2015 Arbitration Committee Elections
Status
The nomination statements of editors running in the 2015 Arbitration Committee elections appear below.
^ From the Wikimedia Foundation's Access to nonpublic data policy:
Any volunteer who is chosen by any community process to be granted access rights to restricted data shall not be granted that access until that volunteer has satisfactorily identified himself or herself to the Foundation, which may include proof that such user is at least 18 and explicitly over the age at which they are capable to act without the consent of their parent in the jurisdiction in which they reside.
^ The mandatory disclosure of alternate accounts and declaration of intent to comply with the WMF identification policy are exempt from the 400-word limit, although candidates are encouraged to be concise.
Mandatory information: I am fully identified to the Foundation and have signed the new agreement. The only accounts I actively use for editing are this one and , very occasionally, user:Awkward42. A full list of accounts I control is at user:Thryduulf#Other accounts.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Thryduulf
|
Hi, I’m Emily, and I’ve been a Wikipedian for more than 8 years. I’ve been involved in lots of different places, like starting WikiProject Women Scientists, helping to organize WikiProject Women’s Health, developing a systemic bias workshop kit for Wikipedia workshops on college campuses, and helping to write a bunch of featured articles, good articles, and DYKs.
I’m putting my hat in the ring this year because I think the community needs an Arbcom that includes more women, and more people who spend most of their time in the trenches writing articles. In a happy coincidence, I happen to fall squarely in the intersection of those two categories.
ArbCom has become less and less effective in actually solving the problems faced by Wikipedia’s regular editors, and I think that my experience in facilitating collaboration and my problem solving skills can help make the arbitration process both more effective and more useful to the community.
I’m currently an oversighter, so I’ve already identified to the WMF and signed the non-disclosure agreement. I have an alternate account, Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH), that I use for my Wikipedian-in-Residence work at NIOSH.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Keilana
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
GorillaWarfare
|
Hello everyone, and nice to meet you all. I'm Wildthing61476 and I have been an editor on Wikipedia now for close to 10 years. My time here on Wikipedia is spent more with cleaning up vandalism or making corrections to articles where they may need to be done. I have focused more on editing articles about topics I'm quite familiar with, such as articles regarding the Baltimore and Maryland areas. I do comment on WP:ANI from time to time, and have read through some previous ArbCom committee rulings to get a better understanding of what is required as a member of ArbCom.
As per the instructions I will abide by the rules and fully disclose that I have no other accounts on Wikipedia, and I have only edited through this account during my time here (save for when I forgot to login). I do not have any blocks or disciplinary measures on my account, and will fully comply with whatever information is required by WMF should I be selected.
I feel that I would be an asset as a member of ArbCom, as I consider myself to be level headed, and I am able to critically review an issue and give an honest estimation on that issue based on the facts. I can, and believe I have proven, that I can remain neutral, and not let personal opinion fly in the face of what an issue is presented. Wildthing61476 (talk) 18:42, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Wildthing61476
|
A list of my accounts is at User:Rich Farmbrough/Accounts and an email list will be sent to ArbCom.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 19:44, 8 November 2015 (UTC).
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Rich Farmbrough
|
The most important thing we can do on Wikipedia is to facilitate content creation. That means content creation by everyone, regardless of who they are or how much experience they have as an editor. Issues such as harassment and civility are not, as some would have it, a necessary part of content creation, but inhibit content creation by many current and potential editors.
The Committee has a difficult job. While it is filled with well-meaning individuals, collectively they have favored narrow decisions that focus on the behavior of a few editors while ignoring systemic issues plaguing Wikipedia and prioritize policy compliance over normal expectations of behavior in extraordinary circumstances. The Committee cannot create policy, but it can use the matters before it to address systemic issues, which many parts of the community are demanding it do.
Offline, people are energized and optimistic about the possibilities of Wikipedia. Online, the community is fractious and the environment often toxic, exacerbated by the failure to address these issues head-on. Enough is enough.
Were I to serve, my priorities will be to:
I have been a Wikipedia editor for eleven years and an administrator for ten. I have created more than a thousand articles and I have nearly seventy thousand edits. Offline, I am a librarian and professor at a mid-sized university in the US. Wikipedia is the focus of my academic research.
I am not the perfect editor or candidate. A decade is a long time, and it is full of many examples where I could have acted better or made a better decision. Likewise, I do not demand perfection of other editors nor would I demand it of parties before the Committee. I only ask what I try to do, and that is for editors to acknowledge their mistakes and strive to do better, instead of loudly insisting that disruption is the correct path. A perfect candidate who offends no one and makes no errors avoids controversial problems, and we need people willing to attempt to solve those problems and risk making mistakes to do so, instead of standing by doing nothing.
Mandatory declarations: I will comply with all policies for dealing with non-public data and have already signed a confidentiality agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation to do so as part of my work with The Wikipedia Library. I do not recall ever doing any editing with another account.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Gamaliel
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Mahensingha
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Opabinia regalis
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Kirill Lokshin
|
Have you ever seen the 1980 news video where George HW Bush, having just beaten Bob Dole in a presidential primary via vicious negative advertising, turns around and is slick and friendly to Dole? Dole replies "Stop lying about my record". Well, I'm (metaphorically) grumpy old Bob Dole.
Between en-wiki and Commons, I have roughly 75,000 edits. I have been editing regularly since late 2008. I have engaged regularly with difficult and (occasionally) destructive editors, in order to enforce important Wikipedia policies, particularly BLP and copyright policies. I was one of the editors who raised warning signals about Qworty (but was unfortunately ignored), whose editing led to one of Wikipedia's worst public embarassments. I also was one of the first editors to object to the Committee's astonishingly insensitive proposed directive indicating female editors should not fight back actively against sexual harassment
I have had extensive real-world experience with lower-level government agencies, particularly citizen boards which are tasked with resolving issues on matters of public interest and import. Very few ArbCom members, past or present, have claimed such experience, which may be one reason for the Committee's dysfunctionality.
Arbcom is inefficient and ineffective. It needs to resolve disputes more rapidly and more clearly, rather than trotting out a standard list of fossilized bromides. It has adopted procedures which incorporate time- and effort-wasting elements of the legal process without adopting procedures which promote efficiency, fairness, and good decisionmaking.
If elected to Arbcom, I will immediately propose, as a first step, that when a case is accepted, the Committee provide a clear statement of which matters it intends to address in that case. That will do much to eliminate the absurd waste of community time and effort when amorphous cases turn into free-fire zones and timesinks, both in evidence and workshop pages. I also believe far more discussion should take place in public.
Mandatory: Before accepting any advanced permissions accompany the position, I will comply with WMF requirements. I edit primarily as Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, but my Commons account, created prior to unification, is The Big Bad Wolfowitz, and I continue to use that ID for work involving free images. Sometimes wires get crossed, and the "wrong" account makes an edit regarding a particular image. My enwiki account was originally named Harmonica Wolfowitz.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Hullaballoo Wolfowitz
|
Accounts are User:NE Ent, User:Alt Content, User:Jester of the court, User:Entbot
I certify I meet these requirements for access to data barely remember 18, actually... and will sing the WMF confidentiality agreement if elected. NE Ent 03:15, 16 November 2015 (UTC) And, after the aria, I will sign it also. NE Ent 11:07, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
NE Ent
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Casliber
|
The past year has been a testing year for the committee, and the next year won’t be any easier. With a majority of seats up for election as well as several resignations and retirements, retaining the committee’s institutional memory is important.
The role of the Arbitration Committee has changed considerably since it was founded. It now has a wide range of unrelated responsibilities. These need cutting right back so that it can concentrate on its core role of resolving disputes.
For those tasks that the committee retains, we need to focus on consensus-building; in recent times we have too often been a committee divided. Part of this may involve moving more slowly, with a clear understanding of the rare circumstance in which swift action is required.
When I first joined the committee in 2014, there were discussions about reworking the way we handle private communications. This stalled, in part because of a lack of a clear owner for the process and in part because of other concerns taking attention away from it. While I agree that the Arbitration Committee should strive to be as transparent as possible, there are many matters which cannot be discussed publicly. This is an undeniable fact, explicitly acknowledged by the Arbitration Policy. I intend to invest a good deal of effort in early 2016 towards revitalising work on process management, and will stress that such processes need to be discussed and decided upon with the community's input.
I will continue to comply with the criteria for access to non-public data; I am identified to the Foundation per roles as a functionary, volunteer response team participant, and arbitrator. I used the username Firefoxman prior to a rename in 2008. User:LFaraone_(usurped) is the account that was previously under my current name.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
LFaraone
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Kelapstick
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Callanecc
|
I’m Kevin Gorman, frequent editor since 2011, and admin since the beginning of 2014. I’m also the former Wikipedian-in-Residence at UC Berkeley, moderator of the gendergap-l listserve, and frequent badgerer of PR blackhats. At the beginning of 2015, I went into severe septic shock, had several organ systems fail, and spent most of 2015 recovering from it - and within the last few months am to the point where I’m recovered enough for a full time workload, and have my health well-controlled. However, I may die in July 2016 so if elected, I will be serving most of my term from heaven.
I know it’s unusual for someone with a recent editing gap to run for AC, and I hadn’t intended to run - but some recent arbcom decisions, combined with concern over lack of candidates interested in actively guiding arbcom decisions towards increasing the health and continuing the growth of ENWP (and its active editing community,) combined with a little bit of prodding from a few other people made me change my mind. A longer statement about some of the problems I see with arbcom in the recent past can be seen here - but the short version is that I believe arbcom needs to be simplified, act faster than it currently does, and take more decisive action when confronted with an intractable issue, because failing to do so allows the problem to continue to fester and harm the community.
Arbcom should act as rarely as it can. When it does act, it should act quickly, transparently, and to the most significant extent possible aiming to support a collegial encyclopedia with an environment as conducive to creating content on the widest variety of encyclopedic topics as possible. Arbcom shouldn’t act punitively for the sake of acting punitively, although in support of content creation and our continued health as a community there will be times when community members must be desysopped, removed from a particular area, or removed from our community as a whole in order to strengthen the encyclopedia and our community.
It concerns me greatly that every study conducted on the English Wikipedia’s demographics has found that the vast majority of our editors are men, generally well-educated, generally fairly-well off, and almost entirely from the Global North. Our encyclopedia aims to encompass the sum of all human knowledge - a lofty goal that we cannot possibly accomplish unless we take steps to ensure that, to borrow from a recent public comment, we’re sending no demographic into a cultural buzzsaw.
I have already identified myself to the Wikimedia Foundation (although am willing to do so again if needed,) and have no issue signing an NDA. Wikipedia has made me sick over the last few years (literally). It's time that patient Kevin finds a cure for Wikipedia and his disease which is the same thing: ME.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Kevin Gorman
|
If we don’t address this challenge, society will address it (and us) in the sternest terms. Editors and administrators require protection from “colleagues” in the service of harassment conspiracies and PR agencies.
In school, we learned that a glance at the encyclopedia does not make you an expert. (Was the current ArbCom absent that day? Never mind.) ArbCom has rushed blindly into complicated thickets. I will immediately take steps to create a blue-ribbon advisory panel on harassment.
We must clean our house, lest those who could advise and assist us dismiss Wikipedia as a nest of boobies. We should treat all editors alike. The best way to avoid being called a flock of juvenile loons is to stop acting like a flock of juvenile loons.
ArbCom should raise up the volunteers who are being trodden underfoot; they make lousy carpets and we have too many sprained ankles already.
My battered logs bear scars that attest to my experience. My opinion of the current committee’s Infamous, Thoughtless, Careless and Reckless handling of Gamergate received some attention. I have been (and am) frequently hounded by Wikipedia’s least reputable elements; I know what it is to be harried by mysterious strangers who have colorful vocabularies and excessive imagination. I understand the burdens of admins well, having contrived betimes to pose a burden myself.
ArbCom has encrusted itself in mock-judicial trappings. ArbCom requires more innocent merriment, and I’ll do my level best to supply it.
We need more pie. "There can be no stress in the presence of pie,” wrote David Mamet, and he was not wrong. T. S. Eliot wrote that "above all there must be cake," and though the cake is a lie, the pie (oh my!) is what we chiefly need. Wikipedia today is grimly serious when it should be having fun, and it dismisses serious dangers as mere laddish excess. Pumpkin and pecan; both are required.
With regard to identity, I am the only candidate to have provoked separate press statements from both ArbCom and WMF; they already know me. I am I, so I expect I'm already in compliance with the WMF identification policy. If not, and were pigs to have wings, I'd be happy to oblige.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
MarkBernstein
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Kudpung
|
“ | The role of ArbCom is no more that of handing out blocks and bans than the role of a supermarket is stacking groceries on shelves. | ” |
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Hawkeye7
|
My name is Drmies. I have been an editor since 2007, an admin since 2011. I have many edits, some of them useful. Wikipedia ought to be, primarily, a place for article creation and expansion, and I've tried to do my bit, having created over 1000 articles, with a couple hundred DYKs, and I co-edited 3 FAs and 6 GAs. I have two other mostly dormant accounts which ArbCom is aware of; I doubt that any of you have ever run into them (and they're much nicer than me).
Admins and arbs should enable editors to write. The ideal ArbCom is nearly invisible, and I would like for ArbCom to be considered less frequently as an option in dispute resolution. But this will only happen if editors are willing to work out their problems at a lower level (DR, AN, ANI); ArbCom should be a last resort, not a panacea. You may find me less likely than some others to accept a case.
When a case lands at ArbCom the process frequently seems complicated. I can’t promise to make it simpler, since I barely understand it, but I would like to try. It is cumbersome too: a recently started case could take weeks or months, when a consensus was forming elsewhere already; by the same token, two admins were recently desysopped in a matter of hours. I also hear complaints about ArbCom not being transparent enough, and I think we can do better. Individual Arbs I know are fine people, but the Com part seems to spoil it a bit. I'll try to do something about it, if only by communicating a bit more with the larger community about where we are in a given process.
Frequently I find myself occupying a middle position in an argument, seeing both sides, and I hope that in all my years I have been able to bring some sides together and, as an admin, reach fair and equitable solutions--the many RfCs I closed can testify to that. I do not believe the block tool is our best tool, and in all but the obvious cases we should talk before we block; that some call me an enabler, well, that does not really bother me. Blocking and banning are serious matters. I don't want ArbCom to be regarded as a death panel, and when ArbCom lays down the law, as sometimes it must, I want more consideration for the spirit and less for the letter of the law.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Drmies
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Salvidrim!
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
AKS.9955
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Samtar
|
Disclosures: I meet the eligibility criteria. I have the account User:Fiddle Faddle as a declared alternate account, and adopted it to remove confusion because I use the signature " Fiddle Faddle" on my main account and have almost since day one here. I confirm that I will fully comply with the criteria for access to non-public data and the WMF identification policy. I will sign the relevant confidentiality agreement. I have been here almost 10 years with a fairly broadly based portfolio of edits.
I am not an admin and have no desire to be one. I involve myself in WP:AFC as a reviewer and a guide, trying hard to retain new editors with advice and guidance despite a variable and usually high workload. One of the areas I find myself drawn to is the handling of the more challenging editor interactions, attempting to bring order out of chaos.
I cut my editing teeth here quite a while ago in the controversial area of 9/11 conspiracy theories, a topic where I had no horse in the race, simply a desire to see if WP:NPOV could be wrested from a mire of conflicting opinionated editing.
I believe in bringing an analytical and polite approach to every situation, coupled with a light hand.
I am well known for typing errors.
I am far more interested in helping editors do it right or do it better than I am in dealing with persnickety folk who want to use process to prove how right they always were.
Am I suitable to work here as an arbitrator? I have no idea. I think so, and I promise to do my best if you choose to entrust the position to me. I rest on my editing track record, in articles, with editors, and on talk pages. Fiddle Faddle 21:57, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Timtrent
|
These guides represent the thoughts of their authors. All individually written voter guides are eligible for inclusion.
|
2015 Arbitration Committee Elections
Status
The nomination statements of editors running in the 2015 Arbitration Committee elections appear below.
^ From the Wikimedia Foundation's Access to nonpublic data policy:
Any volunteer who is chosen by any community process to be granted access rights to restricted data shall not be granted that access until that volunteer has satisfactorily identified himself or herself to the Foundation, which may include proof that such user is at least 18 and explicitly over the age at which they are capable to act without the consent of their parent in the jurisdiction in which they reside.
^ The mandatory disclosure of alternate accounts and declaration of intent to comply with the WMF identification policy are exempt from the 400-word limit, although candidates are encouraged to be concise.
Mandatory information: I am fully identified to the Foundation and have signed the new agreement. The only accounts I actively use for editing are this one and , very occasionally, user:Awkward42. A full list of accounts I control is at user:Thryduulf#Other accounts.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Thryduulf
|
Hi, I’m Emily, and I’ve been a Wikipedian for more than 8 years. I’ve been involved in lots of different places, like starting WikiProject Women Scientists, helping to organize WikiProject Women’s Health, developing a systemic bias workshop kit for Wikipedia workshops on college campuses, and helping to write a bunch of featured articles, good articles, and DYKs.
I’m putting my hat in the ring this year because I think the community needs an Arbcom that includes more women, and more people who spend most of their time in the trenches writing articles. In a happy coincidence, I happen to fall squarely in the intersection of those two categories.
ArbCom has become less and less effective in actually solving the problems faced by Wikipedia’s regular editors, and I think that my experience in facilitating collaboration and my problem solving skills can help make the arbitration process both more effective and more useful to the community.
I’m currently an oversighter, so I’ve already identified to the WMF and signed the non-disclosure agreement. I have an alternate account, Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH), that I use for my Wikipedian-in-Residence work at NIOSH.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Keilana
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
GorillaWarfare
|
Hello everyone, and nice to meet you all. I'm Wildthing61476 and I have been an editor on Wikipedia now for close to 10 years. My time here on Wikipedia is spent more with cleaning up vandalism or making corrections to articles where they may need to be done. I have focused more on editing articles about topics I'm quite familiar with, such as articles regarding the Baltimore and Maryland areas. I do comment on WP:ANI from time to time, and have read through some previous ArbCom committee rulings to get a better understanding of what is required as a member of ArbCom.
As per the instructions I will abide by the rules and fully disclose that I have no other accounts on Wikipedia, and I have only edited through this account during my time here (save for when I forgot to login). I do not have any blocks or disciplinary measures on my account, and will fully comply with whatever information is required by WMF should I be selected.
I feel that I would be an asset as a member of ArbCom, as I consider myself to be level headed, and I am able to critically review an issue and give an honest estimation on that issue based on the facts. I can, and believe I have proven, that I can remain neutral, and not let personal opinion fly in the face of what an issue is presented. Wildthing61476 (talk) 18:42, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Wildthing61476
|
A list of my accounts is at User:Rich Farmbrough/Accounts and an email list will be sent to ArbCom.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 19:44, 8 November 2015 (UTC).
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Rich Farmbrough
|
The most important thing we can do on Wikipedia is to facilitate content creation. That means content creation by everyone, regardless of who they are or how much experience they have as an editor. Issues such as harassment and civility are not, as some would have it, a necessary part of content creation, but inhibit content creation by many current and potential editors.
The Committee has a difficult job. While it is filled with well-meaning individuals, collectively they have favored narrow decisions that focus on the behavior of a few editors while ignoring systemic issues plaguing Wikipedia and prioritize policy compliance over normal expectations of behavior in extraordinary circumstances. The Committee cannot create policy, but it can use the matters before it to address systemic issues, which many parts of the community are demanding it do.
Offline, people are energized and optimistic about the possibilities of Wikipedia. Online, the community is fractious and the environment often toxic, exacerbated by the failure to address these issues head-on. Enough is enough.
Were I to serve, my priorities will be to:
I have been a Wikipedia editor for eleven years and an administrator for ten. I have created more than a thousand articles and I have nearly seventy thousand edits. Offline, I am a librarian and professor at a mid-sized university in the US. Wikipedia is the focus of my academic research.
I am not the perfect editor or candidate. A decade is a long time, and it is full of many examples where I could have acted better or made a better decision. Likewise, I do not demand perfection of other editors nor would I demand it of parties before the Committee. I only ask what I try to do, and that is for editors to acknowledge their mistakes and strive to do better, instead of loudly insisting that disruption is the correct path. A perfect candidate who offends no one and makes no errors avoids controversial problems, and we need people willing to attempt to solve those problems and risk making mistakes to do so, instead of standing by doing nothing.
Mandatory declarations: I will comply with all policies for dealing with non-public data and have already signed a confidentiality agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation to do so as part of my work with The Wikipedia Library. I do not recall ever doing any editing with another account.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Gamaliel
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Mahensingha
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Opabinia regalis
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Kirill Lokshin
|
Have you ever seen the 1980 news video where George HW Bush, having just beaten Bob Dole in a presidential primary via vicious negative advertising, turns around and is slick and friendly to Dole? Dole replies "Stop lying about my record". Well, I'm (metaphorically) grumpy old Bob Dole.
Between en-wiki and Commons, I have roughly 75,000 edits. I have been editing regularly since late 2008. I have engaged regularly with difficult and (occasionally) destructive editors, in order to enforce important Wikipedia policies, particularly BLP and copyright policies. I was one of the editors who raised warning signals about Qworty (but was unfortunately ignored), whose editing led to one of Wikipedia's worst public embarassments. I also was one of the first editors to object to the Committee's astonishingly insensitive proposed directive indicating female editors should not fight back actively against sexual harassment
I have had extensive real-world experience with lower-level government agencies, particularly citizen boards which are tasked with resolving issues on matters of public interest and import. Very few ArbCom members, past or present, have claimed such experience, which may be one reason for the Committee's dysfunctionality.
Arbcom is inefficient and ineffective. It needs to resolve disputes more rapidly and more clearly, rather than trotting out a standard list of fossilized bromides. It has adopted procedures which incorporate time- and effort-wasting elements of the legal process without adopting procedures which promote efficiency, fairness, and good decisionmaking.
If elected to Arbcom, I will immediately propose, as a first step, that when a case is accepted, the Committee provide a clear statement of which matters it intends to address in that case. That will do much to eliminate the absurd waste of community time and effort when amorphous cases turn into free-fire zones and timesinks, both in evidence and workshop pages. I also believe far more discussion should take place in public.
Mandatory: Before accepting any advanced permissions accompany the position, I will comply with WMF requirements. I edit primarily as Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, but my Commons account, created prior to unification, is The Big Bad Wolfowitz, and I continue to use that ID for work involving free images. Sometimes wires get crossed, and the "wrong" account makes an edit regarding a particular image. My enwiki account was originally named Harmonica Wolfowitz.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Hullaballoo Wolfowitz
|
Accounts are User:NE Ent, User:Alt Content, User:Jester of the court, User:Entbot
I certify I meet these requirements for access to data barely remember 18, actually... and will sing the WMF confidentiality agreement if elected. NE Ent 03:15, 16 November 2015 (UTC) And, after the aria, I will sign it also. NE Ent 11:07, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
NE Ent
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Casliber
|
The past year has been a testing year for the committee, and the next year won’t be any easier. With a majority of seats up for election as well as several resignations and retirements, retaining the committee’s institutional memory is important.
The role of the Arbitration Committee has changed considerably since it was founded. It now has a wide range of unrelated responsibilities. These need cutting right back so that it can concentrate on its core role of resolving disputes.
For those tasks that the committee retains, we need to focus on consensus-building; in recent times we have too often been a committee divided. Part of this may involve moving more slowly, with a clear understanding of the rare circumstance in which swift action is required.
When I first joined the committee in 2014, there were discussions about reworking the way we handle private communications. This stalled, in part because of a lack of a clear owner for the process and in part because of other concerns taking attention away from it. While I agree that the Arbitration Committee should strive to be as transparent as possible, there are many matters which cannot be discussed publicly. This is an undeniable fact, explicitly acknowledged by the Arbitration Policy. I intend to invest a good deal of effort in early 2016 towards revitalising work on process management, and will stress that such processes need to be discussed and decided upon with the community's input.
I will continue to comply with the criteria for access to non-public data; I am identified to the Foundation per roles as a functionary, volunteer response team participant, and arbitrator. I used the username Firefoxman prior to a rename in 2008. User:LFaraone_(usurped) is the account that was previously under my current name.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
LFaraone
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Kelapstick
|
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Callanecc
|
I’m Kevin Gorman, frequent editor since 2011, and admin since the beginning of 2014. I’m also the former Wikipedian-in-Residence at UC Berkeley, moderator of the gendergap-l listserve, and frequent badgerer of PR blackhats. At the beginning of 2015, I went into severe septic shock, had several organ systems fail, and spent most of 2015 recovering from it - and within the last few months am to the point where I’m recovered enough for a full time workload, and have my health well-controlled. However, I may die in July 2016 so if elected, I will be serving most of my term from heaven.
I know it’s unusual for someone with a recent editing gap to run for AC, and I hadn’t intended to run - but some recent arbcom decisions, combined with concern over lack of candidates interested in actively guiding arbcom decisions towards increasing the health and continuing the growth of ENWP (and its active editing community,) combined with a little bit of prodding from a few other people made me change my mind. A longer statement about some of the problems I see with arbcom in the recent past can be seen here - but the short version is that I believe arbcom needs to be simplified, act faster than it currently does, and take more decisive action when confronted with an intractable issue, because failing to do so allows the problem to continue to fester and harm the community.
Arbcom should act as rarely as it can. When it does act, it should act quickly, transparently, and to the most significant extent possible aiming to support a collegial encyclopedia with an environment as conducive to creating content on the widest variety of encyclopedic topics as possible. Arbcom shouldn’t act punitively for the sake of acting punitively, although in support of content creation and our continued health as a community there will be times when community members must be desysopped, removed from a particular area, or removed from our community as a whole in order to strengthen the encyclopedia and our community.
It concerns me greatly that every study conducted on the English Wikipedia’s demographics has found that the vast majority of our editors are men, generally well-educated, generally fairly-well off, and almost entirely from the Global North. Our encyclopedia aims to encompass the sum of all human knowledge - a lofty goal that we cannot possibly accomplish unless we take steps to ensure that, to borrow from a recent public comment, we’re sending no demographic into a cultural buzzsaw.
I have already identified myself to the Wikimedia Foundation (although am willing to do so again if needed,) and have no issue signing an NDA. Wikipedia has made me sick over the last few years (literally). It's time that patient Kevin finds a cure for Wikipedia and his disease which is the same thing: ME.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Kevin Gorman
|
If we don’t address this challenge, society will address it (and us) in the sternest terms. Editors and administrators require protection from “colleagues” in the service of harassment conspiracies and PR agencies.
In school, we learned that a glance at the encyclopedia does not make you an expert. (Was the current ArbCom absent that day? Never mind.) ArbCom has rushed blindly into complicated thickets. I will immediately take steps to create a blue-ribbon advisory panel on harassment.
We must clean our house, lest those who could advise and assist us dismiss Wikipedia as a nest of boobies. We should treat all editors alike. The best way to avoid being called a flock of juvenile loons is to stop acting like a flock of juvenile loons.
ArbCom should raise up the volunteers who are being trodden underfoot; they make lousy carpets and we have too many sprained ankles already.
My battered logs bear scars that attest to my experience. My opinion of the current committee’s Infamous, Thoughtless, Careless and Reckless handling of Gamergate received some attention. I have been (and am) frequently hounded by Wikipedia’s least reputable elements; I know what it is to be harried by mysterious strangers who have colorful vocabularies and excessive imagination. I understand the burdens of admins well, having contrived betimes to pose a burden myself.
ArbCom has encrusted itself in mock-judicial trappings. ArbCom requires more innocent merriment, and I’ll do my level best to supply it.
We need more pie. "There can be no stress in the presence of pie,” wrote David Mamet, and he was not wrong. T. S. Eliot wrote that "above all there must be cake," and though the cake is a lie, the pie (oh my!) is what we chiefly need. Wikipedia today is grimly serious when it should be having fun, and it dismisses serious dangers as mere laddish excess. Pumpkin and pecan; both are required.
With regard to identity, I am the only candidate to have provoked separate press statements from both ArbCom and WMF; they already know me. I am I, so I expect I'm already in compliance with the WMF identification policy. If not, and were pigs to have wings, I'd be happy to oblige.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
MarkBernstein
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Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Kudpung
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“ | The role of ArbCom is no more that of handing out blocks and bans than the role of a supermarket is stacking groceries on shelves. | ” |
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Hawkeye7
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My name is Drmies. I have been an editor since 2007, an admin since 2011. I have many edits, some of them useful. Wikipedia ought to be, primarily, a place for article creation and expansion, and I've tried to do my bit, having created over 1000 articles, with a couple hundred DYKs, and I co-edited 3 FAs and 6 GAs. I have two other mostly dormant accounts which ArbCom is aware of; I doubt that any of you have ever run into them (and they're much nicer than me).
Admins and arbs should enable editors to write. The ideal ArbCom is nearly invisible, and I would like for ArbCom to be considered less frequently as an option in dispute resolution. But this will only happen if editors are willing to work out their problems at a lower level (DR, AN, ANI); ArbCom should be a last resort, not a panacea. You may find me less likely than some others to accept a case.
When a case lands at ArbCom the process frequently seems complicated. I can’t promise to make it simpler, since I barely understand it, but I would like to try. It is cumbersome too: a recently started case could take weeks or months, when a consensus was forming elsewhere already; by the same token, two admins were recently desysopped in a matter of hours. I also hear complaints about ArbCom not being transparent enough, and I think we can do better. Individual Arbs I know are fine people, but the Com part seems to spoil it a bit. I'll try to do something about it, if only by communicating a bit more with the larger community about where we are in a given process.
Frequently I find myself occupying a middle position in an argument, seeing both sides, and I hope that in all my years I have been able to bring some sides together and, as an admin, reach fair and equitable solutions--the many RfCs I closed can testify to that. I do not believe the block tool is our best tool, and in all but the obvious cases we should talk before we block; that some call me an enabler, well, that does not really bother me. Blocking and banning are serious matters. I don't want ArbCom to be regarded as a death panel, and when ArbCom lays down the law, as sometimes it must, I want more consideration for the spirit and less for the letter of the law.
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Drmies
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Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Salvidrim!
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Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
AKS.9955
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Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Samtar
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Disclosures: I meet the eligibility criteria. I have the account User:Fiddle Faddle as a declared alternate account, and adopted it to remove confusion because I use the signature " Fiddle Faddle" on my main account and have almost since day one here. I confirm that I will fully comply with the criteria for access to non-public data and the WMF identification policy. I will sign the relevant confidentiality agreement. I have been here almost 10 years with a fairly broadly based portfolio of edits.
I am not an admin and have no desire to be one. I involve myself in WP:AFC as a reviewer and a guide, trying hard to retain new editors with advice and guidance despite a variable and usually high workload. One of the areas I find myself drawn to is the handling of the more challenging editor interactions, attempting to bring order out of chaos.
I cut my editing teeth here quite a while ago in the controversial area of 9/11 conspiracy theories, a topic where I had no horse in the race, simply a desire to see if WP:NPOV could be wrested from a mire of conflicting opinionated editing.
I believe in bringing an analytical and polite approach to every situation, coupled with a light hand.
I am well known for typing errors.
I am far more interested in helping editors do it right or do it better than I am in dealing with persnickety folk who want to use process to prove how right they always were.
Am I suitable to work here as an arbitrator? I have no idea. I think so, and I promise to do my best if you choose to entrust the position to me. I rest on my editing track record, in articles, with editors, and on talk pages. Fiddle Faddle 21:57, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Arbitration Committee Election 2015 candidate:
Timtrent
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These guides represent the thoughts of their authors. All individually written voter guides are eligible for inclusion.
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