WIKIPEDIA:ARBITRATION COMMITTEE ELECTIONS DECEMBER 2018 CANDIDATES GORILLAWARFARE QUESTIONS

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Questions from 28bytes

Recently an editor placed links to offsite court documents involving an ArbCom candidate on that candidate's question page. Without commenting on this specific case (unless you want to), what factors would you take into consideration when determining whether to allow or suppress similar links in an ArbCom election, or an RFA, or an AN/I report?
I would only allow such documents to be posted if the person posted the documents themselves. Outside of that, they should absolutely be removed. Court documents reveal a lot more information about a person than the average editor is comfortable revealing on-wiki, so even if it can be firmly shown that the editor and the person named in court are the same person, it's still a violation of our policy against outing.
With apologies for the late question (and appreciation that you've already answered a ton of them)... What factors do you think the committee should take into consideration when deciding whether to pursue an allegation that a high-profile editor is actually a reincarnation of a banned (or topic-banned) user? What sort of timeline do you feel would be reasonable for making that decision?
We would need to consider the evidence we were presented with and evaluate if it was sufficiently convincing to pursue the matter further. I think it is also useful to consider the possible motives involved with the person presenting the evidence—while we should not entirely discount people who are expressing concerns with an editor they've conflicted with, we should also avoid people making specious cases against people as a form of harassment. As far as a timeline, I think it would need to be a case-by-case consideration. These are complex issues, and it can take a long time to dig through both the editing history of the banned user and that of an established user. The timeline for when the issue will be resolved is even more vague—sometimes there's enough evidence to be concerning but not enough to firmly connect the two users, in which case we just have to keep an eye on the editor(s) until something more concerning happens.

Question from Peacemaker67

Given the lack of attempts at dispute resolution or dramaboard action that preceded it, what are your thoughts on the decision of ArbCom to take on the German War Effort case this last year?
I've spent the last year more or less ignoring arbitration-related matters, so this answer is really only based on a quick readthrough of the case request just now. I'm a little surprised that the case was accepted given the lack of prior attempts at dispute resolution, but it's also hard to know the full story from the outside (for example, we don't know if there was private evidence or if LargelyRecyclable's prior accounts were relevant at all).

Question from Carrite

I know the answer from you to one of my cut-and-paste questions, I assume you will rightfully be one of the top three vote-getters in this race, so I'm just gonna flip you a different question. What the hell is going on with User:BrillLyle getting banned off by San Francisco? Will you not stand up for her in the face of what seems like an enormous injustice? You may call that a leading question, fine, feel free to rap a bit about the creeping cancer that is WMF's ongoing encroachment into En-WP's self-management with their unilateral, unsupervised, unappealable bans of whomever for whatever and what should be done about it. Can Arbcom stop the trend toward centralized power in San Francisco, where the money lies and the staffers reside?
Happy to answer your cut and paste questions also, if you think it'll be useful to others.

I have as much insight as you do about the WMF's decision to ban BrillLyle. They'd be about as likely to give me more details on it as they would you, or anyone else. Occasionally I've had an idea of why people were SFBanned, either because of my own knowledge of their behaviors or because of concerns that people brought to the ArbCom when I was a member, but the WMF stays pretty tight-lipped about those things—to everyone.

I am strongly of the opinion that there are some things the WMF should handle. For the first year or two I served, we were in charge of fielding all concerns about child protection, which is a sensitive issue that a 19-year-old computer science student and a merry band of other people with little to no experience with social work and the legal field had no business in handling. I, for one, am delighted that they have taken over those tasks.

In the case of BrillLyle, I have no idea what led up to that ban (and to be clear, I am not implying I think it was related to child protection issues—I don't). I know a little bit about her just from what I've seen on Wikipedia and various other discussion sites, but I have no basis on which to form an opinion about if her ban was justified or not. Frankly, the buck stops with the WMF, and as with other software platforms, it is not only their right but their responsibility to do some amount of work to ensure the encyclopedia is a safe place. The community handles the vast majority of it, but I understand why they reserve the right to make the final say on some cases.

You mention that they are "unsupervised", but who would you have supervise them? They are trained in handling these sort of issues, they have law enforcement contacts, they have access to a legal team. Am I, the now 25-year-old software engineer supposed to presume that I should be allowed to review their decisions, which often involve very sensitive information that should be disseminated narrowly? Or some other Wikipedian?

I would rather there was some avenue for appeal with the bans, although my understanding is that they are intended to be used only in situations where someone has done something so egregious that they should never return.

Thanks for the answer. As I see it, those bans were indeed originally "intended to be used only in situations where someone has done something so egregious that they should never return," but are now being put in motion against inconvenient or annoying people. And I hope that as En-WP's elected representatives in charge of site discipline that you and your colleagues on the committee will figure out how to make that trend stop. I presume that WMF is in contact with you about this category of bans, one of the other arbs mentioned as much. I hope you'll pursue the BrillLyle matter, there is something really rotten in that particular case — and there is no appeal process. best, RfB /// Carrite ( talk) 06:31, 14 November 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Carrite: You are saying that the WMF bans "are now being put in motion against inconvenient or annoying people." Can you provide evidence for this claim? I'm not sure this is the best place to discuss at length. Maybe on your talk page or a noticeboard? I have no reason to believe this is true unless I see evidence. -- David Tornheim ( talk) 05:13, 2 December 2018 (UTC) reply

I'm here to ask questions, not answer them. You have not been paying sufficient attention to the list of WMF bans is all I can say — which also holds true for the entire slate of candidates this year, it would seem. Carrite ( talk) 17:09, 2 December 2018 (UTC) reply

That you cannot provide evidence, and Gorilla Warfare (and other candidates responses to your question I looked at) saw no problem, suggests to me this is no more than an unfounded allegation. I haven't reviewed the list of the WMF bans. I don't know where that is, since you have not provided it. I would look to see if there even appeared to be a problem and might even agree with you, but you are not exactly being very helpful, so I see no reason to waste time looking into it. I will trust that WMF is protecting the encyclopedia unless evidence is given to the contrary. -- David Tornheim ( talk) 19:43, 2 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Questions from Rschen7754

Some of the guides from the 2015 election (examples: 1, 2, 3) raised concerns about recusal (or your lack thereof) as well as your having preconceived opinions in cases relating to certain topics (including feminism). Do you believe these concerns are valid? -- Rs chen 7754 02:16, 14 November 2018 (UTC) reply
I assume you're referring to the Gamergate case and not some other recusal/lack thereof, but please correct me if I'm wrong. If I were to do it again, the only thing I'd change would be recusing in the first place. I recused far too quickly without giving it enough thought, and with no explanation—both mistakes. I do have opinions on feminism (and on Gamergate specifically), but I realized that if I were to recuse on cases I had an opinion on I would have had to recuse on Landmark Worldwide, Interactions at GGTF, Media Viewer RfC, American politics, Gun control, and Genetically modified organisms also (and surely some others—this list was based on a quick skim of the archives, so I didn't look closely at the issues discussed in cases named after editors). This approach would have effectively limited me to arbitrating cases that were specifically focused on an editor or group of editors without a strong focus on a specific topic area, or to cases regarding a topic area that I was largely unfamiliar with. If applied by all arbitrators, cases regarding topics where almost everyone has some opinion would have few to no arbitrators to decide them.

I recuse if I have had significant conflict with an editor, if I am friends with an editor, if I am named in the case somehow, or if I doubt my ability to remain neutral on a decision. None of those applied in the Gamergate case. In the end, arbitration is about resolving conflicts between editors and evaluating if they've violated policy. In the Gamergate case I was confident that even if I disagreed with an editor's opinion I could neutrally evaluate their conduct, and in retrospect I still believe I did that.
You had a bit of a... run-in, for lack of better words, with Kudpung (summarized at [1]). While I personally do not believe that he conducted himself well (but that's for another page), reflecting on what happened, is there anything you would have done differently? -- Rs chen 7754 02:16, 14 November 2018 (UTC) reply
I would have rephrased my original comment to him. I said to him "Very minor point, but in the future I'd prefer be referred to by my username when discussed among men." Some people I think (reasonably) interpreted my usage of the word "among" to mean that I did not want men to refer to me by my real name; I had intended to mean that when listed alongside a group of men who in this case were being referred to by their usernames I'd like to be referred to by my username as well. I think it would have saved a lot of confusion, and I try not to be ambiguous where I can. As for the rest of it, I probably wouldn't have done much differently. I don't like being treated that way, and I was shocked when he responded how he did. I don't regret speaking up to say so.

Questions from David Tornheim

I noticed that you did not participate in this RfC asking 'Should the "repetitive usage" of the term "fuck off" by an editor targeted at other editors be considered "sanctionable"?’ Were you aware of this RfC with hundreds of respondents? If so, is there a reason why you did not weigh in?
I was aware of the RfC, yes. I didn't weigh in largely because I think it was a poorly formatted RfC. It was altogether way too specific (is only "fuck off" sanctionable? what about "go the fuck away" or "GTFO"?) and I don't think trying to make blanket, contextless policies saying "fuck off" can be used with impunity or can never be used is useful.
If you had weighed in, what would your answer have been?
I would have opposed. Like I said above, I don't there's value in banning one specific phrase outright like that, especially when context isn't considered. I have certainly said "oh, fuck off" in a joking tone to friends both IRL and online (though not onwiki, to my memory) if they're messing with me or being intentionally difficult in a pleasant argument. I certainly wouldn't sanction anyone for that kind of usage. I also distinctly remember using "fuck off" as an edit summary on Commons (can't diff because the edit I was reverting has been suppressed, but Jan 7, 2017 at [2]). In that context, I was on the receiving end of some extremely graphic sexual and possibly violent comments by a troll who had been harassing me for quite some time crosswiki. I wouldn't sanction someone for that either—sometimes people get frustrated in circumstances like that, and it's important to consider.
Is it okay to say 'fuck off' in anger to other editors?
Generally, no. I think that on Wikipedia people should treat each other with respect as much as possible—we're trying to build an encyclopedia, and so I try to communicate in a more professional way than I would, say, in an argument on social media. But I will clarify here that "not okay" and "sanctionable" are two very different things, and that each case should be considered in context.
Is it okay to say 'fuck off’ to another editor in a dispute over content or when one believes the other editor to be breaking Wikipedia rules?
See my answer above—it's the same for here.
What is your opinion about use of ad hominems?
I don't think they're useful. Tempting sometimes, for sure, but when striving to achieve a productive outcome from a discussion, not helpful.
Is it acceptable to use pejorative labels of other editors such as climate-change-denier, anti-vaxxer, flat-earther, etc., (especially without diffs) to discredit them in a dispute that has nothing to do with the topic under consideration?
Hm, well first of all, are those labels are pejorative? They seem to be descriptions of a person's beliefs, the same way I am a climate-change-believer, pro-vaxxer, and spherical-earther but consider none of those descriptors pejorative. Your examples are certainly examples of fringe beliefs, but again, I don't see them as inherently insulting when the person truly believes those things. Regardless, I'm not sure they would be particularly useful in conversations not relating to climate change, vaccines, and the shape of the planet... although I suppose perhaps if someone was pushing fringe beliefs in a separate topic area it might be useful to note they've done so elsewhere.

I guess if the person had never exhibited those kinds of beliefs before I'd frown upon them being referred to as such, since it's both inaccurate and in some cases insulting to be said to believe something you don't. I for one wouldn't take kindly to being called any of those things, since I am none of them.
According to our article, Encyclopædia Britannica has a "critical reputation for general excellence". (See reputation). If so, can you explain why Britannica's article on acupuncture bears almost no resemblance to our article on acupuncture? Britannica suggests that it is useful alleviating pain. Our article casts a negative cloud, describing it as a pseudoscience, leaving the impression there is little reason to believe it is effective for treating even pain.
For the same reason Wikipedia articles look very different even from the sources they cite. Wikipedia compiles articles from tens or hundreds of sources (in the case of acupuncture, nearly 300). I was a little surprised to read the Encyclopedia Britannica article, actually—it presents things as fact that have been widely challenged (for example, "An imbalance of yin and yang results in an obstruction of the life force, or qi, in the body. Qi flows through 12 meridians, or pathways, in the body, each in turn associated with a major visceral organ (liver, kidney, etc.) and with a functional body system. Acupuncture is designed to affect the distribution of yin and yang in these channels so that the qi will be enabled to flow freely and harmoniously.") Acupuncture has been largely discredited as a pseudoscience, and that is properly reflected in the Wikipedia article.
The U.S. National Institute of Health explains Complementary, Alternative, and Integrative Health here. Is it appropriate for our articles to describe these treatments in WP:Wikivoice as pseudoscience? Is it appropriate to use Stephen Barrett's work and publication in Quackwatch as a primary source to discredit such treatments rather than publication in highly respected peer-reviewed medical journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine?
It can be—per WP:UNDUE, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." If there are significant and reliable sources that describe the treatments as pseudoscience, we should not discount them based solely on the U.S. National Institute of Health's statements. As for Quackwatch, I'm not sure why you're describing it as a primary source, and my understanding is that it is widely respected as a reliable source itself.
Consider a controversial topic where two polarized groups of editors have strongly differing opinions on content, and one group regularly takes members of the other group to WP:AN/I to have them topic banned or indefinitely blocked—-not because of behavior that actually violates policy—-but primarily because the accusing group prefers not to deal with the " disruption" of editors who disagree with them on content. If members of the accusing group have sufficient control and influence at AN/I (from AN/I regulars, including both commentators and sympathetic admins), then that group can systematically eliminate all editors of the opposing group who disagree with them.
Do you believe this is going on? If so, does it serve our core policy of WP:NPOV that only editors from one side of a controversy are permitted to edit the topic? If it is going on, and the dispute comes to ArbCom, how would you handle it—-especially if ArbCom does not address content?
I would like to think that people who weigh in on AN/I decisions would not support sanctioning an editor who's done nothing wrong. To some extent there is bias in decisions made there—sympathy for one party or another based on past interactions contributing to willingness to either downplay or inflate the gravity of actions by the party against whom sanctions are being requested. This is almost inevitable, given human nature. But the fallibility of ANI is precisely why we have processes in place for those sanctions to be reviewed and, if necessary, overturned.

The ideal scenario as far as NPOV is involved is to have people with all sorts of opinions on a topic actively edit it, following policy and actively discussing changes.

I'll address the comment about ArbCom not addressing content in more detail below, but the ArbCom can absolutely handle a situation like this. They do not need to dictate the content of an article in order to stop behavioral issues, such as editors using AN/I to drive people away from editing an article or editors/admins levying sanctions at AN/I when there has been no breach of policy. ArbCom can also overturn inappropriate sanctions if necessary.
It is often asserted that ArbCom cannot rule on content. I assume that means it will not decide specifically what should be in an article. But what if part of a dispute has to do with allegations that an editor(s) is lying about content in a source(s), using contradictory or double-standards as to what qualifies as WP:RS in the topic area, preferring inferior sources over superior sources, preferring outdated sources to current sources, dismissing high quality sources that articulate views the editor(s) does not want in the article, and other behavior that create bias in an article in violation of WP:NPOV. Do you believe ArbCom could handle such an issue? How about this case? Would you as an Arb be willing to look at a source’s content to verify whether an editor was or was not lying or misrepresenting the source's content? In sum, would you be willing to see if there are some serious sourcing issues?
You're correct that that means ArbCom cannot decide the content of an article. But ArbCom absolutely can address (and has addressed) issues like POV-pushing and misrepresentation or misuse of sources. These are some of the most difficult cases, for sure, because it involves digging through large quantities of source material (often on topics with which we are not particularly familiar) and it can be extremely difficult if the topic is particularly academic. I myself have struggled with it particularly on issues relating to religion: I am neither religious nor particularly knowledgeable about religion, and so jumping into dense source material when I don't even have a 101-level understanding is challenging. That's why we rely so heavily on people outside the ArbCom for evidence in these cases—both the involved parties, who are typically quite knowledgeable, and from people who are not active in editing the article but are more capable at sifting through the source material.

Yes, I absolutely would look at a source's content to determine if an editor was misrepresenting it. I have looked to see if there are serious sourcing issues in past ArbCom cases, and I will do again if need be.
Above you speak of "quite knowledgeable" editors who provide evidence. What kind of evidence? Do you mean diffs of editor behavior and reliable sources? Or do you mean their "expert judgment" of whether an editor’s behavior is biased? Are judgments at ArbCom being made, in part, based on trusting the veracity of self-proclaimed expert editors who assert they are better qualified to judge biased editing than non-experts? The key to this question is whether you are saving time by trusting their assessment of the diffs and source material rather than doing the more time consuming work of carefully evaluating all the evidence presented in a case and judging for yourselves. My concern is that anonymous editors cannot prove their expertise, and experts have biases too.
I meant these knowledgeable editors would provide analysis (with diffs of edits and links to the sources used) of whether a person's edits were accurately representing the source material, and probably give more context about how the information fits in to the overall scholarship. One of the hardest things for me is evaluating WP:UNDUE when it comes to subjects I'm not familiar with, as that evaluation requires some amount of knowledge of the general body of research on the topic. I certainly didn't mean we would take a knowledgeable editor at face value saying "Person X is biased because I'm an expert and I think so", but rather we would ask for their help in examining the sources and corresponding edits. I would not pass a sanction saying that someone was misusing or misrepresenting sources without examining the edits and the source material myself.

As for your question about saving time, getting input from knowledgeable editors is not really a matter of timesaving (unless you suggest that all of the ArbCom take the requisite time to become reasonably familiar with a topic, which I imagine could take months and months). We simply have to accept that the members of the Arbitration Committee cannot all be knowledgeable on all topic areas that come to us, and ArbCom members should be willing and humble enough to accept help from folks who are knowledgeable in a given topic area. Otherwise the ArbCom is blindly deciding cases with no context.

Question from Boing! said Zebedee

Do you actually ride a unicycle? Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 08:02, 14 November 2018 (UTC) reply
I haven't tried in years, but I did when I was a lot younger (and when I created that account)! My family's got photos somewhere, but (un?)fortunately I don't have any digital copies to show. I actually had a mountain unicycle (yes, it's a thing) although I only spent a small amount of my time on it going through the woods. Made for an acceptable commute to work when I was 14 or so and going from my Dad's workplace to the vet's office, although a bicycle probably would have been more practical...

Oh, you have to get one of those photos scanned! I'm quite in awe of this guy myself. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 08:20, 14 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Maybe when I go home for the holidays I can try to dig one up :) GorillaWarfare (talk) 08:28, 14 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Questions from Collect

Does opening a case imply that "sanctions must be applied"?
This is a good question. I answered in 2015 ( Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/GorillaWarfare/Questions#Questions from Collect) and my opinion hasn't changed. It's unusual, but it's happened, and I think it's completely acceptable for it to happen. The whole point of a case is to determine what's happened and how best to move forward with resolving the issue, and sometimes the best way to move forward does not involve sanctions.
If an arbitrator is not disinterested in an editor (such as openly and strongly criticizing an editor's edits on the editor's talk page) has the arbitrator ceased to be impartial with regard to such edits?
It depends on the circumstances. I think it's possible to strongly criticize an edit or series of edits without becoming INVOLVED—I think most of us have made dumb edits in the past, and I wouldn't characterize an arbitrator strongly criticizing such edits once as INVOLVED. I also think it's possible to move past grudges, so if the incident was long in the past but the editors are amicable, I wouldn't be concerned. But if an arbitrator has repeatedly clashed with an editor, or if the one incident was not as cut-and-dried as my example and became more personal, I would expect them to recuse.
Is it ever proper to allow an "accused" an extremely short period of time to respond to accusations made when the editor was actually far from home for an extended period, such as offering under three days to respond to several thousand words of "new accusations"? Ought the "clock be stopped" in order to allow fully reasoned responses to such "new accusations" and "new evidence"? And where an arbitrator provides their own evidence in a "proposed decision," ought the accused be permitted to actually reply to such "new evidence"?
This is specific enough that I suspect you're discussing a particular case, so I'm happy to discuss more specifically if you like. But speaking generally, no. In situations where the the case is largely centered around one person, it's fairly straightforward—we pause the case and ask the editor not to make any significant edits (and if it's an admin tools case, not to use their tools) until they're available to participate. It's a little more complicated if there are multiple editors involved, since the dispute can continue with the active editors even while the absent editor is unavailable. I'd love to hear suggestions for how to handle those kinds of situations, because it's not fair for someone to be sanctioned without having the opportunity to respond, nor is it fair to allow bad situations to continue while one party is away. Splitting the case could perhaps work, although it's not ideal. As for your last question, yes, all participants in a case should be allowed a reasonable amount of time to respond to evidence, be it from arbitrators or from people participating in the evidence phase. This is something we've historically been bad at (myself included) and am planning to be very conscious of.

Questions from Oshwah

Other than having the adequate technical skills and knowledge required, and having the level of experience consistent with being granted the role(s), what other specific areas, aspects, skills, and/or traits would you look for and personally want to see in a candidate who is applying to be appointed as a CheckUser or Oversighter? What specific areas (outside of knowledge and skill, experience) in an otherwise-good candidate would cause you to halt, make a complete about-face, and oppose their candidacy for Checkuser or Oversighter if you were to see or find it?
It all boils down to judgment and communication. Oversight and checkuser policies are somewhat vague, and the role is not suited to those who are unwilling or unable to judge when the tools should be used without explicit guidance in policy. For example, we often suppress edits where minors add identifying information about themselves, but someone saying "I'm 17 and I live in the US" is a very different situation than someone saying "I'm 12 and my street address is ____". The same is true for checkuser—someone could be operating two accounts in compliance with the WP:SOCKLEGIT policy, but forget to log out and accidentally edit the same page once, and there's no use in checkusers dropping the hammer on them for an innocent mistake. We also need checkusers who I can trust to know when not to check a user—with oversight, it's easy enough to unsuppress a revision, but there is no way to "un-check" a user.

As for communication, we need people on the oversight team who can communicate with non-Wikipedians who are often upset and dealing with poor circumstances. We need people on the checkuser team who can communicate with administrators and other members of the non-CU community in such a way where they convey the necessary information without compromising the privacy of the user who was checked.

As for what would make me do an about face, things like egregious misuse of administrator tools, recent incidents demonstrating extremely poor judgment, posting suppressible content themselves, or going against the sock policy would make all make me do an "about face" when considering an otherwise promising candidate. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:29, 14 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Question from Feminist

How can Wikipedia better communicate its processes to outsiders?
Do you mean ArbCom processes? The average reader of the encyclopedia, and for that matter the average editor, has no interest or need to interact with the ArbCom, so I'm not sure if trying to explain it to outsiders who don't particularly need to know about it is useful. If people do find themselves at one of the ArbCom pages wondering what it's about, we do have some explanatory pages like Wikipedia:Arbitration and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration, although like many of these sorts of pages they're pretty verbose. We could perhaps publish a trimmed FAQ page, although I'm not convinced there's a need.

If you're speaking more generally about Wikipedia processes, that's a whole other can of worms. There are so many processes on Wikipedia that I don't even know all of them, and I've been around and active for years. I think it's okay that most people know just know it's an encyclopedia anyone can edit—they tend to pick up the rest as needed if they join the project. Perhaps the one thing I would want to improve is messaging about how we ensure quality. Our systems aren't perfect, but I think a lot of people think Wikipedia is more of the wild west than it really is. For example, when I'm doing anti-vandalism I regularly run across edits where people will add to a page something like "DON'T TRUST WIKIPEDIA, ANYONE CAN EDIT IT JUST LIKE I AM RIGHT NOW!"—I think some people really think those kinds of edits will stay on prominent pages for a long time.

Thank you. feminist ( talk) 03:05, 16 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Questions from Alex Shih

Do you agree with Courcelles's answer to my question here ( [3]), in particular the part about the level of conduct on the mailing list "should be held in an atmosphere or respect for each other, the matter under discussion, and respect for non-subscribers who are mentioned". If yes, what will you do, if re-elected, to ensure this expected level of conduct continues to be maintained on the mailing list?
Yes, I do. I try to consider what I post to the list as if the person I'm writing about might see it one day, which is always a possibility—either if the list were to leak, or if that person were to join the ArbCom and get access to the list archives. That doesn't mean I will speak glowingly about everyone who comes up—obviously the list is there to discuss conduct concerns and other serious issues, so conversations might be negative—but it's not the place to disrespect people.
This is a quick question relating to the first question. The mailing list can be and has been a source of friction over the years. How do you differentiate between sharp disagreements and acts of intimidation from other committee members, and do you have any hypothetical examples?
I have actually not found there to be a ton of friction on the mailing list. We certainly disagree, sometimes forcefully, but I don't think I've ever experienced something I would describe as an "act of intimidation". If I did, I would say something about it, and I would hope that other committee members would as well. That kind of behavior is not acceptable. As for how to differentiate, I think it's fairly straightforward to determine the difference between "You're wrong for reasons x, y, and z" and "If you vote in some way, there will be consequences for you."
As a member of the committee, is it ever acceptable to deceive the community for the purpose of presenting the committee in a better light?
Deceive? That's not acceptable regardless of the purpose. There are inevitably privacy-related issues where we can't tell the community everything, but in those cases we should just say so and leave it at that.
What is your stance on longtime editors/administrators that breaks rules without justifiable cause? What do you think about double standards and inconsistency in the application of policies when it comes to editors of different standings? Have you or will you promote handling these instances without personal bias as a member of the committee if re-elected?
I don't think anyone should break the rules without justifiable cause, although the existence of IAR and varying interpretations of "justifiable cause" make this less than straightforward. I do think that people should be treated fairly similarly regardless of their standing on the project—generally it's actually the newer editors who I prefer to cut slack toward, since there are a lot of rules and it's not uncommon for new editors to break a rule they didn't know existed. For editors who have been around for a while, "I didn't know that was a rule" is less likely (although not impossible—there are really a lot of rules...)

I think what you're asking is: should people who have standing in the community, are highly valued for their work on the project, etc. be given more leeway in bending or breaking the rules than others? I don't think they should. I work in software, where I've heard a fair number of conversations about the " brilliant jerk"—the person who's an exceptional engineer, but terrible to their coworkers and impossible to collaborate with. I tend towards the belief that it's not worth the cost to the organization to allow these people to behave this way, because the rest of the organization suffers more than the company benefits from the brilliant jerk's engineering work. I think the same is true for Wikipedia—allowing people who are really exceptional at some part of what they do on Wikipedia bend or break the rules is not worth the cost to the rest of the community.

Questions from Cinderella157

Arb policy makes a requirement for transparency and Arb cases make an explicit statement of intent to reach a "fair" decision.
1. What are, in your opinion, the "principles and spirit" (per WP:5P5) that underpin the policy and statement?
2. The policy in particular, requires "detailed rationales for decisions related to cases". Please comment on this duty as it might apply to you (say, as a drafting arbitrator) and the committee as a whole, in respect to how this duty is discharged (noting the underlying principles), particularly where the evidence presented might be in conflict.
3. Do you consider that this duty has been complied with and what might you do to improve compliance?
1. If I could only pick out of the five pillars, I suppose I would say the fourth pillar, since it is the one about treating other Wikipedians with respect, and about resolving disputes productively. But generally speaking I think not every policy can be tied directly to the five pillars—the five pillars are the broadest goals Wikipedia strives for, and we have introduced more specific policies because they're useful to keep things running smoothly and making sure that people are treating fairly.

2. As a drafting arbitrator, it is important to make sure every finding of fact in the case is clearly tied to the evidence (where possible, and where not possible it should be made clear that it was based off of private evidence), and that every remedy is clearly based on a finding of fact. Findings of fact without evidence and remedies without findings of fact (and thus without evidence) are unacceptable. Inevitably evidence is going to contradict other evidence, and at that point it's important for the arbitrators to weigh the evidence carefully, be as transparent as possible as to why the final decision was made, and answer questions about it.

3. I have not really followed the arbitration decisions this year, but I would say during my time we did an okay job of it. There were times where we did not give people sufficient opportunity to respond to evidence, and there were times where doing so would have been extremely difficult. That is one of the harder issues the ArbCom has to deal with—particularly in harassment cases, it can be difficult to allow an accused party to respond to allegations without it being very clear to them who those allegations are coming from (and sometimes opening them up to further harassment). To ensure better compliance, we need to be cognizant of giving people a chance to respond to new evidence—either private evidence or diffs the arbitrators find and want to use in the case. We should also discuss and figure out how to balance sharing private evidence with the accused and protecting a potential victim.
There is something of a theme in questions regarding civility (and personal attacks). My question pertains to the conduct of cases (starting at the request phase) and not to cases about civility and personal attacks. I note that an ArbCom case is a place to address grievances and it is appropriate to make reasonable allegations in "good faith" supported by links. WP:IDENTIFYUNCIVIL is relevant.
1. What actions would you take if you became aware of an editor making statements in a case that contained derogatory gender-related comments by way of commentary?
2. What actions would you take if you became aware of an editor making statements/submissions (such as evidence) in a case that were a significant misrepresentation of context? While this is uncivil, in such a context, I believe that it might rise to the level of a personal attack by virtue of the potential consequences if the statement/submission is taken at face value.
3. While Arbs are not infallible, the community endowers Arbs with significant power and trust, and with virtually no recourse. What would be your expectations and your actions where an Arb has made an uncivil comment (rising to the level of a personal attack) openly in the course of a case?
1. I would remove the remarks and warn the user. If the remarks continued, I would discuss with my fellow arbitrators and/or the clerks about banning them from the case, and possibly pursuing stronger sanctions like a block.

2. If it was an egregious misrepresentation, I would ask them to either rephrase or remove the allegations. If it was in clear bad faith and it continued, I might consider warnings/sanctions. Otherwise, typically other editors present evidence to refute such misrepresentations, and we ignore the poor evidence when drafting the case.

3. My expectation would be that they not make an uncivil comment, of course, but if they had I would expect them at least to remove it. Depending on who it was directed at and the context, I might also ask them to recuse from the case. If it was really something terrible, some sort of civility sanction could be pursued, but I'm not sure I've seen that happen.
In my assessment of Civil POV pushing: this behaviour is not readily apparent to those not affected; it requires a "body" of evidence over an extended period to establish a case; and, ArbCom has a poor record in dealing with it – perhaps, because of the dealing with the amount of evidence to sift through or because restrictions on the size of submissions. Please comment, with any insights or solutions you might offer. Regards, Cinderella157 ( talk)
I think we're aware that civil POV pushing is a really tough nut to crack. In these cases, we should grant extensions quite freely—you're right that often the length of the dispute can make the standard length restrictions unreasonable. I think with these cases especially, we need to encourage as many arbitrators as possible to sift through evidence and participate in drafting the case—particularly the arbitrators who have dealt with these issues before and are experienced drafting these kinds of cases.

Questions from Guerillero

Thank you for running for the hardest and most thankless job on the project. I am rehashing most of my 2015 questions because I don't think that these issues have been resolved over the past three years. Enjoy!

Current Disputes and Cases

What are your standards for banning someone from the project compared to a topic ban or some lesser sanction?
Copied from 2015, because my answer has not changed: If someone is very disruptive in a specific topic area, but participates successfully elsewhere, that's a good sign that a topic ban might be effective. If someone is disruptive in many or all of their interactions, there is often not a topic ban that would suffice. If someone has already been topic banned but is continuing to disrupt elsewhere, that's a good sign that a site ban should be considered. And of course, there are some cases where a site ban is necessary and a topic ban should not be considered: for example, egregious violations of the WP:HARASSMENT policy.
Nearly every case involves violations of the civility policy in some way, shape, or form. At one time, a remedy called a "Civility Parole" existed but it fell out of vogue. Today, the only tools in the current Arbitrator's toolboxes to deal with civility issues are interaction bans, topic bans, and site bans. What new and creative ways would you bring to the table to solve this problem?
I think our "new and creative" solutions in the past have caused more problems than they've solved, and are often an attempt to retain an editor who does good work but is toxic to the community. Per my answer to Alex Shih's question #4, I don't think we should be bending over backwards again and again to accommodate editors who aren't willing to put in the effort to work productively and civilly within the community.
Do you believe that the Super Mario Problem exists? How would you fix it?
To some extent, I think it does, and I think it's important we consider how we would treat the issue if the person involved were not an administrator (or what have you). Sometimes it does make sense to just desysop someone without pursuing further sanctions—for example when someone has misused their administrator tools, sometimes just desysopping is plenty to prevent it happening again. But in cases where someone is breaking core policies, we should be cognizant of the Super Mario Problem when considering sanctions.
Do you see value in Admonishments and Warnings as remedies at the end of a case?
They can be useful as a record of past misconduct if an editor returns to ArbCom another time. Generally speaking, though, they're not helpful beyond that. Most people who are admonished or warned were aware to some extent their behavior was unacceptable (or at least concerning to some), and they certainly became aware when they ended up at ArbCom for it and were featured in the evidence phase, so I'm not sure telling them that again serves a particularly useful purpose as far as correcting behavior.

Insider Baseball

Does the workshop serve as a useful portion of a case?
It depends how (or if) it's used. Towards the end of my tenure on the ArbCom I found myself really liking when arbitrators presented the various remedies they were considering for the PD for discussion at the workshop case. It's a lot easier to make edits based on feedback before posting the PD, because once the PD is posted, people start voting, and so any edits require re-votes. The problem is that a lot of arbitrators who are not drafting the case don't pay much attention to the workshop, they just wait for the PD to be published and then suggest changes. I'd like if this changed.

Question from Liz

Hello, Molly. As you have previously served or are currently serving on the Arbitration Committee, will you state what you believe is biggest misconception most editors have about how ARBCOM works? What do you think editors SHOULD know about the operation of ARBCOM and how arbitrators collaborate that we probably don't realize? Any aspect of ARBCOM's operation that you would change if you could? Thanks and good luck! Liz ^{Read!
Talk!} 23:27, 15 November 2018 (UTC) reply
I think a lot of people overestimate how many people are involved in the drafting phase of an arbitration case. Often only the folks who are listed as drafting arbitrators are actually active in the evidence and workshop phases, with the rest of the Committee reading the PD more or less for the first time when it's published. Sometimes not even all the drafting arbitrators are very involved. I don't particularly like this, and would love to see more arbitrators participate in the earlier stages of the case, so count that as what I would change if I could.

As for the operation of ArbCom, it is... haphazard. There is a lot of email coming through the list (largely to do with ban appeals), and things slip through the cracks. Email is a pretty poor system to track open issues, because once an email thread is marked as read or archived or moved to a folder, it's out of sight and out of mind. I used to try to maintain lists of open issues on the Arbwiki, but keeping it up-to-date is a huge amount of work and a lot of arbitrators didn't log on to the Arbwiki much. I always wished the ArbCom had some sort of CRM or ticketing system to track open issues. I assumed that wasn't likely, given that we were using GNU Mailman for so long and I didn't expect that ever to change, but I understand the ArbCom is now using Google Groups, so I suppose I was wrong. I'll be curious to see if that's easier to keep track of—we'll see.

I think another thing people would be surprised by is that the ArbCom mailing list and wiki are pretty boring. It's a lot of arbitrators trying to get other arbitrators to vote on a PD, fairly standard block discussions that aren't much different than you'd see on-wiki, people bumping various threads that had been lost, emails to functionaries letting them know their activity levels are under the threshold, and that kind of thing. Not as much juicy gossip as I think some people believe, and it's not full of stroking of beards and malevolent hand-rubbing as some seem to think.

I'm surprised that ArbCom is using Google Groups. Have WMF Legal reviewed this to ensure that it complies with the commitments made with respect to the privacy and permitted uses of the information ArbCom handles? Sorry, not really a question for GorillaWarfare, though comments from anyone are welcome. HLHJ ( talk) 02:13, 2 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Probably a better question for WT:ACN since I'm not really sure. The Wikimedia Foundation controlled the previous ArbCom mailman setup, and would have had to be involved in setting up an @wikimedia.org email address, but whether the legal team specifically was involved I don't know. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:41, 2 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Question from Atsme

Do you have the time and patience necessary to devote to this highly taxing responsibility, and by that I mean not judging an editor based on preconceived notions without careful examination of the case or simply agreeing with aspersions cast by opposing editors you may know and trust without personally investigating the diffs in the context the challenged editor intended, or waiting until other arbs have posted their conclusions and simply agreeing in an effort to avoid making waves? My primary concern is that some arbs are accepting the position when it’s quite obvious they neither have the time nor the patience required to actually read the diffs provided as evidence to make sure they were presented in the context originally intended by the challenged editor.
I have the advantage of having been on the Committee before, so I'm aware of the amount of work that goes into not only being an arbitrator, but being a good arbitrator. As I've said in some questions above, I would be thrilled if more arbitrators were more active in the evidence, workshops, and drafting of cases, not just the drafting arbitrators, and I'm willing to put in the effort to do that. I have never been a rubber-stamp arbitrator, who just agreed with conclusions without examining them myself—if I don't have the time during some period of time to thoroughly review evidence, I'll go inactive (as I have done in the past). So yes, I do have the time to devote to being a thorough arbitrator. We all go through periods where we are very busy with work, or have to travel, or have issues in our personal life that take up much of our time, and I will always go inactive during those periods rather than do a poor job on a case.
Are you willing to recuse yourself from an arb case involving an editor (either filer or filed against) with whom you have adamantly opposed in a prior argument or whose ideology you view unfavorably?
As I've said on Rschen7754's question above, "I recuse if I have had significant conflict with an editor, if I am friends with an editor, if I am named in the case somehow, or if I doubt my ability to remain neutral on a decision." I don't want to make a blanket statement here, because I do believe it is possible for me to adamantly disagree with someone while not holding that against the editor—usually on fairly dispassionate issues like "should the title of this article be this or this". But if it escalates to the point where I feel animosity against the editor or otherwise feel I can't be impartial, then certainly. And I give thought to the optics, as well.

As for the ideology question, generally no, I wouldn't recuse based on that. I don't have to agree with someone's ideology to rule in their favor on an ArbCom case (or vice versa).

Thank you for your prompt and thoughtful reply, GW. ^{Atsme
✍🏻
📧} 00:59, 16 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Question from Beyond My Ken

Lots o' people seem to think this election is about civility, for some reason. ArbCom deals with the behavior of editors, of course, so civility will often play a part in the cases that are requested, and in those that are accepted and adjudicated, but damaging the integrity of the encyclopedia is also a behavioral issue, and it's one that has the potential for sinking Wikipedia by destroying the public's faith in the information we provide. Fortunately, much of the NPOV, racist, sexist, ethnic-biased and nationalistic edits and editors get caught by editors and admins, and those instances never reach the Committee, but I'm concerned that our current apparent fixation on civility might be distracting us from the more serious problem of NPOV editing. ArbCom has done a great deal -- with Discretionary Sanctions -- in trying to control this, but I wonder if there isn't more that can be done. Do you have any thoughts about how the Committee can assist the community -- both editors and admins -- to protect the integrity of our product?
I suspect the focus on civility is just because the ArbCom has historically had a tough time dealing with civility issues, and some of the current arb candidates are running on "civility platforms". We historically have a hard time dealing with NPOV cases too—partly because it's hard to keep them from becoming a content dispute, and also partly because sometimes the conflict occurs on issues we're not personally familiar with. Some questions were asked on this page about a recent case about the German war effort, and evaluating NPOV issues on something like that would take me far more time and effort than, say, a fairly straightforward admin tools case. I think our admins do a pretty great job of handling a lot of the NPOV issues, as you've said, and I agree DS has been useful (albeit unfortunately complex). Unfortunately I don't have any bright ideas on what more we can do to assist the community at the current moment, but I'd certainly love to hear any that others might have.
I somewhat disagree with you about the "brilliant jerk." I work in show business, and it's not at all uncommon for people to continue to want to work with "creatives" who have extremely difficult personalities, because while the experience may at times be onerous or unpleasant, the end result is something one can be proud to have been associated with. Because of this, I tend to think that Wikipedia is somewhat of a meritocracy, and that editors who contribute a great deal to the encyclopedia really should have a little more leeway if they end up in trouble -- up to the point where the results no longer justify the hassle and the editor becomes a net negative. That, of course, is a judgment call, and it's to make those kinds of judgments that we pay arbitrators the big bucks. Do you think, given your statement above, that there's room in your Wikipedia world-view for this interpretation of the "rules of the game"?
Every situation must be dealt with considering context, which I hope I've made clear in my answers on this page. It's alright to give people second chances—I'm not saying a brilliant content creator should be banned on sight if they overreact to something and leave an uncivil comment, nor should anyone who otherwise seems to be here to improve the encyclopedia. But I also don't think they should be given more leeway for an ongoing pattern of behavior that is not changing. There may be more room in show business for genius; I'm not sure there is on Wikipedia. That isn't to say that writing a fantastic Wikipedia article isn't quite a skill to have—it is—but I'm not sure we need an encyclopedia article visionary that we must coddle at the expense of the rest of the community.

Question from Amanda

If there was a block appeal to ArbCom by email for an indefinitely blocked user for spamming or BLP violations, and you were the one to reply to the user, how would you handle it? Would you discuss the block on the list first?
If it were regarding spamming or BLP violations that didn't result in suppression, I would refer the user to appeal on their talk page (or via UTRS if their talk page access was revoked). There's no reason the ArbCom should privately handle block appeals that can be handled by the rest of the admin community. If the BLP violations did result in suppression, then the appeal might fall within our remit as an oversight block. In that case I would speak with the rest of the Committee or hand it off to the oversight team before unilaterally handling the appeal, unless it was an obvious decline such as a user submitting the same appeal that had been declined a week before.
Can you provide one diff of a well reasoned argument where you disagreed with the majority and took an unpopular view? The more recent, the more unpopular, the better.
I like to think that I typically disagree with the poorly-reasoned arguments :) But yes, I was asked above to respond to the recent "fuck off" RfC, and my opinion is certainly in disagreement with a lot of the views there, many of which were well-reasoned. That's certainly the most recent.
Are you going to read each and every ArbCom email that comes across your desk?
I was a mailing list mod when I was on the ArbCom, and I certainly didn't read all of the spam emails sent to the list before rejecting them—it's pretty easy to tell it's a spam email when the subject line is about walk-in bathtubs or tactical flashlights (seriously, so many emails about those two things). But ignoring the moderation part of things, the only emails I didn't read while I was on the Committee for four years were emails regarding cases on which I was recused (when only one or two arbs is recused we typically don't use one of the extra lists, but I still avoided reading the emails) and I probably would archive a chunk of emails if I was inactive for a bit (a rare occurrence) and didn't have the capacity to catch up on 100+ emails, many of which had been resolved. Other than that, yeah, I think I read (or at least skimmed) every single email that came through. I'm fortunate enough to be a quick reader.
Admin socking is a rare area ArbCom has the remit to deal with. If your brought a case of admin socking, are you willing to go through the investigatory process and potentially vote to desysop an admin? Especially if your met with silence (or a lack of a defense) from the admin?
Yes, I am. I would of course prefer they respond to the allegations, but I certainly can't force them to respond—although I would be concerned about that choice given WP:ADMINACCT.
How familiar are you with the privacy policy and access to non-public data policy? What is one part you find interesting about one of them and why?
I'm familiar with both. The most interesting, or perhaps surprising, part of them is the change to the Access to nonpublic personal data policy made ten days ago that adjusted the Use and disclosure of nonpublic information section saying that if I am "required by law to disclose to law enforcement, administrative bodies, or other governmental agencies" I must disclose to the Wikimedia Foundation 10 days prior before giving up this information—previously I was required to disclose to the WMF within the ten days after such disclosure to law enforcement. I have not exactly had a ton of run-ins with the law (okay, any run-ins... except that one time I was stopped when I was driving because I didn't know my tail light was out), but if I tell a LEO to wait 10 days before I answer their question, will that go over well? Similarly, the change now says that if I disclose information to law enforcement about "cases where there is an immediate and credible threat of serious bodily harm" I must disclose this immediately to the Wikimedia Foundation. If I am shaken by the experience and it takes me a day or two to remember this part of my obligations, will I lose my OS/CU/Arb rights? Or will the WMF "pursue available legal remedies" (per the agreement)?.

Thank you in advance for your answers to my long set of questions. I ask these questions based on my experience as an Arbitrator. The answers may not be as clear cut as you think. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 05:13, 16 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Question by K.e.coffman

With the rise of far-right and hate groups online, are you concerned that editors espousing such beliefs may try (or are already attempting) to use Wikipedia as a vehicle for propaganda? Why or why not? If yes, what role do you think ArbCom could play in counteracting their influence on Wikipedia? K.e.coffman ( talk) 00:31, 17 November 2018 (UTC) reply
Yes, very concerned. Wikipedia is one of the most heavily visited websites on the internet, and a place that many people trust to have the facts on a topic. We see POV-pushing all over Wikipedia from lots of ideologies, and I have no doubt that folks on the far-right and hate groups are actively trying to twist various articles to meet their worldview. I've experienced it some myself while writing the incel article. Incels are "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem" according to the SPLC, which has classified that ecosystem as a hate group, and various people have blamed incel communities for radicalizing men. There have been multiple editors who have tried to twist the article away from presenting the facts that incel communities are home to violent and misogynistic men, trying both to portray "involuntary celibacy" as some sort of psychological condition where the only victims are those men, and to direct readers to their communities. It's alarming to watch.

All that said, I suspect it is not the Arbitration Committee that will make a major difference with this issue. As is often the case, editors (particularly administrators) are at the frontlines when it comes to POV-pushing on Wikipedia. The ArbCom only really gets involved if the NPOV disputes are so drawn out or severe that the community is struggling to handle them. I think the only other thing for the ArbCom to do would be to authorize discretionary sanctions, but the authorization for "all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people, broadly construed" from the American politics 2 case tends to cover most of it.

Questions from User:Smallbones

Could you discuss your general philosophy toward enforcing our rules on undisclosed paid editing? Another candidate has said that our rules on UPE are weak, but the terms of use are quite specific: UPE is prohibited. What level of "proof" is required before you'd ban somebody for paid editing? Do admins need to follow these rules, or should they be held to a higher standard?
Hi Smallbones! I think we've discussed paid editing when we've spoken face to face, so I suspect my answers here won't come as a surprise. As far as my feelings towards paid editing, a lot of them are covered in the Response to the Wikimedia Foundation statement on paid editing and outing I helped to draft in 2017. I have grave concerns about the balance of protecting privacy and pursuing paid editing investigations, especially those conducted on-wiki.

In honesty, I don't personally participate much in UPE investigations. I'm not great at sniffing out paid editors (particularly compared to some on this project) and my checkuser skills are middling at best. I don't think I can really speak to a level of proof just out of inexperience. As for "Do admins need to follow these rules," I'm not sure if you are asking if they need to adhere to my standards of proof or if you mean they must follow the paid editing guidelines. If the former, well, I don't really have a standard of proof so I can't really speak to that. As for the latter, they definitely need to follow the paid editing guidelines. They also need to not use their admin tools in any way relating to the articles they're editing for pay. I imagine it would be very difficult to be an administrator and also an above-board paid editor; there is so much room for accusations of misconduct even if the administrator is doing their best to follow the rules.
This summer I sent a private complaint to arbcom about an administrator who had very obviously inserted material from one of his employer's press releases into the article about the company without making a COI or Paid Editing disclosure. The arbcom ruling was that the admin was not paid editor, but had a conflict of interest. He was not required to declare the COI. I was not informed about how the proceedings were being conducted, or who actually voted on the decision, or why the admin was not considered to be a paid editor, or even why he did not have to declare his COI. I was informed in a very short email signed by a single arb when the decision had been made, but there was very little information in the email. My request for clarification didn't result in any clarification. I understand you can't comment on the case itself, but can you comment on how such a case should be conducted?
I can't really comment on how that issue should have been handled, since I lack the details. I'm curious what kind of information you would have liked to know about how the proceedings were conducted, though. As for the other things, I don't think we typically published (or emailed, in this case) a list of votes when determining matters outside of the context of a full case, though I also don't really see a reason not to. There are definitely cases in which we can't explain why we came to a decision, especially when private information such as one's employer is involved, but I generally try to err on the side of transparency when possible. Again, without knowing the details it's hard for me to know what happened in this case. I know this answer might be a little unsatisfactory, but I don't want to make broad statements about how emails to the ArbCom should be handled because there's so much variance in context.

Questions from Hijiri88

~~What is your opinion on the essay WP:CPUSH, and do you think ArbCom should take special care in handling the kind of cases it is describing in the future?~~ Yep. Sorry, you did already effectively answer this; that said, Cinderella157's question was not the exact same as mine (it appears to refer more to the need for more time to present evidence, whereas my concern is more that civil POV-pushers have an incentive, based on a perception that ArbCom will see them as engaging in civil discussion because ArbCom doesn't legislate content disputes). I therefore suspect a number of other candidates may not have already answered my question when they answered Cinderella's, and I don't have the time to read through a dozen answers and decide that at the moment.
I think I might have answered this question in Cinderella157's question #3, can you clarify what you're hoping to know beyond that?
Do you still agree with this definition of "hounding", and the additional comment DGG left during ArbCom's !voting on it, particularly as it may relate to concerns over another editor's ability to properly read and interpret or concerns that an editor who has plagiarized a lot of text before may do so again? (Please note that this does not relate especially to my specific ArbCom case, nor to anyone involved in it; I just really like the definition as it is clearer than the one that's currently at WP:HOUND, and DGG's comment especially was something that honestly I would have liked to see enshrined in the final decision, and perhaps in any future statements ArbCom may make on the issue.)
Yes, I still agree. It's reasonable to keep an eye on a user's contributions if they have a history of plagiarism, although DGG's caveat about "looking for minor unrelated problems" still applies. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:47, 17 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Questions from Rosashills

What is your view on the kabbalah? Have you read Rabelais' chapter on Thaumaste, the encyclopediant sent scurrying back to Old England after a battle of Gamergate signs (and scents)? How did you participate in the Sagecandor play? Do you think, as the anyone-aubergine cabal does, that there should be moar CB in the MobCar? (CB = citizen's band)
Okay, after getting a little bit more clarification on this question by way of Wikipediocracy, I'm going to do my best to answer. I wouldn't say I have a view on the kabbalah, given that I had to look up what it was when you asked this question. I'm not particularly well versed in religions in general, I'm afraid. I have not read the chapter you're referring to, although the edit you linked to is very interesting! You mentioned that you referred to Gamergate because a person believes "some reference should be made to your non-recusal from that case". Some reference has already been made to this, in Rschen7754's question #1, which I tried to answer thoroughly. If you have more specific questions I am of course happy to answer them. I did not participate much in the Sagecandor matter—I read the emails you sent to the Arbitration Committee, but a search of my emails leads me to believe I never actually sent any emails regarding it (either to you, or as a part of discussion among the Committee). I suspect this is largely because of the timing—it was towards the last half of 2017, and that was around when I became overwhelmingly busy in real life and had to step back from arbitration somewhat. No more CB in the MobCar, please—we did voice chats a number of times back when I was on the Committee and it was hard enough to get a word in edgewise even without the limitation of one person speaking at a time. Not a great medium for a 15- (or 13-, now) person conversation.

Thank you for your response. I've listened to what you said and voted to reduce the size of the Supreme Council to ease discussion. I was impressed that you got hold of a copy of Piotrus' paper (see next question) and agree that any "anyone-can-edit" v2.0 en.wp needs better representation of its writers. The arbitration branch has historically been recruited from the executive branch at en.wp (i.e. it's a bit of an FOP lodge). The rulemakers / legislators here also seem quite frequently to be cops or others who hang around the doughnut shop. cf. WP:5P, WP:N, WP:V, WP:Harassment, WP:Linklove, etc.

In case you feel like answering more questions this weekend:

Could you improvise on the subject of the unannounced second edition of Wikipedia, or the expected maturity date for the first edition? (Will it be an adult at 18? 21?)
I feel like if there were a second edition of Wikipedia, it has long since been published. Wikipedia doesn't really have the "versioning" that's built into most reference works, as there is never a point at which all of Wikipedia has been reviewed and edits stop so that it can be published in that state. It's constantly evolving, and I think there is no way to identify specific editions. The "edition" concept just doesn't work with a project like this. As for maturity, I'm not sure it will ever be fully mature. There is so, so much that could be covered on Wikipedia but hasn't been, and so long as time continues to progress, events continue to happen, and research continues to be published, Wikipedia will never be truly "mature".
Currently if I want to find out who wrote WP:NOT I must rely on old tools rather than on the newer whizz-bang WikiWho-enhanced analysis that is available in article namespace (e.g. §§). Do you think this lack of transparency concerning who writes our by-laws / rules in the "Wikipedia" namespace should be fixed? Should ArbCom make a formal request for that level of transparency concerning the authorship of the rules governing the faithful wiki-writers of the knowledge ~~revolution~~ economy?
I'll admit I wasn't really familiar with WikiWho until just now, that's a neat tool. That's too bad that it's only available in the articlespace—is that an intentional decision? Technical limitation? It would seem to me it shouldn't be too difficult to expand the tool to all namespaces, but then again I've only just looked at the interface for a few minutes. I do think it should be fixed—the data is all available in the page history, it just needs to be crunched into that format. I can't think of a good reason it shouldn't be. I'm not sure the ArbCom should get involved, though—I'd think a community request would be just as effective (if not more so) and unless an ArbCom member is planning to work on the tool itself there's nothing we can really do to actually force the change to be made.

One minor point that I will add, though, is there is some limitation around using that tool to understand who influenced an article. For example, I think many people who have actively worked on the Incel article or followed its development would agree that Jorm has been an influential voice, but he's not even listed in that page because most of his contributions have been to discussions on the article talk page.

While this may be beyond ArbCom's purview/scope/remit/beat/etc., I'd be curious to read your thoughts on these matters. — 🍆 RosasHills ^{t ·
c} 13:08, 30 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Question from Piotrus

Have you read this academic paper on ArbCom? Anything you agree/disagree/find interesting? (Disclaimer: I am the paper's author. I am not looking for pats on the back, but I am genuinely curious if you heard of it, read it, and what do you think of it; feel free to be critical of it, I am interested in your honest opinion on whether such research is useful, not in having my ego stroked). PS. If you reply here please WP:ECHO me back. TIA. Update @ GorillaWarfare:: please see User_talk:David_Tornheim#re:_Article_about_ArbCom for how to access the article by free (there are at least 4 ways as I uploaded the article to multiple open access repositories). PPS. Thanks for your replies. To reply myself to the issues you raise: the existence of arbcom private wiki is, IMHO, further reducing the transparency of ArbCom decision making. Now, this is not in itself bad for ArbCom or Wikipedia, but it is problematic to the research. Related to this is the difficulty of identifying who is the originator of a given remedy or such. Assuming that the originator is the first person to vote is just a proxy, in lieu of a clear attribution, which AFAIK has and is lacking (whether this is a problem or not I don't have an opinion). The final finding you mention is intriguing, as it may suggest that the least active arbitrators are dissenters - but of course this requires further analysis to be sure.
@ Piotrus: ~~No, I have not read it. Unfortunately I don't have access to that database and would have to pay $36 to buy the article.~~

@ Piotrus: Thank you for the links! I was able to find it on SciHub. I'm typing this as I read, so it will be roughly chronological. While I object to describing the Arbitration Committee as "the legal system of Wikipedia", I do like and agree with this sentence: "Hoffman and Salil (2010) thus conclude that the legal system of Wikipedia is designed primarily to support collaboration rather than to eliminate conflict." I also really liked the section on "Biases in collegiate courts"—I think these are extremely relevant and difficult issues that absolutely affect the ArbCom, although I would not have identify nationality as strongly affecting the ArbCom. The biggest issue I've experienced relating to differences in nationality (or at least place of residence) has been time zones—although email and onwiki communication is nominally asynchronous, it was not unusual for arbitrators outside of the Americas/Western Europe time zones to wake up or finish work to find a lengthy conversation to have been conducted without their input, and have to weigh in late. That said, I am also American and there tend to be a lot of us on the Committee (as your study confirms), and I don't want to imply bias doesn't exist just because I haven't consciously observed it. I was disappointed to see that the dataset was limited from 2004–2009. The ArbCom has changed considerably since 2009, and I'd have loved to see some research on more recent interactions. I'm not sure I understand how the existence of the arbwiki dramatically limits your ability to collect the kind of data that you did in this study—there is some pre-drafting that happens there but there is still considerable tweaking and discussion that occurs on the proposed decision on-wiki. I also am concerned that you determined whether an individual proposed a sanction by who voted on the sanction first—while this is sometimes the case, it is not always (although I am admittedly less familiar with ArbCom during the time period you studied, so perhaps this has only changed recently). I was extremely interested in your discovery that "For the group of least active arbitrators (with 100 or fewer votes, n = 11), the proportion of dissent votes in their total number of votes is twice that of the group of most active arbitrators (with over 400 votes, n = 10)"—I would not have predicted that.

@ Piotrus: I mostly was surprised about the arbwiki finding, given that it's only really used if the mailing list has become unwieldy. Most of what happens on the arbwiki would otherwise happen on the (also private) mailing list. That said, I was not on the Arbitration Committee during the time period you studied, so it could be that things were done much differently then. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:29, 22 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Question from Banedon

I see you've said an Arbcom case doesn't have to result in sanctions above. Given that, what is your opinion of this?
That's a good question. I think there is a balance between determining if there is enough of an issue that ArbCom needs to become involved and also not pre-judging the case outcome. This is complicated somewhat by the fact that this was an admin tools misuse case request, which can only be handled by the ArbCom. As Worm mentioned in that discussion, we wouldn't want to become so lenient in accepting cases that case requests could be weaponized against administrators by anyone annoyed with their block. That said, I think in this particular solution that comment leaned a bit too far towards pre-judging.

In your response to Piotrus above, you mentioned that you acquired his paper using SciHub. Does it concern you that SciHub is likely illegal? Banedon ( talk) 00:53, 23 November 2018 (UTC) reply
Yes and no. In this particular case, Piotrus (the sole author of the paper) directed me to SciHub to obtain a copy. I don't see that as much different than authors emailing me PDFs of their publications, which has happened in the past as well. More generally, I would avoid using SciHub to obtain papers for use on Wikipedia because of the copyright issues, although I do personally agree with their general mission to open access to scientific papers. I think the enormous cost of database access or per-paper downloads is ridiculous, especially if the research is publicly-funded.

Questions from Zerabat

Why do you want to become an ArbCom arbitrator?
The tipping point that led me to run this year was seeing only two women in the list of candidates. The Committee has historically not been very diverse, and I think it's worse off for it. And to be clear, I am referring to all kinds of diversity: diversity of gender, race, sexuality, nationality, opinions, etc. I realize that as another white American knowledge worker I have a lot in common with many people on Wikipedia and on the ArbCom, but I do bring my perspective and experience as a woman and a queer person.

More generally, I'm running now and have run in the past because I think I'm pretty good at it. I read quickly and thoroughly, I'm extremely familiar with key Wikipedia policies after being consistently active here for eight years or so, and I'm willing to devote the not-insignificant time and energy to do a good job. I'm willing to take on the grunt work aspects of arbitration as well—I used to regularly maintain lists of open tasks to try to avoid things slipping through the cracks (though ended up finding this not particularly successful), and I ran the CUOS activity audit process for some time after finding it had largely been neglected for a while. In fact I still update the statistics most months even though I'm no longer on the Committee.

What is ArbCom useful for?
ArbCom is useful because it handles the things that can't be handled by the community for various reasons: private matters that need to be handled with discretion, administrator conduct issues (which currently aren't handled by the community just for policy reasons), maintaining the functionary team, disputes that have repeatedly been brought to the community for resolution without success, etc. I am generally in favor of limiting ArbCom's scope as much as possible and deferring everything possible either to the general community or to subsets of it (admins, functionaries, etc.) This is why in the past I have supported disbanding the ban appeals subcommittee and opposed making ArbCom the go-to place for all things undisclosed paid editing.

What is expected from an ArbCom member to do? What shouldn't do?
Arbitrators need to be fair, meticulous, and responsive to questions and criticism. They should follow the expectations of adminship carefully, and apply these expectations also to their arbitrator work (with the caveat that full transparency is not always possible if an arbitration issue involves private information.) They need to be able to work with the rest of the Arbitration Committee, remaining open to opposing viewpoints. They need to be impartial and uninvolved in issues they're tasked with handling, and if they don't feel they're able, they need to recuse. They need to treat private information responsibly, including by not disclosing it or inappropriately alluding to it and by securing their accounts and notes carefully.

I wouldn't say there's a ton that arbitrators shouldn't do that isn't already covered by the expectations of adminship. Some have strong opinions on arbitrators becoming involved with some non-arbitration-related administrative discussions, RfCs, etc. because they worry people will take arbitrators' opinions as having more weight than that of other admins or arbitrators, but I don't agree that arbitrators should effectively silo themselves from those kinds of things. It is useful for arbitrators to be familiar and engaged with ongoing events onwiki, and I would worry discouraging them from participating would result in arbitrators becoming out of touch with policies and expectations. That said, it is very important for arbitrators to be extremely explicit that they are not acting in any sort of arbitrator capacity if there is a possibility that people might not realize it. Another thing that some people think arbitrators shouldn't do is provide evidence in arbitration cases if they've recused. I disagree with this as well—as long as the arbitrator is firmly recused and not participating in any case-related correspondence, they should be able to participate in arbitration cases in the same way any other community member can. That said, if a recused arbitrator is participating in a case it is definitely preferable that the case discussions be moved to one of the alternative lists so that there is no concern that the arbitrator is involved in the offwiki portion.

If you are elected, what would you do in the following hypothetical (but based on true events) case? You discover the fact that certain editors were conspiring in an organized way in a external forum to discredit users with whom they disagree, to sabotage RfA of users they are trying to fight, to plot other community processes such as AfD when these were proposed by their opponents and in order to make enrage their opponents aiming that this would lead to their enraged opponent to be blocked. Do you think would be necessary to open a case in ArbCom? Why?
If possible, this kind of hypothetical case should first go to the community for resolution. However, given the case is based on offwiki events, it would be highly likely that private information would be presented as well, in which case it would have to go to the Committee. It would also have to go to the Committee if there were allegations of administrator misconduct. It reminds me a bit of the Eastern European mailing list case from before I was an arbitrator, where both private information and allegations of admin misconduct were involved.

Question from AugusteBlanqui

What is your view on the AfC process and recent notable failings such as the Donna Strickland article being rejected?
AfC is a good idea that unfortunately suffers from many flaws. AfC has always sustained an enormous backlog, and as I look right now there are 1,438 submissions pending review, the oldest of which has been waiting five weeks for review. There are not that many AfC volunteers, and so those who do participate in reviewing articles tend to be motivated by reviewing articles quickly rather than thoroughly. Whereas in a normal editing environment, an editor might notice an article is poorly-sourced and go research the topic to improve the sourcing, the emphasis on clearing the backlog quickly does not foster this kind of environment at AfC. I suspect this was a contributing factor to the Donna Strickland incident.

Question from Gerda Arendt

Can you agree with Opabinia regalis here? - Sorry that it's late.
No worries, I was late to submit my candidacy :) I can't really say I agree with her, especially because I voted to accept the case directly above her comment. It's apparently continued to be an issue, given the recent RfC. I can elaborate a bit more if there's something specific you want to know, but I think my comment there covers the question fairly well. I will note that I think sanctioning specific language without context is unproductive; I've said as much in the questions above from David Tornheim and in my vote on that case request where I said I'd encourage people to present somewhat broader context rather than focusing on the "fuck off" incident(s) during the rest of the case phases. There does seem to be enough here to warrant a case, but I'm hoping the case will amount to more than just pages of discussion about whether (and under what circumstances) it's okay to tell another person to fuck off on Wikipedia.

As a bit of an aside, I personally really don't agree with her argument about Wikipedia:Don't template the regulars—if the boilerplate warnings are good enough for our newer editors, I'd like to think more tenured editors would have the humility to not be horrified that someone would dare template them. I've even seen editors who've been around for a while quite rudely tell off newer editors who are still learning the ropes for templating them, when in all likelihood the newer editor didn't realize they had dared to template someone who'd been around for a while. It's really not a good look—I've been around for a pretty long time now, and if I forget to add a source or I snap at someone and get a {{ uw-unsourced1}} or {{ uw-civil1}} template slapped on my talk page is the best thing to do really to tell off the editor who is using a template specifically designed for that purpose or is it to address the underlying issue?

Thank you. I agree with the attitude to not treat newbies with less respect than "regulars". - I was in a case that should have been declined (I think) but instead we spent months to arrive (similarly to Der Ring des Nibelungen) exactly where we had started: the arbs telling us "work it out on each article", which we had done and were sentenced for ;) - Then, in my one and hopefully only encounter with arbitration, I had not yet read the ultimate guide, now a legacy. Link on my answers collection (among the voter guides). -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 09:50, 20 November 2018 (UTC) reply
That is quite the guide, and certainly a legacy. I was sad to hear that Shock Brigade Harvester Boris had passed—among his qualities, his username always caught my eye, and EdJohnston was kind enough to explain where it's from on his talk page. I also noticed he had the "Wikipedians who cannot be trout-slapped because they are already fish" category on his userpage, which I think I need to add to mine.

By the way, I looked at your guide and I think I was lucky enough to get the precious recognition way back when. I'm impressed you've kept it up for this long, and although we do not always agree I always like when I run across your awards on various user talk pages. GorillaWarfare (talk) 09:59, 20 November 2018 (UTC) reply
Thank you! That, and that I don't even remember exactly where we disagreed enough for me to mark the award with a little star (it's for life, but at times I regret a bit, - I think it was about some AE for Eric Corbett?) I'll forgive (DGG the same). DYK that Boris was the first and for a while the only one to receive the prize from the cabal of the outcasts in br'erly style, for his comment when he left us, "have a laugh"? -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 11:12, 20 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Questions from Nosebagbear

With regards to your answer to @ Carrite: on the WMF bans and action within the standard en-wiki sphere. I agree with you that some offences must be decided by them. However do you think they should be obliged to state the reason for each ban (sans doxxing obviously) and why that ban had to be dealt out by them rather than ARBCOM? Would you push to bring in a degree of transparency when there is no reason for the complete dearth we have
No, I don't. As I said above, the WMF bans sometimes deal with things like child protection issues, and the standard for banning someone from a website and for claiming them to be a danger to children is very different. I suspect the WMF would open themselves up to a fair amount of potential legal trouble if they said they'd banned someone who was, say, grooming underage editors, and so I understand why they do not publish their reasoning.
With regards to AugusteBlanqui's question on AfC - could you expand on what you think should have been done that was actually in AfC's remit? AfC reviewers took a bit of a pounding here (including from 2 WMF figures who should have known better). To clarify in a more neutral manner - do you think a) There was a reviewing error and if the massive timelog hadn't imposed time pressure it would have been caught b) The review was correct but there was an error in the way AfC does things (as regards reviewing vs improving etc) c) There wasn't an error (either in review or in methodology)?
Perhaps a bit of both a and b. The original draft that was declined would seem to meet WP:PROF, given her significant achievements and fellowship. But the sourcing was minimal and fairly closely connected to Strickland, and if the reviewer was not as familiar with WP:PROF (which is not uncommon—I don't fully know the ins and outs) they probably declined it per the WP:GNG. Without the time pressure they could have dug to find more solid sourcing, although in fairness a lot of the sourcing in the current article was published after the AfC draft was declined. At least they could have gone a little deeper into WP:PROF.
For any given severity of offence, where would you say you are on a 1-5 scale of leniency to severity (1=sharp wagging of finger for everything, 5=hang 'em by their eyeballs for swearing)? Having decided this, where would you say you stand in comparison to other arbitrators/arbitrator candidates in terms of your sanction viewpoint?
I would say I'm around a 3, and the other candidates are between a 2.5 and a 3.5. 1 and 5 are both pretty extreme, so I don't expect any serious candidate would be in those buckets.

Questions from Tamsier

Hi GorillaWarfare, thanks for volunteering again and good luck. First of all, I think it is wonderful to see women putting themselves forward for the big job.Having more women. Black and other people of colour going for the role is a great thing. It adds diversity and provides a different perspective. Without taking anything away from that, I want to refer to parts of your statement. You said you are 25, joined the project in 2006 but active in 2010 - the same year you were given the admin tools. You also said that you served the Committee for 4 years (from 2014-17). I am not a mathematician, but by my calculations, you were made an admin when you were 17 years old (the very same year you became active) and a committee member at age 21. What would you say to critics who argue that this is exactly the problem with English Wikipedia's admin and arbcom structure - that the tools and the big roles are being handed to people who do not have the experience and maturity? Now obviously you are much older now, but some would argue that many of these youths are seeing these roles as another tick in the box and it is up to the community to have better vetting system that ensures that only those with the maturity, experience and capabilities are give such big roles. Of course someone can be old and very immature and vice versa, but do you see this as a problem? Going back to your statement, you wrote: "I personally think my biggest shortcoming was my timidness to speak my mind when I thought something was wrong when I first took the position." Do you feel your age was a major factor here - where other dominant committee members saw you as young and timid and were practically walking all over you and influencing you rather than you having your own mind, speaking up and doing the job you were elected to do? What would you say to those who argue that you've developed a reputation for being timid at arbcom and if given the role again nothing will change and you will have no use at arbcom? If you have changed, can you tell me what has changed and how? Can you give me an example where you have gone against the status quo, remain firm in your believes and spoke your mind? Thank you and good luck.
That math is approximately correct (I think I was actually 20 when I was first elected to the ArbCom). I personally don't have a problem with young administrators or arbitrators being elected (assuming, of course, the arbitrators are above the age of 18 as is required). I think age diversity in the Committee is valuable, and some young arbitrators is actually a boon. If an administrator or arbitrator is not acting with the maturity necessary for the role, that can be handled case-by-case rather than adding stricter age limits. I've known some young administrators who were immature, but I've also known some older ones who were as well. The same is true in reverse.

I don't think age was a factor in my timidity—I was mostly timid because I felt like I was still learning the ropes and getting my feet under me. I think a lot of arbitrators probably go through that when they're new, although there certainly are some who are quite outspoken from the getgo. I never felt like arbitrators saw me as young—certainly nothing was ever said of it.

I don't actually know of anyone who has argued that I have a reputation for timidity, but if I were to come across one I would ask them to look at the more recent three years of my activity on the Arbitration Committee and see if they still agree. Like I said in my candidate statement, I became much more outspoken and I think most people see that.

I think the best examples of me going against the status quo are on the private mailing list, but for an on-wiki example I think my arguments in the Lightbreather proposed decision qualify.

Question from User:BU Rob13

In the past, the Arbitration Committee's role in dispute resolution had been described as "break[ing] the back[s]" of disputes the community is unable to resolve. Sometimes, this involved taking actions unpopular with the community or actions that were criticized as "draconian". More recently, I would say the Committee has become more hesitant to act unless their actions would have widespread support in the community, especially when those actions affect popular editors (or, less charitably, unblockables). At the center of this is a concern that taking decisive action on a dispute could lead to consequences, but in my experience, the default action of doing nothing often carries consequences as well. Further, doing nothing or taking only minor actions that do not resolve the underlying dispute often narrows the workable options available to the Committee, turning difficult-to-solve disputes into nearly unsolvable disputes. Could you comment on these two general schools of thought and what your approach to arbitration would be? More directly, do you think it is sometimes necessary to take unpopular or draconian actions to "break the back" of a dispute, or should such actions always be avoided?
I typically favor the "break the back of the dispute" side of things even if the decision is unpopular. Most cases that make it to ArbCom have already been through community dispute resolution at least once, and so narrowly restricting sanctions to those that will likely hold popular community support makes me wonder why the Committee would bother even becoming involved. I also agree with you that the Arbitration Committee choosing not to act on something is itself a meaningful decision—while it can (and often does) mean that there was simply not enough evidence to place a sanction, it often is interpreted to mean that the ArbCom found that the person did nothing wrong.

I will caveat my answer by saying I also don't generally support overly broad sanctions as a last-ditch effort to end a dispute. We sometimes referred to those suggestions using the phrase Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. ("Kill them. For the Lord knows those that are His own."). These are sanctions that are applied widely, and potentially include those who did not necessarily participate in the wrongdoing at a sanctionable level. I don't think that kind of "collateral damage" is acceptable, even if it does successfully end a difficult dispute.

Question from User:Grillofrances

What do you think about reverting an edition which provides true information, 100% of the info is based on reliable sources, it's objective, grammatically correct, not offending anybody and useful for the article but it's reverted because a new editor just claims this info is redundant?
If the information is indeed redundant, I think it's fine to remove, although ideally any new details or sources should be merged with the content it was repeating.

At which age did you become software developer?
I was 22 when I became a full-time software developer.

What are the main technologies you use in your software developer work?
Almost entirely JavaScript (using the React library).

Do you think in the future all the numbers in wikipedia should be imported from the wikidata instead of hardcoding?
No, I think that would be pretty excessive. I do think it would be valuable to import many numbers (and other pieces of data) from Wikidata, just for the purposes of centralization and consistency among the different language Wikipedias, but all numbers seems extreme.

Question from User:Ryk72

Discretionary sanctions (DS) now cover more than 30 topic areas (per WP:DSTOPICS).

In determining the "effectiveness" of DS, what factors should be taken into account?
A couple of things: one, are they being used at all? When I was on the Committee, we at least once ( [4]) lifted some discretionary sanctions on topic areas that were largely unused, so that's clearly a case where the sanctions either never were or had stopped being effective. The second thing I'd consider is whether issues in a topic area under DS are continuing to come to ArbCom. If it's the standard arbitration enforcement requests or sanction appeals (not really even ArbCom territory), that's normal and expected, but if there are arbitration cases requests continuing to appear in those topic areas then the sanctions are probably not working how we had hoped and the administrators as a whole are probably continuing to have a rough time handling the issues.
In which, if any, of the topic areas have DS been particularly effective? If any, in what ways & why?
I think the American politics 2 sanctions ("all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people.") are a good example of effective discretionary sanctions. When I describe what the Arbitration Committee does to non-Wikipedians and mention that they handle disputes that are often in very contentious topic areas, people often say something to the effect of "Oh wow, they must spend a lot of time dealing with cases about Donald Trump (and whatever other US political topic is controversial at the time)". They're often surprised to hear that most case requests have nothing to do with American politics, which I think is largely thanks to those discretionary sanctions. As you can see in the log, they are quite heavily used, and they seem to be doing a good job.

Palestine-Israel is also an example of a heavily-used ( log) discretionary sanction in a very contentious topic area that hasn't come to the ArbCom in some time.
In which, if any, of the topic areas have DS not been particularly effective? If any, in what ways & why?
There are a handful of topic areas where DS have been authorized but gone unused, such as Prem Rawat (last used in 2012), Senkaku Islands (last used in 2013), Ancient Egyptian race controversy and September 11 conspiracy theories (last used in 2014), and Interactions at GGTF and Landmark Worldwide (last used in 2015). Crosswiki issues also appears to have been unused since it was authorized in October 2017, though this probably is too short a time to judge for sure that it's ineffective. I will caveat that I'm only looking at whether sanctions have been levied in these topic areas—sometimes just getting a DS alert is enough for people to consider their behavior more closely, so if alerts are still actively being sent, I'd think twice about removing the topic area from DS.

Beyond DS that are simply going unused, I'm a little worried about the effectiveness of the BLP sanctions. Generally I think they work well. They are actively being used, and relatively few BLP issues wind up at arbitration (if my math is right, around 15% of Wikipedia articles are BLPs, so that's saying something). That said, there was just a case on BLP issues on British politics articles, which I'd think would have been covered by discretionary sanctions. I'd have to look more closely at the case to know if it should have been able to be nipped in the bud by DS (and I do understand it involved private/offwiki information which can't be handled by DS), but it is a bit of a red flag.

I'll be very curious to see how the Infoboxes sanctions play out. That has been a perennial issue at ArbCom since at least when I started, so it will be interesting to see if the sanctions are a) used, and b) effective.
In which, if any, of the topic areas have DS been effective in addressing conduct or behavioural issues, but otherwise detrimental to the encyclopedia? If any, in what ways & why?
Hm, that's a good question. Nothing immediately comes to mind, other than perhaps potential 1RR issues like the one recently addressed at ARCA.
Other than DS, what measures could ArbCom take in addressing conduct issues? Which, if any, of these alternatives should ArbCom take?
We have a bunch of standard options in our arsenal, namely site/topic/interaction bans. Those are useful if the dispute is not extremely widespread and is instead localized to a small group of editors. However, if the issue is reoccurring and widespread, that's when DS become useful.
Of which of your contributions to Wikipedia are you most proud? Why?
Content-wise, I'd say it's probably a tie between The Satanic Bible and Incel. Both are articles I wrote more or less from scratch (The Satanic Bible existed before I began working on it, but it looked a lot different, and the first thing I did was a complete rewrite). The Satanic Bible was certainly the most rigorous research I've done for any article I've written here; I read the entire Bible itself as well as quite a few other books, journal articles, and news publications ( The Satanic Bible#References). The article on incels is a completely different beast—there isn't much as far as books or journal articles available about the subject, so it involved a lot more scrutinizing of whether the many media sources on the subject were reliable. While I worked on The Satanic Bible more or less on my own and largely uninterrupted by other edits, Incel has been fairly heavily-edited by other people and has involved a lot of intense talk page discussion, as well as an arbitration case request and several other content disputes/conduct issues.

Outside of content work, I'm definitely proud of my four years on the Arbitration Committee. I was active on most of the cases between 2014 and 2017, as well as countless email threads, case and ARCA requests, etc. and I feel like I did a pretty good job. I'm also proud of my anti-vandalism work—it's gnomish, tends not to require a lot of intense thought, and often looked-down-upon as an MMORPG or way to rack up a lot of edits, but those 13,794 Huggle and Twinkle edits (slow load) are edits that others didn't have to make and instances of vandalism our readers didn't have to read.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of these questions. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 00:23, 26 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Question from Serialjoepsycho

I guess it's a bit late to ask a question but if you wouldn't mind indulging one more... As an arbitrator here, in arbitrator years you are no longer a spring chicken, what's driving you to continue? There can be some quite ridiculous anywhere on wikipedia but it seems that a lot of it is gonna come and land in y'alls lap. What stops you from becoming disillusioned? -Serialjoepsycho- ( talk) 09:41, 30 November 2018 (UTC) reply

I will say I do appreciate you couching that by saying "in arbitrator years" 👵! My four years on the ArbCom were both challenging and tiring, but they were also very rewarding. Frankly, I feel like I was good at it, and that the project was better off for having me on the Committee. I did get a little burnt out by the end of my second term, both from the demands of ArbCom and from changes in my professional life, so I decided to take a year off from the position. Since then I have settled into my role at work a bit more, and I have been able to return to editing Wikipedia with renewed energy (in fact I just realized I've made more edits this year than any other year ( [5]).

I care deeply about Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement—I'm not sure I have any other hobbies I've kept up for 8+ years. Seeing the amazing work that's being done on this project by so many people makes me want to do everything I can to keep it running smoothly, and helps when I feel disillusioned. I've also become pretty good at letting the shit-slinging roll off my back. I think a lot of arbitrators experience increased amounts of harassment once they become arbitrators, but any increase in the really bad stuff due to my role wasn't particularly noticeable; it's something I've dealt with for quite sometime both before, during, and after my time on the ArbCom as a woman and a feminist who dares to exist on the internet, on Wikipedia, and in tech. GorillaWarfare (talk) 12:25, 30 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Thank you very much for your time. It seems quite a well thought out response and very genuine. I appreciate that. -Serialjoepsycho- ( talk) 07:32, 1 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Question from User:Ryoung122

Greetings,

I think Wikipedia is a great idea in theory, with policies such as NPOV, NOR, RS, etc. However, in practice we often see these policies ignored/underminded as POV-interest groups push to enforce their POV vision on their area/s of interest. Sometimes, in a dispute, one side will mis-use ArbCom proceedings (a sort of "witch hunt") to "eliminate" opposition to their POV-pushing, and then nothing is done, sometimes for years, to rectify the situation. Indeed, Wikipedia is in many ways a mirror of the realpolitick of the real world--in reality, not in theory--with an over-abundance of entrenched groups in the usual power structures. While I appreciate your bringing a pro-active approach in the area of gender equity, too often it seems that Wiki-disputes become a "survival of the powerful" as editors that are too nice, too naive, don't have enough time to deal with an issue, etc. get run off by those who are mean, nasty, sarcastic, undercutting, cunning, etc., leaving "Wiki:Own" violators cyber-squatting Wikipedia articles to their POV bias, rather than reflecting the Wikipedia ideal of NPOV, NOR, GNG, etc. As an ArbCom member, how do you think you can best effect a change in the mindset of the actual Wikipedia establishment to focus less on policy/rules alone and more on content/topic biases, including gender? I've recently seen cases where established, powerful editors make verbally abusive threats to others and get away with it. To save time, might ArbCom emphasize more an "ombudsman"-type "violator hotline" where people can call to report abuse? Ryoung122 05:43, 2 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Well, I would certainly make an effort to discourage people from using ArbCom proceedings to eliminate their opposition. I think this is perhaps an area where the best thing the ArbCom can do is "lead by example", and carefully consider potential biases while also examining violations of policy. Because the ArbCom does not set policy and rarely gets involved with the vast majority of disputes onwiki, I don't think there's any particular way for the ArbCom to impose this kind of change on the community. As for the violator hotline suggestion, I'm not sure if you mean "call" literally—if so, that's impractical. There will be thirteen members on the Committee next year, and it's likely they will be clustered in one of a small set of time zones. They will have full-time jobs, schoolwork, or other real-life obligations that would certainly make manning a hotline impractical, not to mention that is not what they signed up for. If you did not mean "call" literally, that's sort of already what the ArbCom does—the ArbCom has an email address where people can report issues, and although they do not handle all of them directly, they point people in the right directions to get the help they need. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:18, 3 December 2018 (UTC) reply

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