort-of resolved. I can't be sure, but I think I did help show AMIB (A Man In Black, the admin involved there) another way to address copyvios, instead of the way he was doing it, and it was clear that there was a long-running dispute there that AMIB had been involved with for a long time, and that point did need to be made clear. Carcharoth (talk) 23:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, there will have been times when the person ended up blocked because someone else eventually did the deed. Can you recall a time when you were still trying to broker a deal with the person when they ended up blocked. If possible, two examples would be good: 1) when the person was blocked for good reason (i.e. in hindsight, you were wrong) and 2) when the person was blocked inappropriately, for the wrong reasons, or in the wrong "way". How did you handle this, emotionally?
Can't think of any examples of this, sorry. I do have one other example of when a block might have been done, but where I issued a strong warning instead. It was the warning issued here to both parties in a case. What happened there was that I noticed a possible incipient edit war, opened an AN or ANI thread, and then brokered a compromise and closed the since-opened AE thread and left the warnings and logged them at the case page. It's difficult to know for sure, but I think that calmed things down much more than other approaches could have done. Carcharoth (talk) 23:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions by Pohta ce-am pohtit

Two questions related to the balance of power between ArbCom and admins. Pcap ping 16:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think that the special civility restrictions enacted by ArbCom in several cases have been successful? If not, what would you do propose instead?
Short answer: no - I would propose that civility paroles be discontinued and that the community enforce its norms of civility and whatever responses are necessary, with the proviso that the Arbitration Committee still act in cases where civility enforcement is being used as a weapon to win disputes (i.e. by acting against those who use civility blocks inappropriately). Long answer, see my response to Heimstern's question 2. Carcharoth (talk) 19:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Should a single admin A be allowed to undo an action of another admin B when the latter is claiming to act under the provisions of an ArbCom case (WP:AE)? If the answer is no, what should be done about admin A?
This relates directly to this motion, passed 7-1 only a few days ago by the current Arbitration Committee. I should say, first of all, that commenting on such matters in the heat of the moment is never a good thing. The dust should be allowed to settle. Also, turning this into a single-issue election is also problematic - there are other issues that this election should be contested on and not just this one. Having said that, I will say that I agree with that motion, especially the provision that a "clear, substantial, and active community consensus" can overturn an Arbitration Enforcement action. So the answer is (excepting things like a compromised admin account), no, a single admin should not undo the action of an admin acting under Arbitration Enforcement (AE). However, this puts greater pressure on admins acting at AE to get things right. If the Arbitration Committee find itself having to step in and undo blocks issued at AE, then that either means that admins are getting it wrong there, or there will be a chilling effect and no admins will be willing to work at AE any more. Some possibly dangerous and unintended consequences here. I would also point you to my answer to S. Dean Jameson's question (see below) where I make clear that I strongly disagree with arbitrators enacting blocks that they have voted through, or indeed dealing with any requests made at AE (dealing with unblock requests following AE is OK, though). It is also possible that further refinements on all this will be needed, so those thinking this is wonderful, or the end of the world, should remember that things may change with later motions and with later discussions around the wiki. Carcharoth (talk) 19:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Ling.Nut

I'm asking this of everyone; it didn't occur to me to ask 'til after the "general questions" were closed. This also isn't a vanity question intended to pump my essay. I'm hoping for thoughtful responses.
Would you please read the (very, very, very short) essay at User:Ling.Nut/3IAR and indicate how much you agree or disagree with its points? If it helps at all, the essay was originally written as a response to an admin who insisted that I was not permitted to make my talk page a redirect to my user page. He did so even though there is (or was at that time?) no rule or guideline to this effect, and far more importantly, even though my actions were harming neither the encyclopedia nor any of its editors.
Thank you for your time. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 15:23, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Your essay is an interesting application of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics - have you considered including the Zeroth Law? Looking at what you say there, the need to avoid instruction creep (your point 4) is important, but I wouldn't give it the importance you do. In some areas (particularly complicated ones), clear instructions and guidance can help improve efficiency, so it is a balance between that and excessive and bloated instructions. Your point 3, individual liberty, is an interesting way to make the point that reducing the amount of rules and restrictions, and having more laissez faire, can help avoid unnecessary bureaucracy and "policing", but human nature means that both disruptive behaviour, and the dispute resolution mechanisms and enforcements that come with that, are an unfortunate necessity. Your point two (about neutrality and verifiability) raises the content to a suitably high level, but I think you miss out the important point of no original research. See Wikipedia:Simplified ruleset for the set of three cardinal rules that includes "no original research" alongside the two you mention. Incidentally, I think your use of the phrase "neutrality" is misleading, as 'neutrality' is subtly different from "neutral point of view" (NPOV). In my view, "balanced" is a better way to describe what NPOV and due weight tries to describe. Include all significant viewpoints, but balanced to give them the correct weight. Finally, the footnote to your first point makes clear it attempts to cover personal attacks, BLP, and copyvios. I think it does to some extent, but I don't think it does it in the right way. The use of the phrase "Wikipedian" for example needs clarifying, and putting "other human being" in brackets seems to elevate Wikipedians above the subject of articles we write above, which is not the right approach in my view. Oh, and I remember reading somewhere that redirecting a talk page to a user page (rather than the other way round) can impede new editors who are trying to leave you a message (for example, I don't think editing your user page would trigger the new message "orange bar" to alert you to the new message. Hope that is enough feedback! Carcharoth (talk) 15:09, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from jd2718 re national conflict edit warriors/warring

Returning to Heimstern's question about ethnic edit-warring, above...

Can you point to an ArbCom remedy or set of remedies in one of these areas that you feel turned out to be adequate? Can you point to another remedy or set of remedies that you feel have turned out to be inadequate?
Have you edited in any of these areas?

Jd2718 (talk) 23:46, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would need to check in more detail, but the remedies I have seen being used are the discretionary sanctions from the Palestine-Israel articles case and the Macedonia case. The Macedonia one seems to have worked fairly well, but I've seen more disputes arising about the Palestine-Israel articles one. Whether that is to do with the nature of the topic area, or the admins working in that area, it's not clear. There is also the Wikipedia:Working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars, which produced a report in August 2008, but I can't find much evidence that anything much has happened since then, except the creation of Wikipedia:Tag team, and that was controversial (it was nominated for deletion). I think this discussion on the talk page neatly sums it up, between two admins active in such areas, but who take contrasting approaches. See also Wikipedia:New admin school/Dealing with disputes and Wikipedia:Ethnic and cultural conflicts noticeboard, which are both mentioned in that talk page discussion. Quite where things go from here, I don't really know. Hopefully the curent arbitration committee would be able to answer that question. Some of the ideas that are workable probably need to be developed, or tried in practice, but there is a vital need not to disrupt areas where discretionary sanctions already work fine. The distinction made between a mediator and an administrator in that talk page discussion is a valid one, and it is important for those dealing in such areas to be able to judge which approach is the right one to take. We shouldn't expect people to get things right all the time in such complex areas. Sometimes things will be inadequate, and a second case or set of remedies will be needed, but once the initial case has provided a framework, subsequent cases should be easier. Carcharoth (talk) 01:57, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The only personal experience (that I can remember) that I have had in such areas was a very old attempt to sort out what the lead should say at Nicolaus Copernicus (the perennial dispute is over whether he is German or Polish). I was passing by the article in July 2006 and made this comment. I then pointed out some things that could be done better and suggested what needed to go in the lead. See here (by the way, I was a bit more strident back, then, some two years ago - I've mellowed a bit since then, I hope, so forgive the tone as you read those old discussions). I note, with some disappointment, that the proposed lead I suggested back then, has not stuck, and that the current article doesn't even try to mention his nationality or place of birth in the lead. I am glad to see, though, that the Nationality and ethnicity section of that article is getting more encyclopedic over time, and that though my exact wording did not survive, the point is still there "However, in his time "nationality" had yet to play as important a role as it would later, and people generally did not think of themselves primarily as Polish or German." And of course, the lead covers his scientific achievements, which is the important thing. None of this, however, seems to have stopped the low-level and rather petty bickering over the lead and on the talk page. At some point, there needs to be a recognition that such edit wars (with new people turning up every week) arises because there are genuine disagreements out there in the real world. When that is the case, we need to do what we do well here, and report on what both (indeed, all) sides say. Carcharoth (talk) 01:57, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question from S. Dean Jameson

I'm asking this question of every candidate I'm considering supporting. I'm not sure if I've waited too long to ask it or not. If I have, please feel free to revert me, and I can ask it on your talk page. Here it is: do you feel the administrative actions of an arbitrator (either current or former) should be treated differently than those of a regular administrator? In particular, if an arbitrator blocks a user or protects a page in support of an arbitration enforcement, should a person overturning such an action be treated differently than a person who might overturn a similar action from a regular administrator?

Good luck with your run! ^S._D.D.J.Jameson 18:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think arbitrators (those who are administrators, which is all of them at the moment and likely in the future as well) should use their block buttons to enforce specific rulings that they have voted on (routine blocks, or blocks for other reasons, is another matter). Specific arbitration enforcement blocks should be left to the admins who are active at arbitration enforcement. If no admin there (or elsewhere) is willing to enact a block, then the Arbitration Committee would have to think again. That, I believe, is an important part of the checks and balances around here, and a useful separation of powers. The same should apply to arbitration clerks. Having said that, arbitrators should be prepared to confirm whether a block was valid or not, but administrators (especially those active at arbitration enforcement) need to develop and maintain their own sense of judgment on such matters. I believe this stance renders your second question moot (I intend to answer the specific question of whether and how arbitration enforcement remedies enacted by an admin can or should be overturned by another admin, in my answer to Pohta ce-am pohtit's question above). Carcharoth (talk) 18:47, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional questions from Pixelface

I am asking all candidates the following additional questions:

How many arbitrators do you think Wikipedia should have?
An exact number would be rather arbitrary. As many as are needed would be the obvious answer. Too few and the workload would be too much and diversity of opinions would be lost. The current number of 15 seems to be adequate to cope with the workload if all arbitrators are visibly active. More might make the committee unwieldy - certainly when all 15 arbitrators are active, it makes things more complicated and seems to drag cases out more. Cases seem to work best with 10-12 arbitrators voting on them, which allows for around 3-5 being inactive at any one time. Carcharoth (talk) 02:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How long do you think an arbitrator's term should be?
Some arbitrators have shown that they can cope with three-year terms, so I don't think removing that option is necessarily a good thing. I think three-year terms are OK, as long as some review mechanism is in place to remove arbitrators that lose the confidence of the community. There is also the "institutional memory" effect of having three year terms and tranches. I would support arbitrators-elect (who had not stated something beforehand) being able to chose one-year or two-year terms, or electing to chose at the end of each year of a three-year term whether to stand down or not. I don't think that having all arbitrators on 1-year terms, or having all the seats up for election, is a good idea, as some inertia is needed to prevent overly radical change. Carcharoth (talk) 02:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What's your opinion about editors lobbying on arbitrators' user talk pages in order to influence their case decisions?
It shouldn't happen, but I have seen it happen. Arbitrators should be available to talk, but specific case discussion should be in the right place, at the case pages, where both editors and Arbitrators can discuss things in public. Having said that, common sense is needed as well, as sometimes the atmosphere of a talk page can be less intimidating than a case page with a full set of interested editors commenting. Blatant lobbying should be politely referred back to the case pages. Carcharoth (talk) 02:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think it is a good idea to let anyone edit Wikipedia's policies and guidelines?
Yes I do, because that encourages the community to keep the pages watchlisted and to remain aware of any changes. The "anyone can edit" principle is important, and I believe that efforts to reduce areas where anyone can edit should be resisted. Protection from page moves and semi-protection if being heavily vandalised, is, as normal, still OK. Carcharoth (talk) 02:30, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think it is appropriate for ArbCom members to make substantial edits to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines?
Guidelines and essays would be OK for arbitrators to edit (as normal users), yes (though some of the more policy-like guidelines, especially the ones related to administrators, should be avoided), but edits to the major policies should be avoided while in office. The reason is that arbitrators have to interpret these policies and they shouldn't be editing them while doing that. The two possible exceptions are Wikipedia:Arbitration policy, which is currently designated only to be changed by the Committee and which I will cover further in my answer to the next question, and Wikipedia:Administrators. Arbitrators should not edit the latter, but in recent years a series of decisions has extended the powers given to administrators. This is a de facto rewriting of the policy, and my view is that in future such changes should be approved by the community before being written into the policy page. Currently, some of the powers some arbitration remedies grants to administrators appears to come direct from the committee, rather than the policy. Carcharoth (talk) 02:30, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think only ArbCom members should be allowed to edit Wikipedia:Arbitration policy?
Like the other policies, I think this one should be kept open for anyone to edit, but as a core policy, long-term change here should only happen slowly and cautiously, driven by the community and the arbitration committee. I think the current process of community input through an RfC (see here and here), followed by drafts written by sitting arbitrators (see details elsewhere, such as here and here) is working OK, though it is difficult to get people to commit to such long-term processes involving slow restructuring of policy, and care must be taken to avoid too many drafts being written and no progress being made. One definite piece of progress I have noticed is at Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Procedure for changing this policy to include something about what has happened in 2008, which addresses a concern I raised here at the RfC, namely that the "how to change the policy" bit was never settled when the policy was ratified, and still hasn't been even today. So as you can see, the question of how to effect change in the policy is not a simple one. Carcharoth (talk) 08:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think it is a requirement that subjects must be "notable" in order for there to be a Wikipedia article about them? If so, how does one determine if a subject is "notable"?
Noting first that inclusion criteria and notability guidelines and deletion debates are not within ArbCom's remit at all (though the behaviour of those working in such areas is), my personal views are that Wikipedia:Notability is a useful guideline as a first approximation to what is definitely needed, but should be used with care when considering what to delete. As you indicate with your second question, people have different ideas on how exactly to interpret notability and assess it. I have a low bar for that sort of thing, and if there is reasonable coverage by reliable sources, I will usually support an article on a topic, or at the very least a merge or rename to a suitable topic. One of my key considerations is: "will a reader be looking for this". If the answer is yes, then at a minimum the reliably sourced information in the article should go somewhere, and a redirect should take readers searching for that term to the information they are looking for. My stance could best be described as a mergist-inclusionist, with a dash of eventualism, if you like to use such labels. Carcharoth (talk) 08:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think the statement "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge" (which appears on the WMF's donation page) conflicts with the policy "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" or with Wikipedia's notability guidelines? Why or why not?
That phrase is being used for public relations (PR) there to raise money, but it is used often enough in other contexts, so I will say something here about that. The phrase "sum of all [...] knowledge" can be interpreted in at least two ways: (1) a summary of such knowledge; and (2) the totality of such knowledge. It also depends on what you define as "knowledge". We rightly exclude indiscriminate information (such as lists of telephone numbers) from the "knowledge" we want to include. Having said that, I do think the "indiscriminate information" clause of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not does get misunderstood. There is a difference between applying it to a list (or indeed category) where the items are not related, or only loosely related (e.g. Actors who wear wigs), and applying it to Wikipedia as a whole. This is closely related to the concept of trivia. In my view, if a list or section of an article is considered indiscriminate or trivia, then sources need to be provided showing that the topic has been seriously studied in context (i.e. not a trivia list from a website or newspaper). In other words, the 'indiscriminate clause' should be applied to the content of articles, but notability guidelines should be applied to the topics (or titles) of articles. And I think that manages to explain my views on the three points you've raised. Please ask if you have more questions about this. Carcharoth (talk) 08:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Imagine a situation where an editor consistently nominates 50 articles from the same category for deletion every day with a nearly identical reason for deletion. Other editors object to this, and several threads at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents follow, but no user RFC is filed. Is this is a content dispute or a behavioral dispute? If someone made a request for arbitration about the situation, would you likely accept or reject the case?
I think this is a behavioural dispute combined with a failure on the part of the community to settle issues of notability (though I am aware of the sterling work that has been done on this over the past year) and failures to adequately manage various workflows. The best response I can make here, without prejudicing future requests, is to link to what I said when a similar situation was actually raised at the requests for arbitration page. The full thread is here, and my comment is here. A previous statement I made here may also be of interest. Carcharoth (talk) 08:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Considering the following scenario: An editor nominates all 17,000+ articles in Category:Asteroids for deletion at once and bundles them in a single AFD, with the reason for deletion "Asteroidcruft." The AFD is closed early by an admin, and the admin tells the editor not to bundle so many articles together in a single AFD. The next day, the editor nominates 200 asteroid articles for deletion using an automated tool, with the reason for deletion for each being "Asteroidcruft." A second editor, who is a member of WikiProject Astronomical objects, is checking their watchlist and sees many asteroid articles being nominated for deletion. The WikiProject member asks the first editor on the first editor's talk page to please stop nominating asteroid articles for deletion. The first editor tells the WikiProject member that he will not stop until every asteroid article is deleted from Wikipedia. The WikiProject member starts a thread at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents about the situation, and later starts a thread at WT:ASTRO about the ANI thread. WikiProject members show up to the AFDs and argue to keep in all of them. At the ANI thread, several WikiProject members and several editors feel that the first editor is being disruptive. A second admin blocks the first editor for disruption, but asks for a review of the block at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. At AN, several admins think the first editor is being disruptive, but several admins agree with what the first editor is doing, and several editors express their disdain for the WikiProject in general. A third admin unblocks the first editor, and the first editor continues to nominate 200 asteroid articles for deletion every day. Several threads at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents follow, some initiated by members of WikiProject Astronomical objects, some initiated by editors, but no user RFC is filed on the first editor. The first editor never comments at AN/I, but replies again and again on their user talk page that they feel that Wikipedia should not have any articles on individual asteroids. Is this is a content dispute or a behavioral dispute? If someone made a request for arbitration about the situation, would you likely accept or reject the case?
This is more a workflow management problem, and disrupting other people's workflow counts as disruptive behaviour in my view. See what I said here (one of the Episodes and Characters clarifications). The key point is that everyone working on this encyclopedia should respect the time and effort required when making requests of others. If you request new articles, respect the time needed to create them. If you request deletion, respect the time needed to debate and improve them. If you create new articles, respect the time needed to check them at new article patrol and create them in a fit state to be passed as OK. This works the other way round as well. There might be no deadline, but do respect the view of those who want to see the work done sooner rather than later, and improve articles bit-by-bit, even if only slowly (this is better than doing nothing). In my view, an overarching plan to manage the workflow for these articles would help. If consensus shows that there is a clear plan that is making steady but sure progress, with deadlines and goals being met, then the constant nominations for deletions can be described as disruptive of that plan and the necessary action taken. Carcharoth (talk) 01:13, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is a non-profit wiki and Wikia is a for-profit wiki and both were founded in part by Jimbo Wales. Do you think Wikipedia editors should be required to publicly disclose if they are employees/shareholders/editors of Wikia? Do you think Jimbo Wales has the power to make them do so? Do you think the arbitration committee has the power to make them do so?
If there is a conflict of interest (COI), then yes, it should be revealed if such a COI affects the integrity of the encyclopedia or even appears to do so (and here I presume you refer to the deletion of articles on Wikipedia that might end up on a Wikia wiki). I don't think forced disclosure is the way to go though - it should be voluntary - so the answer to your last two questions is no. For the record, I've looked at several other Tolkien wikis, but I don't think I've ever edited a Wikia one. Where different wikis on the same topic exist, they should try and work together as far as possible, while still maintaining editorial independence. The content on Wikipedia must meet our standards, while those on other wikis might present the same material differently. Carcharoth (talk) 08:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your time, and good luck with your candidacy. --Pixelface (talk) 00:11, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, and thanks for the questions. Carcharoth (talk) 02:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Tony1

My good wishes for your candidature, Carcharoth. I wonder whether you might respond to these questions.

What is your attitude to the notion of introducing commercial advertising on WP?
While noting that it has nothing to do with arbitration, I would oppose commercial advertising on principle. There may be short-term benefits, and money gained from advertising could be used to expand in certain areas, but I think in the long run we would regret it. It is a genie that would be impossible to put back in the bottle. There may also be an issue with the Foundation's charitable status, though I'm not sure exactly how that would be affected by advertising. Carcharoth (talk) 02:05, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Many users believe that the current "official" processes for ensuring that administrators adhere to the policy requirements of their behaviour—particularly the use of blocking—are inadequate. What is your attitude towards the reform of those processes so that they avoid the accusation that admins judge the behaviour of admins?
My view is that though there are several processes for appealing blocks (the {{unblock}} template, the unblock mailing list, contacting the administrator who made the block, and appealing to the Arbitration Committee), there can be problems with some of these processes. In particular, I've seen less than ideal rejection of "unblock" requests that give an impression of confirmation bias, rather than having a new administrator independently review the situation. My personal approach to tackling unblock requests or appeals is to look at the arguments presented by both sides, but not to form a view until the evidence shows what has been happening. In other words, to look at what happened, rather than rubber-stamp the description provided by the blocking administrator. As to how to ensure that all admins that respond to unblock requests do this, sadly I don't think this is possible at the moment. One thing I would like to see is a way to record who deals with particular unblock requests. At the moment, unblock requests are not logged anywhere, so it is difficult to tell how many unblock requests are prematurely or incorrectly turned down. Logging of unblock requests would be a starting point, I think. Carcharoth (talk) 16:52, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the policy tenets embedded in the policy page WP:Administrators are cast in terms that may require ArbCom's interpretion during your term. Can you give us an idea of how you'd approach the interpretation of this potential exception from the critical policy that admins avoid conflict of interest in their role? The text in question is green and includes a commented-out section. The hypothetical case you face as a member of ArbCom would involve a claim that an admin who has not followed the putative "best practice" has breached the WP:UNINVOLVED policy by themselves blocking a user with whom they've had a negative interaction on the talk page of the same article several months before.
However, one important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with a user or article in an administrative role (i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like) or whose actions on an article are minor, obvious, and do not speak to bias, is usually not prevented from acting on the article, user, or dispute. This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters and if necessary, continue dealing with them. That said, an administrator may still wish to pass such a matter to another administrator as "best practice" in some cases (although not required to). Or, they may wish to be absolutely sure that no concerns will "stick", in certain exceptional cases.

Here, the first point is that commented out text like that in policies is not helpful. It is better to remove disputed text altogether to the talk page and get consensus to include it or exclude it. At the moment, it is in an inbetween limbo state, not part of the policy, but still on the policy page. I happen to agree that the best administrators can use their own judgment and recognise when they should not get involved. Sadly, though, there will always be some admins who can't be relied upon to use their judgment in such matters, though this actually acts as a convenient lightning rod to draw out admins who lack this necessary judgment. One system that works well in practice is for admins to create a list of other admins that are not closely involved with them, but who are willing to take on cases where the editor in question would prefer another admin deals with the issue. A kind of support network to share the load or get a second opinion. There have to be safeguards in place, though, to prevent a user continually demanding review by another admin until they get the result they want. In most cases, it is better to engage in discussion with the original admin and see what can be worked out. More generally,it is important to distinguish between administrative action and content editing (and discussion). In my view, it is best if admins are not involved with an article at all, though they would need to have a basic understandng of the topic, or be able to objectively assess what they are being told by the editors who are in dispute. in practice, though, it is difficult to attain this ideal. A possible solution is to have admins take breaks from article and rotate around different topic areas. Carcharoth (talk) 17:05, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tony (talk) 15:11, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All questions now answered. Apologies for the delay. Carcharoth (talk) 02:05, 9 December 2008 (UTC) UPDATED: 08:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC) and 16:52, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Slrubenstein

In a recent ArbCom case, a project page was created with an unprotected talk page. Later in the process, the talk was archived - in effect, the page was blanked - and the page protected, foreclosing any further discussion (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive178#ArbCom talk pages). Looking towards the future, what policy would you propose concerning the purpose of talk pages, the protection of talk pages so as to prevent talk, or the blanking of talk pages by ArbCom?
With hindsight, what happened there was predictable. Hopefully lessons will be learnt for the future. The comments at the AN thread were good, but possibly AN was the wrong place to raise such a topic. Notices left on AN and the relevant Village Pump could have directed people to a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration. In the case in question, what happened was predictable because there had been a massive thread on one of the mailing lists, and once the proposed decision was posted the discussion on the talk page, if left uncontrolled, was always going to veer back towards the tone seen on the mailing list. In my view there should always be a talk page available, and the talk page should be created in an unprotected state, but with a firm (or firmer) message telling people what the limits of the discussion are - and then the clerks should have enforced those standards. One of the points that should have been made very clear is that posts and discussions on the talk page should take into account the fact that ArbCom will have seen private evidence that can't be disclosed. This is one situation where arbitrators actively answering questions on the talk page might have helped, always remembering that not all questions can be fully answered when there are privacy concerns. One possible alternative is to have the proposed decision voted on off-wiki, and to present the full vote when finished, and to then allow around 7 days of community comments, and to then move to either amend or close the case. This avoids having the discussion running in parallel with the voting, which is OK in most cases, but is not good in cases where the discussion might descend into chaos. The advantages of posting a fully voted-on decision is that people who might have objected at first may agree with the final decision, and those with concerns can likewise pinpoint exactly what they disagree with. Carcharoth (talk) 00:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you find the word "troll" useful in describing a certain kind of problem at Wikipedia? Is labeling a user a "troll" always a personal attack? If the term is useful, how, in your experience, does one recognize a troll? What is the appropriate response? Does ArbCom have a role?
I think the word "troll" is unhelpful for two reasons. Firstly because there are different definitions of "trolling" behaviour. The definition I'm most familiar with is the one where someone does something to gain attention, but explicitly does not take part in the ensuing chaos (i.e. prodding us to see what the reaction will be and then stepping away). The way troll is more commonly used on Wikipedia is for people who remain engaged in the discussions and that cause repeated disruption, seemingly deliberately or for borderline reasons. I think this is more accurately described as disruption, rather than trolling. On the other hand, there are some forms of behaviour that are so bizarre that the term "trolling" does seem appropriate. I try to avoid using it though. Calling a user a troll is unhelpful - it is better to say that you think the behaviour is trolling in nature (i.e. just trying to provoke a response). Whether describing someone who engages in trolling as a "troll" is a personal attack or not depends on the context, but I would strongly discourage it Attention-seeking disruptive behaviour (the description I would use for what others might call "trolling") does need to be dealt with, but usually by the community. In borderline cases (where there is little or no real damage to repair, e.g. in the Wikipedia namespace), the community might do better to ignore the behaviour, as paying attention to the behaviour sometimes makes things worse. If this is not possible, ArbCom may need to get involved (including cautions for people who overuse the term troll as a way to win arguments), but any decision should not use the words "trolling" or "troll", but should focus on more easily defined actions. Carcharoth (talk) 01:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Should WP:DE be made a policy? Why/why not?
Wikipedia:Disruptive editing certainly reads well and looks good enough to be a policy (though the "wikilove" section seems a bit of an afterthought - more should be written there about approaches to be taken to change disruptive behaviour if such an approach looks like it might work - though in most cases it wouldn't). The advice is good, especially regarding Arbitration cases: "Base it strictly on user conduct, and not on article content". I would be slightly concerned about a policy linking to an essay (WP:TE). Also, I would be concerned that this guideline becoming policy might be the start of a slippery slope - there are many cases where people throw around the term "disruptive" (in block logs as well) without being specific. The term should not be used as a catch-all term, but the actual disruptive behaviour and the patterns should be clearly laid out. Evidence, not rhetoric. If people approached their concerns about disruptive editing this way, then it could well be a successful policy. The final point to make is that, even as a guideline, it might already do enough. It shouldn't need elevating to policy to make it easier to apply. The commonly heard refrain "but it's only a guideline" shouldn't be allowed to sway people if there is truly disruptive behaviour going on. Any move from guideline to policy would be nothing to do with ArbCom, but they would have to interpret it if the community raised it to policy, and I'd be quite happy to do so as an arbitrator if elected, remembering that inappropriate accusations of disruption would also be examined (the "examine all parties" bit of arbitration). Accusing another editor of disruption is a serious business, and it is important to be sure of yourself when stating something like that. Carcharoth (talk) 02:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Some people have claimed that a hierarchy, or hierarchies, of authority are developing at Wikipedia. Do you agree? If so, do you consider this a necessary feature of the community, or a problem for the community? More specifically, in what ways do you see members of ArbCom as leaders or as servants of the community?
I think such hierarchies were always there in Wikipedia (except maybe at the very beginning). They are a naturally emergent property of social systems like this, though this one is designed (hopefully!) for building an encyclopedia. I think some hierarchy is needed (complete decentralisation would quickly lead to anarchy, in my view). As for ArbCom, they have a very visible role, but possibly not as influential as some think. Most of the action takes place at the uncontroversial articles, with hundreds and thousands of editors building the encyclopedia. ArbCom's role is to deal with the intractable cases. Having said that, a "wise" ArbCom, with the trust of the community, could take on a leadership role for the community, but that would likely change over time as the ArbCom and the rest of the community fell out of step with each other. But in general, I think arbitrators should see themselves as servants of the community, not leaders, unless the community actively seeks a body to take leadership over certain issues. I also think that by virtue of being among the most experienced Wikipedians, arbitrators can take on leadership roles within the community at certain discussions and debates. But they must do so as ordinary editors and mustn't subvert the consensus-based discussion systems. Carcharoth (talk) 02:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCom was originally formed to be the ultimate stage of resolving edit conflicts at articles. Since then, its mission has expanded. Do you believe it has expanded to reach the appropriate limit of its powers? If you believe that its mission has not expanded enough, or has expanded too much, please provide specifics and explain how you would deal with this.
It does appear to have expanded its role, taking on the long-term intractable "nexus" problems where lots of editors behave poorly over a broad area. This is something that needed to be tackled and at the time ArbCom was the only body that was able to deal (or at least attempt to deal) with such problems. Possibly, an alternative body might have been better suited to dealing with such issues. I do think that the "role creep" seen with ArbCom has reached some sort of limit, as seen by the reactions in the community to some decisions and remedies (e.g. discretionary sanctions, civility paroles, special BLP enforcement). In other directions, it is possible that more room remains to expand within the original remit, but I think that the Arbitration Committee (for the next few years) should move cautiously and in concert with the community, rebuilding trust and bridges, while not losing sight of its core role, to resolve disputes. Carcharoth (talk) 03:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Slrubenstein | Talk 16:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the questions, and sorry I haven't answered them yet. I was dealing with other questions earlier and was out last night. I have been making some notes, and I am aiming to get to your questions and Tony's above at some point late tonight (Thursday) my time (UTC) as there is something else I have to do this evening first. Again, apologies for the delay. Carcharoth (talk) 08:26, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All answered now. Carcharoth (talk) 03:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, and good luck with your candidacy, Slrubenstein | Talk 03:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Candidate statements/Carcharoth/Questions for the candidate

Personal election schedule and notes

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