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I use the answers to these questions to write my election guide. As a break from past years, I am not assigning "points" for the answers, but the answers to the questions, along with other material that I find in my research, will be what my guide is based on. Also, I may be asking about specific things outside the scope of ArbCom; your answers would be appreciated regardless.

2. What originally led you to join Wikipedia? What do you do on the site on a day-to-day basis?

4. What is your experience with collaborating and coming to a consensus with editors of different opinions and philosophies? What have you learned from these experiences?

6. Case management has been an issue in many elections, with some cases stalling for weeks with little reply, and others coming to a quickly-written proposed decision that received little support from other arbitrators due to concerns about it being one-sided. What is your familiarity with the arbitration process, and how do you believe cases should be handled? Do you plan to propose any reforms in this regard?

8. Several cases in past years have focused on the tension between so-called "subject experts" who know about the intricacies of the subject area and "general editors" who are familiar with the standards that are applied across Wikipedia. What are your thoughts about such issues?

10. In 2014, the English Wikipedia remains among the few projects (if not the only project) where the process for removal of adminship is not community-driven. What are your thoughts about how adminship is reviewed on this project, and do you think this should be changed, or are you happy with the status quo?

12. Serving as a functionary (even more so as an arbitrator) often means dealing with unpleasant issues, including but not limited to helping those dealing with doxing and real-world harassment and communicating with WMF about legal issues. In addition to onwiki and offwiki harassment, functionaries have often had false accusations made against themselves, frequently in venues where they are unable to defend themselves or where the accusers are unwilling to listen to reason. What effects would both of these have on your ability to serve as an arbitrator?

14. What is your familiarity with Wikimedia-wide policies, such as the CheckUser policy and the Oversight policy, as well as the Privacy policy? What is your opinion as to how Wikimedia (staff and volunteers) handles private information?

16. The purpose of the Arbitration Committee is to provide lasting dispute resolution in difficult cases that the community has difficulty resolving. However, of course Wikimedia is a community-driven project. To that end, what are your views regarding what should be handled by the community, and what should be handled by arbitration?

Thank you. Rs chen 7754 22:30, 11 November 2013 (UTC) reply

2. Thanks for being ready as the fourth candidate to offer your service! Last year, I asked 3 questions, this year it's only one: imagine you are an arb, how would you comment in this case? As last year, I will let the combined answers speak. Hint, after we had a first looong answer: you don't have to evaluate a whole case, just comment the one request. My so far favourite comment has four words ;)

2. Civility is one of Wikipedia's five pillars. Do you think we have a problem with civility on Wikipedia? Why or why not? Do you think civility can and should be enforced on Wikipedia as vigorously as the other pillars like NPOV are? Why or why not?

   Yes we do have a problem with civility, no it can't be enforced as vigorously as everyone's interpretation of "civility" is different. More about this later.

4. Wikipedia has a undeniable gender gap in terms of who contributes to Wikipedia and what topics are covered. Do you think this is a significant problem for Wikipedia? Why or why not? What, if anything, can and should the Committee do to address this?

   The gender gap is a significant problem for Wikipedia, but it's more of a foundation issue than a ArbCom issue. ArbCom is only used as a final resort for disputes that the community can't handle, not to promote ideas on how to make the project more welcoming for female editors. The best the committee can do is give advise to prevent gender harassment and sanction (preferably ban) editors whose goal in the project are misogynic in nature.

Thanks in advance for your answers. Gamaliel ( talk) 17:28, 15 November 2014 (UTC) reply

2. Can a case be opened without presuming that sanctions will be necessary? Do you feel that once a case is opened that impartial arbitrators will "inevitably" have to impose sanctions?

4. Do minor sanctions such as limited topic bans require specific findings that each editor named has violated Wikipedia policies or guidelines in that topic area? If an immediately prior WP:AN/I discussion did not show any support for a topic ban, should ArbCom impose one without specific findings of any violation of a policy or guideline?

6. Under what circumstances would you participate in a case where you did not read the workshop and evidence pages carefully?

8. "Stare decisis" has not been the rule for ArbCom decisions. For general rulings and findings, is this position still valid, or ought people be able to rely on a consistent view of policies and guidelines from case to case?

10. Is the "Five Pillars" essay of value in weighing principles in future ArbCom cases? Why or why not?

12. Many cases directly or indirectly involve biographies. How much weight should the committee give to WP:BLP and related policies in weighing principles, findings and decisions?

14. How would you personally define a "faction" in terms of Wikipedia editors? Is the behaviour of "factions" intrinsically a problem, or are the current policies sufficient to prevent any faction from improperly controlling the tenor of a Wikipedia article? If the committee determines that a "faction" rather than an individual editor is at fault in a behaviour issue, how would you suggest handling such a finding?

Thank you. Collect ( talk) 23:21, 15 November 2014 (UTC) reply

2. Is an editor's refusal or inability to follow the reliable source criteria a behavior issue within the purview of the Arbitration Committee? Why or why not?

4. When an editor is accused of misconduct stemming from subtle behavior issues (i.e., POV pushing instead of e.g. edit warring) surrounding a content dispute, is it ever possible to evaluate their conduct without at least attempting to understand and verify the facts and sources of the underlying content dispute? Why or why not?

6. How would you handle a group of experienced editors who came before you at arbitration if they had willfully and repeatedly removed some but not all of the conclusions of sources (which they admit are of the highest reliability) because they personally disagree with those particular conclusions, when they do not object to the other conclusions from those sources?

8. If an editor, when asked to provide an example of what they consider to be a high quality source on a given subject, responds with a source which was sponsored by a commercial organization with a clear conflict of interest, would you expect other editors to refer to that example when other COI issues concerning that editor and the same subject matter arise? Why or why not?

Thank you for your kind consideration of these questions. EllenCT ( talk) 01:18, 16 November 2014 (UTC) reply

Hi Secret. I do regret having to ask you such blunt questions, but I am deeply concerned from your history on Wikipedia that you are making a serious mistake.

2. You recently resigned the tools after unilaterally and improperly assigning one of your blocks the special status of an "AE block". Had this been noticed at the time, you would almost certainly have been sanctioned for administrator misconduct. Why did you assign your block this status, why did you quit afterwards, and why should the electorate not consider this poor judgement evidence that you should not sit on its Arbitration Committee?

   My resignation has nothing to do with the block, it involved my health and I used the 28bytes drama as an excuse to resign from the tools so I could focus on my health. It wasn't until several weeks later in which Beeblebrox emailed me that I might have made a mistake. In fact I have no idea that "AE Block" is a special status block because I never been involved in that area, can you give me evidence that I would have been "sanctioned" for administrator misconduct. That seems kind of harsh. The user was clearly disrupting an area that was under arbcom sanctions, I had all my right to block him as disruptive and there was complaining about him in the sanctions page. I just used what resulted as a wrong rationale because I had no idea. Note I still support a block and checkuser of the account in question is clearly someone's naughty sock. First edit in 9 months is to get involved in GamerGate. [1] I know what I'm doing when it comes to suspicious accounts like that. That doesn't mean I'm a ban-happy administrator, I just used the wrong rationale here and if I recall several administrators, like Nick bought Ryk72 to the attention of ArbCom and nobody wanted to do anything about it, why the question now.

4. How many times have you had your administrator permissions removed? I count nine times [2] [3] [4] but I believe there may be more that I have been unable to locate in the logs. Additionally, how many times have you retired?

   Do you not think it would be the best interests of you and the project if, given your record of departing/resigning/retiring, you did not move into a role as stressful and time-intensive as arbitrator?

   I lost count on how many times I had my administrator status removed. My philosophy is that I don't care about the tools and I could resign anytime my health is low or if I'm busy in real life. But I can also use the tools to kill backlogs when I do got time, thus all the requests and unrequests for the tools. I have no plans to retire, and I got plenty of time to run and commit myself as an arbitrator. I see ArbCom as a essential job that you can't play the bs card in, unlike what I did as an administrator many years ago.

6. You have been a candidate in most ArbCom elections in recent memory. What makes this candidacy different to your others?

   2009 and 2013 I have ran. 2013 was mistiming on my part, I just came out of a attempt of my life which placed me in coma a few months prior because of my frustration of not being able to handle my adult ADHD, so I was pretty much proving a WP:POINT by running thinking I'm healthy enough for this job when I clearly wasn't. I lost all my independence for six months, and took me a long time to recover. Now that I'm handling a 40 hour a week job, my own house, my own car payment, finishing school, and developing a relationship, I think I could handle the "stress" of this job. I care deeply about the community and I would never run if I know my health would have never handled it. 2009 I was immature, hell I was 20, it was so long ago it doesn't even matter.

Thank you, AGK [•] 20:23, 16 November 2014 (UTC) reply

2. why did you block Gustavail indefinitely after he made a good-faith request to deal with some suspected open proxies? ( Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Please_review_these_blocks_on_IP_addresses)

   I misread the request as disruptive, got confused with all the incivility Gustavail gave and thought he was the open proxy editor editing under a new account so I blocked. When I reread it more clearly, I suspected he wasn't and unblocked. I apologize for that block, as it was very hasty of me. Note I was distracted and stressed out at work when I did the block, I completely misread the debate.

2. You appear to react negatively to criticism. Just today in your incorrect Administrator intervention your reaction was less than optimal. Why should the community have confidence that you have the right temperament to make fundamental judgements expected of a member of AC? (btw, surely Gustavail was entitled to a personal apology, rather than the community at large. Just simply removing the block banner seems a little inappropriate)

2. Arbitrators do not make policy. How would you handle sweeping remedies which amount to policy change, for example the one that puts all BLP pages and LP mentions under discretionary sanctions?

4. Arbitrators need a lot of time to do justice to a complex case, with request, evidence, workshop, talk pages, propose decisions, and talk pages all comprising maybe hundreds or thousands of diffs, and up to the equivalent of a short novel of text, not to mention email evidence and discussion, "the other Wiki" and background research. Do you have the time to conscientiously work on these sorts of case?

6. Because of the workload of Arbitration cases, it has been suggested that they should, in general, be heard by 5 or 7 of the active arbitrators, possibly with one "spare". Would you support a solution like this?

8. Arbitrators need a lot of patience. I was very worried when one Arbitrator said on-wiki he had difficulty keeping his temper. Do you think you have the patience this role requires?

10. Arbitrators need to be impartial and be seen to be impartial. If you became an arbitrator would you announce your opinion of the outcome of a case, or of an involved party at the request stage? Do you think Arbitrators should have the power to add any party they like to a case?

12. The Committee must also be seen to be impartial as a whole. If you were elected would you be willing to waive your right to bring cases for the duration of your office? If not why not?

14. As an Arbitrator you would have access to the Checkuser right. As well as the obvious responsibility of access to private information, the right brings the power (if you have the block bit) to make effectively non-overturnable blocks, by simply labelling them as "checkuser blocks". This is because a block can be based on private information not available to mere administrators. A significant number of checkusers have used this privilege without any private information being relevant. Do you consider this something that you would do or condone, and why?

16. The purpose of the Committee is to resolve disruptive disputes which the community cannot. On ex-Arbitrator commented that "it is not about justice and fairness". Do you agree or disagree with this sentiment, to what extent and why?

All the best: Rich  Farmbrough, 02:48, 11 November 2014 (UTC).