Candidates are advised to answer each of these questions completely but concisely. Candidates may refuse to answer any questions that they do not wish to, with the understanding, however, that not answering a question may be perceived negatively by the community.
Note that disclosure of your account history, pursuant to the ArbCom selection and appointment policy, must be made in your opening statement, and is not an optional question.
a) What skills and experience, both on Wikipedia and off, do you think you will bring to the committee if elected?
b) What kinds of personal experience have you had with the Wikipedia dispute resolution processes? If applicable, please provide links to Arbitration cases where you have been involved, or offered an uninvolved statement.
b) I've been an arbitrator for three years now, and spent a year before that toiling as a clerk.
That said, I've come to rely more on topic bans as a first measure – for someone who only is problematic in limited circumstances that gives them a chance for "good work" elsewhere without impacting the fundamental objective of removing the disruption.
In Wikipedia's case, we have a sorta-kinda constitution in our five pillars that rules over all others, and dozens of rules that evolved over the years that sometimes conflict in edge cases. When those tensions cause disputes, then it's ArbCom's responsibility to fix the problem.
The trick, of course, is to do minimal intrusion. Try to clarify; if that fails then tweak, or make a stopgap. Sometimes it means making "case law" when following a pillar or Foundation mandate ends up creating a hole in current policy (or directly conflicts with consensus). In other words, we don't make policy outside a dispute, and hesitate to do so even then. We apply duct tape and haywire when something is broken – no more.
We probably should have a policy-making body – but the Arbitration committee isn't it (and shouldn't be it).
The second way we can help is when an issue becomes so divisive that even with everyone acting in good faith consensus is impossible to reach. Rather than rule on what content should be, we've created mechanisms to fix the dispute within the community itself in a binding manner. It might not fix the issue for good, but it has historically managed to render future discussion considerably easier because there was a workable starting point for it.
a) What is, in your view, the purpose of an ArbCom motion? Under what circumstances, or for what areas or processes, would the use of a motion be your first choice in handling the situation.
b) When is it not appropriate to start a motion? If the community has reached consensus on an issue, does ArbCom have the right to overrule that consensus with a motion? If the community is unable to resolve an issue for some time, and there is no active case related to that issue, can ArbCom step in and settle the issue themselves by motion?
c) There were a number of controversial motions this year. Please identify a few motions from 2011 that you believe were appropriate (if any), and a few you believe were inappropriate (if any). Discuss why you have reached the judgements that you did.
b) Those are three very different question: First, a motion shouldn't be used when the facts are in dispute; in those cases, taking the time to set out and examine evidence is a necessity rather than an avoidable ordeal. Secondly, the committee's responsibility is to rule when the rules conflict with themselves or the community – even when the community disagrees (otherwise there would have been no conflict). It's rare, but even a consensus could not override a Foundation directive or one of our pillars – even if everyone agreed that article X shouldn't be neutral, that wouldn't be acceptable for the project. Finally, I don't believe committee intervention in disputes that have not been brought to it should be frequent, but our job is ultimately the good functioning of the project and if an issue has become so divisive that it wastes a great deal of community effort with no resolution in sight, I feel we'd be neglecting our duty by not trying to help fix it.
c) I agree with every motion I have voted to support. ;-) Seriously, I don't think there were any motions in 2011 that were meaningfully controversial. Of course, any decision (motion or not) that is made is almost certain to displease someone, and occasionally some local drama erupts around it, but no major community-divisive question ended up having motion work over it that I can recall.
a) Do you believe that the Arbitration Committee should keep records that include non-public information, including checkuser data and the real life identities of users, after whatever case or issue that information originally pertained to had been handled by the committee?
b) If the answer to any part of (a) is yes, how long should the information be kept, how should it be kept, and who should have access to it?
c) Currently, much of ArbCom business is handled over email, and in other non-public forums. Do you believe that all ArbCom discussions that do not directly concern private information should take place publicly? If so, how? Why or why not?
d) What, if anything, did the Arbitration Committee do wrong before, and in response to, the mailing list leak? What did they do right? What would you have done differently?
e) If your real identity is not already widely known, do you intend to publicly identify yourself if elected?
b) Personally, I think roughly three years should suffice. In practice, we almost never have to refer that far back, and in the rare cases we do what we found is generally no longer relevant. That said, we are technically unable to expire our archives because of limitations in the software we are hobbled with at this time. I've just returned from a meeting with the Foundation where fixing this has been one of the primary discussion points, and we will soon have a new setup where we can apply a data retention policy beyond "keep everything or keep nothing".
c) Most of what the committee discusses on the mailing list (that isn't private or confidential – nobody disagrees that should remain there) is necessary internal communication that will take place in a forum where it's fast and convenient, and contains conversations which are more candid than would be productive to make public. This is a necessary and unavoidable component of any group of people working together remotely – especially when from all over the world. In an office, you'd have the opportunity for meetings, water cooler discussions, and quick chats at the bar after hours; all of those are a necessary component of working together and will occur. If you forbid email, that will just move to IM. Since this will happen, I'd rather it occurs in a central location that keeps a record and has reasonable privacy.
d) We, understandably, panicked quite a bit and were angered, dismayed and frustrated. Because of this, our initial communication were completely shod and we did poor PR over it. Then again, none of us are PR gurus used to spinning disasters as though it were an oil spill – so it's to be expected (and, I suppose, better than the alternative). In the end, we're working closely with the Foundation to change our work tools and (especially) how well it is audited to both reduce the chances of this happening again and to mitigate the damage if and when it does.
e) My identity is well known and trivially findable to anyone who spends a minute looking.
a) What do you think should be the division of responsibilities between ArbCom and the WMF? Are there issues currently being handled by one that should really be handled by the other?
b) What do you think should be the division of responsibilities between ArbCom and the community as a whole? Are there issues currently being handled by one that should really be handled by the other?
b) That balance has gotten pretty well tuned, by now. We might be able to argue a bit around the fuzzy edges of where and when the committee takes jurisdiction over which kind of disputes, but I don't think that there are many people who would make the argument that the current split is completely, or even significantly, off.
a) Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with " vested contributors"? Why or why not? If there is a problem, what is to be done about it?
b) Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with factionalism? Why or why not? If there is a problem, what is to be done about it?
c) Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with editor retention? Does Wikipedia have an overall shortage of editors? Do specific parts or tasks have shortages of editors?
b) I don't think Wikipedia has a problem with factionalism so much as the world has one and it just unavoidably replays itself here. The good thing is the project worked: we are now the primary reference work for much of the world. The bad thing is that this means that we're now an important battlefield for anyone who feels a need to control information. Anyone who wants to influence public perception of a subject now has Wikipedia on their to-do list – this makes it all the more imperative that we keep even more diligently to our founding principles.
c) Yes, for a number or reasons. First, the low hanging fruit is gone and we now focus more on quality than we did at first; this raises the barrier to entry significantly (and, to a point, not undesirably so). Secondly, we are becoming increasingly conservative as a community and as a project – this is an unavoidable consequence of our success: "it's not broken don't fix it" is a reasonable position, but it does mean we become resistant to experimentation. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, the editing environment has become hostile to newcomers.
I'm not one to take the simplistic position that "it's because of templates and bots", but a combination of being set in increasingly complex ways with a continually degrading work atmosphere (see point a) means that editors' first experiences tend to be increasingly negative as time goes by.
There is no simple solution. Indeed, the exact nature of the problem isn't entirely clear to begin with. The Foundation is working surprisingly hard at understanding and fixing the apparent problem, and we can help on the projects by rethinking some of our approaches.
On the other side of the fence, Monty Hall is a textbook example on how a case should be handled: decided (relatively) swiftly and (very) fairly despite a relatively complicated background.
What I'd want for the project is real governance – a legislative body if you will – but it's better if ArbCom stays at arm's length from any such discussion.
Please ask your individual questions here. While there is no limit on the number of questions that may be asked, please try to keep questions relevant. Try to be as clear and concise as possible, and avoid duplicating questions that have already been asked.
Add your questions below the line using the following markup:
#Question:
#:A:
Don't worry about the pretty formatting I use for readability; I'll tweak around as needed.
I use the answers to these questions to write my election guide; thus, not answering specific questions will affect my recommendation. Also, I may be asking about specific things outside the scope of ArbCom; your answers would be appreciated regardless.
The questions are similar to those I asked in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010; if you've already answered them, feel free to borrow from those. Please note that question 3 has drastically changed from what it was in past years, though.
The first 9 questions are short answer questions. The last question is a bit open-ended.
Problem is, many members of the committee do not feel comfortable with even the concept of decisions not taken by all arbitrators.
That said, they can provide a very good "default" standard, and I would expect that someone who goes against those standard without a reasoned argument would be correctly seen as disruptive for the sake of disruption.
Not to say the current system is that bad to begin with – but the strain is showing and can only get worse with time.
Thank you. Rs chen 7754 23:59, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I think the community erred in rejecting flagged protection – not that I am convinced that it did reject it (see my answer below about consensus). It certainly would have helped alleviating the problem, even if that wasn't a perfect solution.
I do, however, remain strongly opposed to the subject of an article being given any sort of veto over its contents as a matter of principle. Don't make the mistake of thinking that "opt-out" is strictly about inclusion or not – not that this would be a very good idea either – but thinking that article subjects wouldn't "opt-out" only of biographies they don't like, or use the option as a bludgeon to influence contents is ignoring human nature entirely.
Moreschi's touches on the same topic from a different perspective, but misses the target in his estimation of the cause. The problem isn't that administrators are unwilling to intervene in cases of breaches of the NPOV, but that absent some way of making a content ruling it isn't possible to figure out who is being neutral in the dispute (since all sides with claim they are neutral). The problem isn't that nobody knows, but that nobody has the authority to decide.
That said, it's also important to not stretch the definition of "involved" to the kind of ridiculous extremes we occasionally see on AE or ANI. An administrator who isn't involved substantively in a content dispute beyond previous administrative actions cannot be said to be "involved" simply because he once did an edit on a related page or interacted (even negatively) with a related editor. Involvement needs to be relatively current or significant; the litmus test isn't whether one of the currently involved editors sees involvement, but whether a reasonable uninvolved third party would.
That said, the spirit of that rule is less about legal action than about bullying your way in a dispute by throwing around threats and legal jargon in an attempt to influence content or intimidate other editors. In many jurisdictions (no least of which most of the United States), even a futile legal battle is costly in time and resources for both parties; and most editors would not have the resources (or indeed desire) to defend against one. Allowing such bullying to stand would be contrary to our principles and destroy the principle of editing by consensus.
As to your substantive question, anyone who has taken legal action against the project or one of its volunteers should be immediately and indefinitely blocked until the matter is resolved (if only because there can be no threat more effective than actual legal proceedings); but that's really an academic question because anyone who did so would almost certainly have their legal counsel tell them that editing while an action is pending is amongst the worst possible ideas ever. Add to that the fact that an editor who claims to have taken legal action cannot be reliably determined to really have done so, and you still end up with legal menace used as a bludgeon. Block.
Like I said, the policy is really about on-wiki bullying behavior; actual legal action that does not end up as legal manoeuvring on wiki limits our responses to what counsel advises we do with a default to "nothing".
It occurs to me that your question is probably more related to the proposed TOS than it is to the Committe; you might want to look there and possibly comment while the terms are still being tweaked.
That said, I can't discuss details because they are privileged, but I know the Foundation is revising its legal strategy with an eye towards discouraging vexatious litigation against editors and already took some steps in that direction. Ultimately, the WMF is the legal entity behind the projects and their legal defence (including that of its mission and contributors) is ultimately their responsibility.
I note that in your selection, you've elected to enumerate guidelines where that would be the case as a matter of fact; perhaps you already intended it this way?
But no, unless things get so far out of hand that verifiability and proper references are set aside and someone brings the matter to ArbCom, the committee doesn't have cause to play a role.
Corporations don't fare so well in my book. I could go on a long rant about how the very concept of the legal personality is one of the most abhorrent scab upon our society, and how insane the US legal system was to recognize that an artificial construct of strictly economical value might be said to have "rights" (grumble, grumble). No; we have no ethical imperative to go out of our way to protect corporations any more than we do mountains or subatomic particles. Vandalism is still vandalism, of course, and allegations against them need to be sourced (as does everything else, really), but there is no reason to give them the same protection living persons are afforded for compassionate and ethical reasons.
What the committee did do is forcibly put things back on track within that existing rule. It did mean that some of our current guidelines and policies were kinked, but that's a consequence of BLP being a prescriptive rule (like the pillars) rather and a description of current practice. In that case, the current practice was not compatible with the prescription and needed to be adjusted.
Perhaps the trick lies in creating a "legislative body"; perhaps we should use actual voting more often and take the majority as the correct default value (rather than always default to status quo ante).
In the end the reason why the editor was banned might affect why they should not be allowed to continue editing, but not whether they should.
Restraining aggrieved parties in emotionally charged scenarios is central to the Committee’s role, and arbitrators are in principle exposed to legal action by those parties in a real-world jurisdiction. It matters little whether an action is launched or merely threatened, and whether it is quite unreasonable: the costs for an individual arb to forestall a default judgment in a foreign court would be considerable (and I believe it’s not hard to transfer an order to the courts in one’s local jurisdiction). The risk is greater because as volunteers we can’t be expected to provide professional mediation as an intermediary between wiki and real-world judicial processes—mediation that might head off litigation in the first place.
Given the WMF's annual income of some $20M, what is your view on whether the Foundation should:
What I can say is that the Foundation is aware of that concern, receptive, and that scenarios are currently being examined. (Note that this would most likely not include only ArbComs but also some of the "higher" functionaries like stewards). There is a lot to be done, and it's a very complex matter (not least of which because it doesn't scale well); but it's being worked on.
Tony (talk) 00:55, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Looking over ArbCom cases from the past few years, it is clear to me that many times, editors involved in the dispute being heard in a particular case use the Workshop page as a platform to continue their disputes. These Workshop posts tend to take the form of 'finding of facts that the people on the other side of the dispute have committed heinous acts, heavy sanctions for the people on the other side of the dispute, and people on my side of the dispute get off without even a warning' (it's usually less transparent than that, but barely).
All of that said, however, I've found that the committee is surprisingly (very) conservative about its workflow, and suggestions on new way to work a case up have met reactions halfway between horror and apathy.
There is a still open RfC at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification#Request_for_clarification:_Arbcom-unblocked_editors. As evidenced at this request, there are numerous admins and editors who have serious doubts over the Committee's unblocking of what is suspected, with a high level of good faith and WP:DUCK evidence, to be a banned disruptive sockpuppet. Do you think it is appropriate that after nearly a month and a half:
Ultimately, it's the committee's responsibility to be more stringent than the administrators with evidence, and to demand higher certainty that expected for routine administration: our decisions have no (practial) appeal.
The last question is especially important as there are numerous uninvolved admins and admins who have previously dealt with the user in question, who are too "afraid" of going over the Committee's head, even in the face of evidence; if one assumes ownership of a problem as the current Committee has, then surely the current Committee must also assume ownership of their actual ownership of the problem possibly being part of said problem. If one looks at the answers thus far given at the request from arbiters closely, one can see that there seems to be a theme amongst arbs to suggest that the Community block the editor for other current issues; all the while the Committee avoids answering Community concerns at the actual clarification request. However, the other issues have only strengthened the opinion of sockpuppetry amongst other members of the Community.
As an arbiter who is seeking re-election, I would also request a response to the following:
As for your snark about being banned for criticism, I find it a little amusing really: historically, the committee has never even considered banning someone for being a critic – no matter how acerbic – and has even given more leeway than reasonable to disruptive activity to critic to avoid even the appearance of trying to stifle criticism. That little bit of hyperbole certainly does not help support your line of questioning.
That said, this does not mean admitting to an error whenever someone disagrees with something I, or the committee, did. Your question presumes again that the committee erred in this matter when it did not: it applied a higher standard of evidence, and the result remains that at that time there was not sufficient evidence to warrant an indefinite block.
I preface my questions with this: these are sincere questions based upon real concerns. I do not know how you will answer.
The short of it, members of the committee were honestly and sincerely intending to turn a blind eye to an administrator socking deceptively because "some people" were aware of it, and he was part of the old guard. Supporting the "old boy's club" this way is so fundamentally unjust and abhorrent to me that I could not possibly condone this course of action – even passively.
I stepped down so that I could bring the case myself to light if the committee was unable or unwilling to. Side-channel communications with some of my colleagues convinced me to wait, in the hopes that they would wake up. They eventually did; and resolved the case by applying the same standard to the socking admin every other editor was subject to. This was the necessary condition for me to rejoin.
I'll never know if my stepping down was necessary or even useful as a shock for the committee to act properly in that instance, but I do know that I could not have honestly serve with a body that had wilfully acted in a dishonest way.
At the moment I unsubscribed from the list, we had no indication that it was not currently being read by the leaker; I had no intention of providing further fodder for the kibitzers on Wikipedia Review. I resubscribed to the list once it became apparent that current discussion was not visible to the leaker (or, at least, not leaked). Nevertheless, improving the security and privacy of that mailing list has been my priority in our discussions with the Foundation and more steps to secure it are on the way with Erik Möller taking the lead on the WMF side.
There are two reasons why that is. Firstly, we obviously do not want Wikipedia to be used for advocacy and grooming. Secondly, we don't want to give the appearance that this can occur. There are few cases where I believe our quasi-constitutional mandate to prevent the project "from falling into disrepute" comes into play, this is clearly one. Faux-news would have a field day of Wikipedia bashing if it became known that the project knew about a pedophile and let them edit (nevermind that ArbCom isn't the project – news media are not known for their discernment and comprehension of our subtle organization), and the moral panic around the subject is so strong that it would irreparably harm the project and the foundation.
Those cases you refer to are when I attempted a new tack, and it was rejected out of hand without (I felt) deliberate consideration of a new approach simply because "we never did it this way". In those cases – especially if I feel I'm alone in my corner – I have the unfortunate reflex of stepping back with a "fine, have it your way but don't expect me to help you fuck this up" attitude. I'm not very good at dealing with internal dissension within the committee because I feel that its outer functioning is so much more important than even my opinion on how we could improve things; so I duck behind the furniture rather than continue a dispute that might lead to a breakdown in group relationship – even if I feel that the committee is being (collectively) stupid.
I should point out that the 2011 committee has rarely managed to make me feel this way: there was a significant influx of new(er) blood that was a little more willing to try new things even if we were still in the minority. But as we say in French, "chat échaudé craint l'eau froide" [the cat that was scalded fears cold water], and I've also been more leery about making suggestions for changes. I still think that's a loss for the committee, though.
Thanks in advance. Cool Hand Luke 05:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't think there is a magic bullet solution – in the end, we too are volunteers and we don't always have the liberty of setting time aside for fixed periods as we could for a paying job. I think that it's a bad idea to rely on designated drafters to the exclusion of collective decision writing because it adds a bottleneck that's difficult to evaluate from case to case, but collective writing brings with it its own set of problems.
Perhaps the solution lies in having an actual coordinator that could reassign cases as deadlines near? Or perhaps decisions should be crafted directly on-wiki bit by bit rather than have an entire decision posted in one draft that is potentially held up for a long time over a particular snag? I don't have any obviously correct solution to offer — but I am willing to experiment with different workflows until we find a better one. I certainly have delayed case resolutions in the past by my unavailability – and there are few of us who can honestly claim they never did. The solution probably lies in systemic methods of avoiding bottlenecks rather than praying for them to not occur.
That said, your hypothetical bears an uncanny resemblance to the incident you alluded to in question 45. Perhaps you intended this as an opportunity for me to discuss my return to the list? If that is the case (and in any case otherwise), this is probably best summed up by quoting the first message I wrote to the list on return:
Hey all, I must apologize for the outburst that led to my leaving the mailing list. While I did have some serious concerns about its privacy, the fact that I was frustrated and stressed by the theft and leaks is not an excuse for that particular kind of language. You all know me to be candid, I hope you also know me to be civil and respectful despite my (thankfully) rare outbursts. I intended no slight to any of you, and was flailing in rage at the situation rather than at any of you specifically. -- Coren / Marc
Thanks again. Cool Hand Luke 20:20, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
That said, it's probably best described as "besides some aspects of dispute resolution". I don't think I'm especially suited for drafting cases (especially given that I have such superb colleagues to compare to in that aspect), but I don't think there is any question that my contribution to case decisions or internal deliberations is any less valuable than the other members'.
Thanks again; you have fairly answered some of my concerns. Others linger, but readers should be able to make that judgment. Cool Hand Luke 23:43, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
It's important to not belittle the problem, however, as being in a position of perceived (if dubious) authority will attract the less savoury elements and more serious attempts at bullying have occurred in the past. The proper response in those cases is to immediately disclose the nature of the threats to the committee and the foundations and contact the authorities. In more extreme cases, arbitrators have had to withdraw for a while while the matter gets settled.
Thank you for your cooperation. TYelliot | Talk | Contribs 14:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
That said, the safe course of action is to get third opinions; it occurred once to me that parties demanded my recusal for what I felt were frivolous reasons, but when uninvolved observers noted that it'd be wiser for me to recuse, I did.
We have a number of internal safeguards in place to avoid conflicts of interests (a separate list to which the party arbitrator will not be subscribed to discuss the case, for instance, as well as a strong prohibition from discussing the case with our colleagues). Despite that, however, there is no question that perception will be that an arbitrator will have an unfair advantage during a case, so it's a bad idea regardless.
That said, there are two cases where it's reasonable for a sitting arbitrator to do "normal" administration and DR work: for simple and uncontroversial cases certain to never reach the committee (simple vandalism, for instance); and for cases where a quick intervention by a "senior" administrator (or at the very least one which holds a measure of community trust) might prevent a situation from degenerating far enough to explode.
Of those two, the latter is the most likely to backfire and must still be done gingerly and with great care.
On the other hand, the separation between what the committee does and its avoidance of making policy makes it an iffy proposition if it's perceived as the committee involving itself in policy discussion. The important part is to make it clear that the person participating is an editor who happens to be an arbitrator, not the arbitrator-as-role.
In practice, I haven't seen this to be a serious concern in the past. I've occasionally involved myself in some aspects of policy discussion while I was sitting on the committee, and I've seen my colleagues do the same from time to time, and there never seemed to have been confusion on this front.
Many seem to forget that the requirement of civility is one of our founding pillars, and no less important than neutrality for instance. I've always been particularly frustrated by the community's perennial failure to settle on behaviour standards and enforce them. The result is that we're at a point where rudeness is the norm, and that scares away a great many new contributors.
I would like to apologize for the late questions, I've only just gotten the time to write them. If you see a question that you've already answered or one that is similar, please proceed to answer it, you may think of a new way to explain your idea/answer. Please answer all of these questions, they will weigh in heavily when I vote.
At some point, we'll have to fix this before we calcify ourselves out of relevance in the evolving world.
A fairly good recent example is the BLP proposed deletion process which was crafted by the community to take over from the temporary stopgap we made with a motion.
In practice, I don't think anyone would ever have face the committee over a single isolated incident unless it's an especially egregious one – certainly, nothing below the level of gross abuse of administrator privileges or harassment.
Even then, first offenders will rarely get more than an admonishment or (perhaps) a limited restriction of some sort except in extraordinary cases of extremely severe misconduct. It's not so much that the past history has been good (I don't believe that misbehaviour is offset or "balanced" by good behaviour) but that there wasn't an history of misbehaviour to aggravate matters. But no – 40 featured articles under your belt (or whatever) do not otherwise give you a dispensation from following the same rules everyone else must abide by.
That said, we are all passionate about this project and we all have our pet peeves and aggravating nits; it's important to stop and back away if you feel that anger is beginning to take over, or if frustration is getting the best of you.
We bicker, fight and dispute over the lamest things, we are stuck in reactionary inertia and fear any change – to the point of rejecting our lifeblood: new contributors. Our policies conflict with each other and sometimes work against our objective, yet we bury ourselves in more of them every day. We're a battleground for every dispute and war out there, a soapboax for grinding every axe, and the primary target of marketeers and other promotional weasel. Every corner you look in – especially the dusty, less traveled ones – you can see vandalism and misinformation lurking.
Yet, despite all that (or maybe because of all that) we have succeeded. We are, by far, the greatest repository of knowledge in humanity's history. We inform, educate, entertain. We spread knowledge and information, and we allow the entire world access to the world itself. We managed to instil (some measure of) critical thinking to the masses who had little but the propaganda of mass media to live on before us.
Wikipedia is an exercise in frustration, but it becomes oh so rewarding when we get things right (which is, in the end, most of the time).
Thank you, JoeGazz ♂ 22:06, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Our only "official" statements are those which are the result of a vote (or at the very least a demonstrable consensus). Final case decisions, motions or announcements posted on the Noticeboard. Rarely, a block or unblock with a specific note that this was a committee action.
The rule of thumb is simple: unless we very explicitly say we are speaking for the committee, we aren't. If we say "you should do X", or "you shouldn't do Y", or even "the committee thinks that Z", then what you are getting is guidance from an editor or administrator that happens to be on the committee, and who might be presumed knowledgeable about its working and history; not an edict or pronouncement from "on high".
In the case there actually is a violation, the best way to handle it is have the editor pick any one account to edit from, and block the others.
In the end, this is why we don't have a strict code of law to delineate everything that is allowable or not in meticulous detail; we have policies that explain what is expected of editors, and what is generally considered acceptable, but human judgement and common sense must always factor into it. That's what Ignore All Rules is about.
It seems fairly obvious you have a specific case in mind when asking your questions; if you were a little more explicit, then I'd be in a better position to give my opinion on the matter – otherwise, I'm pretty much stuck with generalities and "it depends".
That said, this is one of those cases where a quiet intervention on the side is almost certainly the way to go: the scenario you describe is one where a checkuser would be entirely justified in making a check and most likely to poke the committee rather than act directly (especially if, as you say, both accounts are trouble-free and otherwise good contributors). We'd then contact the editor(s) and if they make a credible claim of being housemates then we'd advise them to publicly disclose the link or work in different areas to avoid any potential impropriety (including appearances of impropriety).
Candidates are advised to answer each of these questions completely but concisely. Candidates may refuse to answer any questions that they do not wish to, with the understanding, however, that not answering a question may be perceived negatively by the community.
Note that disclosure of your account history, pursuant to the ArbCom selection and appointment policy, must be made in your opening statement, and is not an optional question.
a) What skills and experience, both on Wikipedia and off, do you think you will bring to the committee if elected?
b) What kinds of personal experience have you had with the Wikipedia dispute resolution processes? If applicable, please provide links to Arbitration cases where you have been involved, or offered an uninvolved statement.
b) I've been an arbitrator for three years now, and spent a year before that toiling as a clerk.
That said, I've come to rely more on topic bans as a first measure – for someone who only is problematic in limited circumstances that gives them a chance for "good work" elsewhere without impacting the fundamental objective of removing the disruption.
In Wikipedia's case, we have a sorta-kinda constitution in our five pillars that rules over all others, and dozens of rules that evolved over the years that sometimes conflict in edge cases. When those tensions cause disputes, then it's ArbCom's responsibility to fix the problem.
The trick, of course, is to do minimal intrusion. Try to clarify; if that fails then tweak, or make a stopgap. Sometimes it means making "case law" when following a pillar or Foundation mandate ends up creating a hole in current policy (or directly conflicts with consensus). In other words, we don't make policy outside a dispute, and hesitate to do so even then. We apply duct tape and haywire when something is broken – no more.
We probably should have a policy-making body – but the Arbitration committee isn't it (and shouldn't be it).
The second way we can help is when an issue becomes so divisive that even with everyone acting in good faith consensus is impossible to reach. Rather than rule on what content should be, we've created mechanisms to fix the dispute within the community itself in a binding manner. It might not fix the issue for good, but it has historically managed to render future discussion considerably easier because there was a workable starting point for it.
a) What is, in your view, the purpose of an ArbCom motion? Under what circumstances, or for what areas or processes, would the use of a motion be your first choice in handling the situation.
b) When is it not appropriate to start a motion? If the community has reached consensus on an issue, does ArbCom have the right to overrule that consensus with a motion? If the community is unable to resolve an issue for some time, and there is no active case related to that issue, can ArbCom step in and settle the issue themselves by motion?
c) There were a number of controversial motions this year. Please identify a few motions from 2011 that you believe were appropriate (if any), and a few you believe were inappropriate (if any). Discuss why you have reached the judgements that you did.
b) Those are three very different question: First, a motion shouldn't be used when the facts are in dispute; in those cases, taking the time to set out and examine evidence is a necessity rather than an avoidable ordeal. Secondly, the committee's responsibility is to rule when the rules conflict with themselves or the community – even when the community disagrees (otherwise there would have been no conflict). It's rare, but even a consensus could not override a Foundation directive or one of our pillars – even if everyone agreed that article X shouldn't be neutral, that wouldn't be acceptable for the project. Finally, I don't believe committee intervention in disputes that have not been brought to it should be frequent, but our job is ultimately the good functioning of the project and if an issue has become so divisive that it wastes a great deal of community effort with no resolution in sight, I feel we'd be neglecting our duty by not trying to help fix it.
c) I agree with every motion I have voted to support. ;-) Seriously, I don't think there were any motions in 2011 that were meaningfully controversial. Of course, any decision (motion or not) that is made is almost certain to displease someone, and occasionally some local drama erupts around it, but no major community-divisive question ended up having motion work over it that I can recall.
a) Do you believe that the Arbitration Committee should keep records that include non-public information, including checkuser data and the real life identities of users, after whatever case or issue that information originally pertained to had been handled by the committee?
b) If the answer to any part of (a) is yes, how long should the information be kept, how should it be kept, and who should have access to it?
c) Currently, much of ArbCom business is handled over email, and in other non-public forums. Do you believe that all ArbCom discussions that do not directly concern private information should take place publicly? If so, how? Why or why not?
d) What, if anything, did the Arbitration Committee do wrong before, and in response to, the mailing list leak? What did they do right? What would you have done differently?
e) If your real identity is not already widely known, do you intend to publicly identify yourself if elected?
b) Personally, I think roughly three years should suffice. In practice, we almost never have to refer that far back, and in the rare cases we do what we found is generally no longer relevant. That said, we are technically unable to expire our archives because of limitations in the software we are hobbled with at this time. I've just returned from a meeting with the Foundation where fixing this has been one of the primary discussion points, and we will soon have a new setup where we can apply a data retention policy beyond "keep everything or keep nothing".
c) Most of what the committee discusses on the mailing list (that isn't private or confidential – nobody disagrees that should remain there) is necessary internal communication that will take place in a forum where it's fast and convenient, and contains conversations which are more candid than would be productive to make public. This is a necessary and unavoidable component of any group of people working together remotely – especially when from all over the world. In an office, you'd have the opportunity for meetings, water cooler discussions, and quick chats at the bar after hours; all of those are a necessary component of working together and will occur. If you forbid email, that will just move to IM. Since this will happen, I'd rather it occurs in a central location that keeps a record and has reasonable privacy.
d) We, understandably, panicked quite a bit and were angered, dismayed and frustrated. Because of this, our initial communication were completely shod and we did poor PR over it. Then again, none of us are PR gurus used to spinning disasters as though it were an oil spill – so it's to be expected (and, I suppose, better than the alternative). In the end, we're working closely with the Foundation to change our work tools and (especially) how well it is audited to both reduce the chances of this happening again and to mitigate the damage if and when it does.
e) My identity is well known and trivially findable to anyone who spends a minute looking.
a) What do you think should be the division of responsibilities between ArbCom and the WMF? Are there issues currently being handled by one that should really be handled by the other?
b) What do you think should be the division of responsibilities between ArbCom and the community as a whole? Are there issues currently being handled by one that should really be handled by the other?
b) That balance has gotten pretty well tuned, by now. We might be able to argue a bit around the fuzzy edges of where and when the committee takes jurisdiction over which kind of disputes, but I don't think that there are many people who would make the argument that the current split is completely, or even significantly, off.
a) Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with " vested contributors"? Why or why not? If there is a problem, what is to be done about it?
b) Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with factionalism? Why or why not? If there is a problem, what is to be done about it?
c) Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with editor retention? Does Wikipedia have an overall shortage of editors? Do specific parts or tasks have shortages of editors?
b) I don't think Wikipedia has a problem with factionalism so much as the world has one and it just unavoidably replays itself here. The good thing is the project worked: we are now the primary reference work for much of the world. The bad thing is that this means that we're now an important battlefield for anyone who feels a need to control information. Anyone who wants to influence public perception of a subject now has Wikipedia on their to-do list – this makes it all the more imperative that we keep even more diligently to our founding principles.
c) Yes, for a number or reasons. First, the low hanging fruit is gone and we now focus more on quality than we did at first; this raises the barrier to entry significantly (and, to a point, not undesirably so). Secondly, we are becoming increasingly conservative as a community and as a project – this is an unavoidable consequence of our success: "it's not broken don't fix it" is a reasonable position, but it does mean we become resistant to experimentation. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, the editing environment has become hostile to newcomers.
I'm not one to take the simplistic position that "it's because of templates and bots", but a combination of being set in increasingly complex ways with a continually degrading work atmosphere (see point a) means that editors' first experiences tend to be increasingly negative as time goes by.
There is no simple solution. Indeed, the exact nature of the problem isn't entirely clear to begin with. The Foundation is working surprisingly hard at understanding and fixing the apparent problem, and we can help on the projects by rethinking some of our approaches.
On the other side of the fence, Monty Hall is a textbook example on how a case should be handled: decided (relatively) swiftly and (very) fairly despite a relatively complicated background.
What I'd want for the project is real governance – a legislative body if you will – but it's better if ArbCom stays at arm's length from any such discussion.
Please ask your individual questions here. While there is no limit on the number of questions that may be asked, please try to keep questions relevant. Try to be as clear and concise as possible, and avoid duplicating questions that have already been asked.
Add your questions below the line using the following markup:
#Question:
#:A:
Don't worry about the pretty formatting I use for readability; I'll tweak around as needed.
I use the answers to these questions to write my election guide; thus, not answering specific questions will affect my recommendation. Also, I may be asking about specific things outside the scope of ArbCom; your answers would be appreciated regardless.
The questions are similar to those I asked in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010; if you've already answered them, feel free to borrow from those. Please note that question 3 has drastically changed from what it was in past years, though.
The first 9 questions are short answer questions. The last question is a bit open-ended.
Problem is, many members of the committee do not feel comfortable with even the concept of decisions not taken by all arbitrators.
That said, they can provide a very good "default" standard, and I would expect that someone who goes against those standard without a reasoned argument would be correctly seen as disruptive for the sake of disruption.
Not to say the current system is that bad to begin with – but the strain is showing and can only get worse with time.
Thank you. Rs chen 7754 23:59, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I think the community erred in rejecting flagged protection – not that I am convinced that it did reject it (see my answer below about consensus). It certainly would have helped alleviating the problem, even if that wasn't a perfect solution.
I do, however, remain strongly opposed to the subject of an article being given any sort of veto over its contents as a matter of principle. Don't make the mistake of thinking that "opt-out" is strictly about inclusion or not – not that this would be a very good idea either – but thinking that article subjects wouldn't "opt-out" only of biographies they don't like, or use the option as a bludgeon to influence contents is ignoring human nature entirely.
Moreschi's touches on the same topic from a different perspective, but misses the target in his estimation of the cause. The problem isn't that administrators are unwilling to intervene in cases of breaches of the NPOV, but that absent some way of making a content ruling it isn't possible to figure out who is being neutral in the dispute (since all sides with claim they are neutral). The problem isn't that nobody knows, but that nobody has the authority to decide.
That said, it's also important to not stretch the definition of "involved" to the kind of ridiculous extremes we occasionally see on AE or ANI. An administrator who isn't involved substantively in a content dispute beyond previous administrative actions cannot be said to be "involved" simply because he once did an edit on a related page or interacted (even negatively) with a related editor. Involvement needs to be relatively current or significant; the litmus test isn't whether one of the currently involved editors sees involvement, but whether a reasonable uninvolved third party would.
That said, the spirit of that rule is less about legal action than about bullying your way in a dispute by throwing around threats and legal jargon in an attempt to influence content or intimidate other editors. In many jurisdictions (no least of which most of the United States), even a futile legal battle is costly in time and resources for both parties; and most editors would not have the resources (or indeed desire) to defend against one. Allowing such bullying to stand would be contrary to our principles and destroy the principle of editing by consensus.
As to your substantive question, anyone who has taken legal action against the project or one of its volunteers should be immediately and indefinitely blocked until the matter is resolved (if only because there can be no threat more effective than actual legal proceedings); but that's really an academic question because anyone who did so would almost certainly have their legal counsel tell them that editing while an action is pending is amongst the worst possible ideas ever. Add to that the fact that an editor who claims to have taken legal action cannot be reliably determined to really have done so, and you still end up with legal menace used as a bludgeon. Block.
Like I said, the policy is really about on-wiki bullying behavior; actual legal action that does not end up as legal manoeuvring on wiki limits our responses to what counsel advises we do with a default to "nothing".
It occurs to me that your question is probably more related to the proposed TOS than it is to the Committe; you might want to look there and possibly comment while the terms are still being tweaked.
That said, I can't discuss details because they are privileged, but I know the Foundation is revising its legal strategy with an eye towards discouraging vexatious litigation against editors and already took some steps in that direction. Ultimately, the WMF is the legal entity behind the projects and their legal defence (including that of its mission and contributors) is ultimately their responsibility.
I note that in your selection, you've elected to enumerate guidelines where that would be the case as a matter of fact; perhaps you already intended it this way?
But no, unless things get so far out of hand that verifiability and proper references are set aside and someone brings the matter to ArbCom, the committee doesn't have cause to play a role.
Corporations don't fare so well in my book. I could go on a long rant about how the very concept of the legal personality is one of the most abhorrent scab upon our society, and how insane the US legal system was to recognize that an artificial construct of strictly economical value might be said to have "rights" (grumble, grumble). No; we have no ethical imperative to go out of our way to protect corporations any more than we do mountains or subatomic particles. Vandalism is still vandalism, of course, and allegations against them need to be sourced (as does everything else, really), but there is no reason to give them the same protection living persons are afforded for compassionate and ethical reasons.
What the committee did do is forcibly put things back on track within that existing rule. It did mean that some of our current guidelines and policies were kinked, but that's a consequence of BLP being a prescriptive rule (like the pillars) rather and a description of current practice. In that case, the current practice was not compatible with the prescription and needed to be adjusted.
Perhaps the trick lies in creating a "legislative body"; perhaps we should use actual voting more often and take the majority as the correct default value (rather than always default to status quo ante).
In the end the reason why the editor was banned might affect why they should not be allowed to continue editing, but not whether they should.
Restraining aggrieved parties in emotionally charged scenarios is central to the Committee’s role, and arbitrators are in principle exposed to legal action by those parties in a real-world jurisdiction. It matters little whether an action is launched or merely threatened, and whether it is quite unreasonable: the costs for an individual arb to forestall a default judgment in a foreign court would be considerable (and I believe it’s not hard to transfer an order to the courts in one’s local jurisdiction). The risk is greater because as volunteers we can’t be expected to provide professional mediation as an intermediary between wiki and real-world judicial processes—mediation that might head off litigation in the first place.
Given the WMF's annual income of some $20M, what is your view on whether the Foundation should:
What I can say is that the Foundation is aware of that concern, receptive, and that scenarios are currently being examined. (Note that this would most likely not include only ArbComs but also some of the "higher" functionaries like stewards). There is a lot to be done, and it's a very complex matter (not least of which because it doesn't scale well); but it's being worked on.
Tony (talk) 00:55, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Looking over ArbCom cases from the past few years, it is clear to me that many times, editors involved in the dispute being heard in a particular case use the Workshop page as a platform to continue their disputes. These Workshop posts tend to take the form of 'finding of facts that the people on the other side of the dispute have committed heinous acts, heavy sanctions for the people on the other side of the dispute, and people on my side of the dispute get off without even a warning' (it's usually less transparent than that, but barely).
All of that said, however, I've found that the committee is surprisingly (very) conservative about its workflow, and suggestions on new way to work a case up have met reactions halfway between horror and apathy.
There is a still open RfC at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification#Request_for_clarification:_Arbcom-unblocked_editors. As evidenced at this request, there are numerous admins and editors who have serious doubts over the Committee's unblocking of what is suspected, with a high level of good faith and WP:DUCK evidence, to be a banned disruptive sockpuppet. Do you think it is appropriate that after nearly a month and a half:
Ultimately, it's the committee's responsibility to be more stringent than the administrators with evidence, and to demand higher certainty that expected for routine administration: our decisions have no (practial) appeal.
The last question is especially important as there are numerous uninvolved admins and admins who have previously dealt with the user in question, who are too "afraid" of going over the Committee's head, even in the face of evidence; if one assumes ownership of a problem as the current Committee has, then surely the current Committee must also assume ownership of their actual ownership of the problem possibly being part of said problem. If one looks at the answers thus far given at the request from arbiters closely, one can see that there seems to be a theme amongst arbs to suggest that the Community block the editor for other current issues; all the while the Committee avoids answering Community concerns at the actual clarification request. However, the other issues have only strengthened the opinion of sockpuppetry amongst other members of the Community.
As an arbiter who is seeking re-election, I would also request a response to the following:
As for your snark about being banned for criticism, I find it a little amusing really: historically, the committee has never even considered banning someone for being a critic – no matter how acerbic – and has even given more leeway than reasonable to disruptive activity to critic to avoid even the appearance of trying to stifle criticism. That little bit of hyperbole certainly does not help support your line of questioning.
That said, this does not mean admitting to an error whenever someone disagrees with something I, or the committee, did. Your question presumes again that the committee erred in this matter when it did not: it applied a higher standard of evidence, and the result remains that at that time there was not sufficient evidence to warrant an indefinite block.
I preface my questions with this: these are sincere questions based upon real concerns. I do not know how you will answer.
The short of it, members of the committee were honestly and sincerely intending to turn a blind eye to an administrator socking deceptively because "some people" were aware of it, and he was part of the old guard. Supporting the "old boy's club" this way is so fundamentally unjust and abhorrent to me that I could not possibly condone this course of action – even passively.
I stepped down so that I could bring the case myself to light if the committee was unable or unwilling to. Side-channel communications with some of my colleagues convinced me to wait, in the hopes that they would wake up. They eventually did; and resolved the case by applying the same standard to the socking admin every other editor was subject to. This was the necessary condition for me to rejoin.
I'll never know if my stepping down was necessary or even useful as a shock for the committee to act properly in that instance, but I do know that I could not have honestly serve with a body that had wilfully acted in a dishonest way.
At the moment I unsubscribed from the list, we had no indication that it was not currently being read by the leaker; I had no intention of providing further fodder for the kibitzers on Wikipedia Review. I resubscribed to the list once it became apparent that current discussion was not visible to the leaker (or, at least, not leaked). Nevertheless, improving the security and privacy of that mailing list has been my priority in our discussions with the Foundation and more steps to secure it are on the way with Erik Möller taking the lead on the WMF side.
There are two reasons why that is. Firstly, we obviously do not want Wikipedia to be used for advocacy and grooming. Secondly, we don't want to give the appearance that this can occur. There are few cases where I believe our quasi-constitutional mandate to prevent the project "from falling into disrepute" comes into play, this is clearly one. Faux-news would have a field day of Wikipedia bashing if it became known that the project knew about a pedophile and let them edit (nevermind that ArbCom isn't the project – news media are not known for their discernment and comprehension of our subtle organization), and the moral panic around the subject is so strong that it would irreparably harm the project and the foundation.
Those cases you refer to are when I attempted a new tack, and it was rejected out of hand without (I felt) deliberate consideration of a new approach simply because "we never did it this way". In those cases – especially if I feel I'm alone in my corner – I have the unfortunate reflex of stepping back with a "fine, have it your way but don't expect me to help you fuck this up" attitude. I'm not very good at dealing with internal dissension within the committee because I feel that its outer functioning is so much more important than even my opinion on how we could improve things; so I duck behind the furniture rather than continue a dispute that might lead to a breakdown in group relationship – even if I feel that the committee is being (collectively) stupid.
I should point out that the 2011 committee has rarely managed to make me feel this way: there was a significant influx of new(er) blood that was a little more willing to try new things even if we were still in the minority. But as we say in French, "chat échaudé craint l'eau froide" [the cat that was scalded fears cold water], and I've also been more leery about making suggestions for changes. I still think that's a loss for the committee, though.
Thanks in advance. Cool Hand Luke 05:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't think there is a magic bullet solution – in the end, we too are volunteers and we don't always have the liberty of setting time aside for fixed periods as we could for a paying job. I think that it's a bad idea to rely on designated drafters to the exclusion of collective decision writing because it adds a bottleneck that's difficult to evaluate from case to case, but collective writing brings with it its own set of problems.
Perhaps the solution lies in having an actual coordinator that could reassign cases as deadlines near? Or perhaps decisions should be crafted directly on-wiki bit by bit rather than have an entire decision posted in one draft that is potentially held up for a long time over a particular snag? I don't have any obviously correct solution to offer — but I am willing to experiment with different workflows until we find a better one. I certainly have delayed case resolutions in the past by my unavailability – and there are few of us who can honestly claim they never did. The solution probably lies in systemic methods of avoiding bottlenecks rather than praying for them to not occur.
That said, your hypothetical bears an uncanny resemblance to the incident you alluded to in question 45. Perhaps you intended this as an opportunity for me to discuss my return to the list? If that is the case (and in any case otherwise), this is probably best summed up by quoting the first message I wrote to the list on return:
Hey all, I must apologize for the outburst that led to my leaving the mailing list. While I did have some serious concerns about its privacy, the fact that I was frustrated and stressed by the theft and leaks is not an excuse for that particular kind of language. You all know me to be candid, I hope you also know me to be civil and respectful despite my (thankfully) rare outbursts. I intended no slight to any of you, and was flailing in rage at the situation rather than at any of you specifically. -- Coren / Marc
Thanks again. Cool Hand Luke 20:20, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
That said, it's probably best described as "besides some aspects of dispute resolution". I don't think I'm especially suited for drafting cases (especially given that I have such superb colleagues to compare to in that aspect), but I don't think there is any question that my contribution to case decisions or internal deliberations is any less valuable than the other members'.
Thanks again; you have fairly answered some of my concerns. Others linger, but readers should be able to make that judgment. Cool Hand Luke 23:43, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
It's important to not belittle the problem, however, as being in a position of perceived (if dubious) authority will attract the less savoury elements and more serious attempts at bullying have occurred in the past. The proper response in those cases is to immediately disclose the nature of the threats to the committee and the foundations and contact the authorities. In more extreme cases, arbitrators have had to withdraw for a while while the matter gets settled.
Thank you for your cooperation. TYelliot | Talk | Contribs 14:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
That said, the safe course of action is to get third opinions; it occurred once to me that parties demanded my recusal for what I felt were frivolous reasons, but when uninvolved observers noted that it'd be wiser for me to recuse, I did.
We have a number of internal safeguards in place to avoid conflicts of interests (a separate list to which the party arbitrator will not be subscribed to discuss the case, for instance, as well as a strong prohibition from discussing the case with our colleagues). Despite that, however, there is no question that perception will be that an arbitrator will have an unfair advantage during a case, so it's a bad idea regardless.
That said, there are two cases where it's reasonable for a sitting arbitrator to do "normal" administration and DR work: for simple and uncontroversial cases certain to never reach the committee (simple vandalism, for instance); and for cases where a quick intervention by a "senior" administrator (or at the very least one which holds a measure of community trust) might prevent a situation from degenerating far enough to explode.
Of those two, the latter is the most likely to backfire and must still be done gingerly and with great care.
On the other hand, the separation between what the committee does and its avoidance of making policy makes it an iffy proposition if it's perceived as the committee involving itself in policy discussion. The important part is to make it clear that the person participating is an editor who happens to be an arbitrator, not the arbitrator-as-role.
In practice, I haven't seen this to be a serious concern in the past. I've occasionally involved myself in some aspects of policy discussion while I was sitting on the committee, and I've seen my colleagues do the same from time to time, and there never seemed to have been confusion on this front.
Many seem to forget that the requirement of civility is one of our founding pillars, and no less important than neutrality for instance. I've always been particularly frustrated by the community's perennial failure to settle on behaviour standards and enforce them. The result is that we're at a point where rudeness is the norm, and that scares away a great many new contributors.
I would like to apologize for the late questions, I've only just gotten the time to write them. If you see a question that you've already answered or one that is similar, please proceed to answer it, you may think of a new way to explain your idea/answer. Please answer all of these questions, they will weigh in heavily when I vote.
At some point, we'll have to fix this before we calcify ourselves out of relevance in the evolving world.
A fairly good recent example is the BLP proposed deletion process which was crafted by the community to take over from the temporary stopgap we made with a motion.
In practice, I don't think anyone would ever have face the committee over a single isolated incident unless it's an especially egregious one – certainly, nothing below the level of gross abuse of administrator privileges or harassment.
Even then, first offenders will rarely get more than an admonishment or (perhaps) a limited restriction of some sort except in extraordinary cases of extremely severe misconduct. It's not so much that the past history has been good (I don't believe that misbehaviour is offset or "balanced" by good behaviour) but that there wasn't an history of misbehaviour to aggravate matters. But no – 40 featured articles under your belt (or whatever) do not otherwise give you a dispensation from following the same rules everyone else must abide by.
That said, we are all passionate about this project and we all have our pet peeves and aggravating nits; it's important to stop and back away if you feel that anger is beginning to take over, or if frustration is getting the best of you.
We bicker, fight and dispute over the lamest things, we are stuck in reactionary inertia and fear any change – to the point of rejecting our lifeblood: new contributors. Our policies conflict with each other and sometimes work against our objective, yet we bury ourselves in more of them every day. We're a battleground for every dispute and war out there, a soapboax for grinding every axe, and the primary target of marketeers and other promotional weasel. Every corner you look in – especially the dusty, less traveled ones – you can see vandalism and misinformation lurking.
Yet, despite all that (or maybe because of all that) we have succeeded. We are, by far, the greatest repository of knowledge in humanity's history. We inform, educate, entertain. We spread knowledge and information, and we allow the entire world access to the world itself. We managed to instil (some measure of) critical thinking to the masses who had little but the propaganda of mass media to live on before us.
Wikipedia is an exercise in frustration, but it becomes oh so rewarding when we get things right (which is, in the end, most of the time).
Thank you, JoeGazz ♂ 22:06, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Our only "official" statements are those which are the result of a vote (or at the very least a demonstrable consensus). Final case decisions, motions or announcements posted on the Noticeboard. Rarely, a block or unblock with a specific note that this was a committee action.
The rule of thumb is simple: unless we very explicitly say we are speaking for the committee, we aren't. If we say "you should do X", or "you shouldn't do Y", or even "the committee thinks that Z", then what you are getting is guidance from an editor or administrator that happens to be on the committee, and who might be presumed knowledgeable about its working and history; not an edict or pronouncement from "on high".
In the case there actually is a violation, the best way to handle it is have the editor pick any one account to edit from, and block the others.
In the end, this is why we don't have a strict code of law to delineate everything that is allowable or not in meticulous detail; we have policies that explain what is expected of editors, and what is generally considered acceptable, but human judgement and common sense must always factor into it. That's what Ignore All Rules is about.
It seems fairly obvious you have a specific case in mind when asking your questions; if you were a little more explicit, then I'd be in a better position to give my opinion on the matter – otherwise, I'm pretty much stuck with generalities and "it depends".
That said, this is one of those cases where a quiet intervention on the side is almost certainly the way to go: the scenario you describe is one where a checkuser would be entirely justified in making a check and most likely to poke the committee rather than act directly (especially if, as you say, both accounts are trouble-free and otherwise good contributors). We'd then contact the editor(s) and if they make a credible claim of being housemates then we'd advise them to publicly disclose the link or work in different areas to avoid any potential impropriety (including appearances of impropriety).