I know I've already asked you a few questions, but do you plan on answering general questions 6 and 7? Hot Stop (Edits) 02:06, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Not really. Most of the changes I plan to implement are not structural in nature and the structural ideas that I do have (spinning off BASC for example), I would first have to see how well the current situation is working in practice and what any alternatives would look like. I do not plan to answer question 6 and question 3c-iii. NW ( Talk) 02:46, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Would you mind elaborating on the non-structural changes? Hot Stop (Edits) 02:50, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Well, here's a few to start: convincing my colleagues to take civil POV pushing more seriously (see general question #5 and TDA #1), getting them to focus on violations of WP:MEDRS and BLP (see User:NuclearWarfare/ACE2011 and the questions I asked last year), and hopefully uninvolving the Committee from work that isn't related to dispute resolution or checkuser/oversight mangagement. NW ( Talk) 03:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks. The Continental Congress quote here made my day. Hot Stop (Edits) 03:13, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Moved comment from #Question from Leaky

Your answer is complete for me, NW. Thanks. Leaky Caldron 17:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Moved comments from #Questions from The Devil's Advocate

1. You clearly have a strong opinion on "civil POV-pushing", but how exactly would you define it and what specifically would you examine to determine this? For instance, how would you differentiate POV-pushing from efforts to balance an article that is biased?-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 19:01, 12 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   A: Potter Stewart said it better 50 years ago than anyone else: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of [editing] I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["civil POV pushing"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it".

   That's a very unsatisfactory answer, I understand. I will do my best to ensure that "I know it when I see it" is not the same as "whatever I think is neutral is consistent with NPOV-compliant language." It involves getting into the discussion, evaluating whether the editors are trying to use the best quality sources they can find; whether they are trying to find expert opinion and build the article out of that rather than cherrypicking sources to suit their point of view; whether their behavior is tendentious and designed to exhaust the other editors to death. But ultimately it comes down to a judgement call. NW ( Talk) 22:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   When you say "tendentious" do you simply mean "biased" or are you referring to the type of behavior described in the essay on tendentious editing?-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 01:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   The latter. NW ( Talk) 01:43, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

2. Do you believe that you have been sufficiently responsive when your use of the tools has been challenged?-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 19:01, 12 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   A: Not always, no. Is there any specific instance that you have in mind? NW ( Talk) 22:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   I don't wish to make this overly personal, but back in March you tagged a discussion with me as unresolved and pledged to respond, but never got back to me.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 01:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   Indeed. Real life came up and I didn't edit Wikipedia until May. The issue had resolved by other administrators, which is partially why I didn't feel the need to reply. I can give you a (quite belated) answer now if you would like. But this is not an isolated incident; this has happened to other editors before and I apologize for that. NW ( Talk) 01:43, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   You can leave a comment on my talk page if you like.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 04:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   For those who wish to follow along or join in: User talk:The Devil's Advocate#Follow up. NW ( Talk) 06:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

3. How strictly would you interpret administrative involvement?-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 19:01, 12 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   A: This is too general of a question and too situation-dependent to properly answer. NW ( Talk) 22:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC) reply

4. Recently you took a significant clerking action on a case request where you were a named party and you were one of the administrators whose previous actions were being questioned in the case. Would you explain why you felt this was appropriate at the time you took the action?-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 19:01, 12 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   A: Are you referring to [1] or [2]? If you mean the latter, I didn't consider the involvement to be particularly meaningful (especially as it was in an administrative and not editorial capacity); there was a dearth of active clerks; I felt that the situation was fairly clear cut (and in fact, it could have been acted upon by any administrator, not just a clerk); and I left the affected party (later blocked as a sockpuppet) with clear instructions on how to proceed if they wished to do so. NW ( Talk) 22:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   I was referring to the latter and I do not find your explanation here satisfactory. The case in question disputed sanctions issued as a result of an AE case where you had also pushed for sanctions. Your suggestion for sanctions was itself mentioned and disputed by the editor who filed the case as representing the administrative misconduct being alleged. Being involved in an administrative capacity is not a valid defense when one's actions in an administrative capacity are what is being questioned. As to being clear-cut, the comments were not significantly different from those of the filer and the Arbs commenting had already stated their opinion that such comments were appropriate. Indeed, your action was subsequently reverted with the approval of an Arbitrator who had already voted against ArbCom taking any action.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 01:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   I disagree with your contentions, but I don't believe that this is an appropriate place to re-litigate the dispute. But in short: when I referred to the issue being clearcut, I meant that the user was not a filing or appealing party and they were violating a legitimately issued one-way topic ban with their statement. That's all well and fine if they can get a waiver from ArbCom but they hadn't yet and administrators or clerks have no power to issue one. NW ( Talk) 01:43, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

5. Do you believe one-way interaction bans should be more common or less common?-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 16:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   A: I'm generally not a fan of them. If someone has gotten to the point where an administrator thinks that a one way interaction ban would be helpful, so would speedy closings of the relevant requests or a block for disruption. But I don't rule them out on principle—sometimes it doesn't take two to tango. NW ( Talk) 20:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

6. Do you believe incivility is treated too strictly or not strictly enough by administrators?-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 16:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   A: Superficial incivility is sometimes treaty too strictly, sometimes not strictly enough. That's situation dependent and really administrator dependent. Subtle incivility is much less dependent on either of those because it is so severely underaddressed as a problem. Insinuating that a long-time editor may be lying about real life health problems to avoid sanctions or generally denigrating the competence of your ideological "opponents" are far more damaging to a collaborative environment than using impolite language (not to discount the effects of the latter) but are generally hardly addressed by the community. NW ( Talk) 20:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   If you are somehow referring to me with those examples then you should understand that I was thinking of those who are known for being repeatedly subject to controversial civility blocks.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 23:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   I wasn't referring to you in either case. Those who have been subject to multiple civility blocks, whether rightly or wrongly, fall into the first category where it is not clear cut enough to say one or the other definitively. NW ( Talk) 02:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC) reply

7. Do you think it is appropriate to suggest sanctions when you have not done a thorough review of the circumstances surrounding a case?-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 16:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   A: I stopped beating my wife last week.

   What I wrote was "I haven't taken as comprehensive a look as I would like to, but I did look in at this issue some time ago and again when I closed a topic ban removal discussion with regards to Tom harrison. Certainly few people in the topic area are free of fault (in fact, basically no one is, and I am not excluding MONGO from that), but it appears to me that The Devil's Advocate is one of the key problems with regards to the deterioration of the editing environment recently. I would propose a topic ban for TDA and a closing of this request without prejudice to refiling if things don't improve shortly. Thoughts?" followed by "Any other thoughts? I really don't want to spend the time to review properly if another administrator thinks that my suggestion is entirely off-base (as this report is one that I don't think I should close by myself)." The community is free to decide whether it thinks that was out of line or not. NW ( Talk) 20:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   If you believe you were not sufficiently informed about the case to act on your suggestion, as you indicate on my talk page, I do not see how you can justify making any suggestions on which someone else could act.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 23:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   I felt I was not comfortable enough in my analysis to pull the trigger myself. That does not mean I was not comfortable enough to suggest potential courses of action that another administrator might care to investigate further, having seen that I already had some preliminary tendencies one way. NW ( Talk) 02:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Moved comments from #Questions from AlexandrDmitri

1. Incoming mail, Case management, Ban Appeals support, Higher permissions or Technical team? Why?

   A: I'm sorry, I am not sure what you are asking. Are you asking which I would prefer to work on? NW ( Talk) 21:08, 14 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   Yes, on which internal team do you feel you are the best fit, would like to work on, and why. -- Alexandr Dmitri ( talk) 22:41, 14 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   Well, all are important, but the primary reason I am running is that I feel I have something to contribute to cases and dispute resolution. So I expect that case management is something I would like to focus my time on, in addition to addressing requests for amendment and clarification. Aside from that, I feel that I could help with incoming mail (as it is similar to the clerking that I have done before) and really all the rest (with the exception of the technical team, assuming by that you are referring to checkuser matters, which I simply wouldn't feel comfortable with for a while). NW ( Talk) 23:49, 14 November 2012 (UTC) reply

   Clarification - does this mean you would not try to acquire the checkuser privilege, were you an arbitrator? Gimmetoo ( talk) 01:43, 2 December 2012 (UTC) reply

   I think I likely will if I am elected, but it is unlikely that I will become the next DeltaQuad or Elockid in terms of number of checkusers that I run. NW ( Talk) 17:56, 3 December 2012 (UTC) reply

Moved comments from #Question from Begoon

I posted most of this to the discussion on the failed motion to "suspend" Elen, and if you find it phrased oddly as a question, that's why - the page was archived almost immediately afterwards. It occurs to me that maybe some voters might be interested in candidates' reactions to a question like this, so I'm asking it of each of you. It's a very open question, so feel free to ignore it or to comment on it in any way at all.

Is it an arbitration body we want? Do you think that's what we have? It doesn't seem to arbitrate at all, most of the time, it sits in judgement and hands down sanctions from on high. That's not the same thing at all. Do you think, instead, we've ended up with GOVCOM, complete with all the lovely political trimmings that brings along. If you think that's true - how did we get here, and is this where we want to be?

I'm not really sure that I accept the premise of your question. ArbCom is not GovCom, nor should it be, nor (most of the time), does it try to be. Sometimes it does an exceptionally poor job at resolving disputes, yes. And partially that's a result of the fact that you have fifteen people, all of whom approach Wikipedia in very different ways, and finding a decision that accommodates the views of even a majority of them is quite difficult. Sometimes those poor decisions are just a matter of ArbCom focusing on the wrong things, yes. But I don't think that any of the Arbitrators see their roles as legislators (not after how Wikipedia:Advisory Council on Project Development was received anyway; regardless of whether that was the intent of that proposal, it certainly caused a backing off of ArbCom's involvement in policy matters). I think they generally do try to resolve the dispute at hand and resolve any likely potential future disputes in the related topic area.

I'm looking at the related context in which you posted this question [3] (I liked the Battlestar Galactica reference) and I think what you are trying to say is more that if ArbCom is trying to handle a situation like they are, then they need to do so expeditiously. I'm not really sure I see things in the same light as you do, but I'm also not really sure that I'm understanding your question.

Anyway, I know my answer was a bit of a ramble. If you want to post a follow-up/clarification, I will be happy to respond. NW ( Talk) 06:16, 30 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Funny thing isn't it, language? After I posted this question to every candidate I actually thought to myself - "that could have been worded better, I bet I end up needing to clarify it". I didn't do so, because some people answered very quickly. The interesting thing is, I got some very good answers already, which speaks more to the skill of the respondents than the questioner, obviously .

No, I'm not really criticising the speed with which arbcom handled that motion, I'm basically asking 3 things, I suppose:

• Do you feel that arbcom's remit should be more closely limited to actual arbitration rather than dishing out sanctions? (you've largely answered that one)
• Do you think it is workable and/or desirable for arbcom to judge and rule on its own behaviour, or that of its members?
• Do you feel that the "politicised" nature of arbcom is a problem, leading, as it seems to have done here, to damaging splits and recriminations?

I hope that's better, and I'm sorry to confuse you with the original question. If you rambled, which I don't think you really did, then it was only in response to a much more rambling question. Begoon  ^talk 08:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC) reply

1. I tried to address this one in my answer to Tony1 and Boing! said Zebedee as well as above, so you might be interested in checking those answers out. My bottom line is that if some sort of agreement can be reached whereby it is likely that a positive editing environment will result without bans and blocks, ArbCom should certainly be willing to try it. Those agreements need to be feasible though, so it's pretty case by case.
2. Perhaps I'm not imaginative enough, but I don't see any other way to do it. Any body with authority is going to have to deal with misbehavior on the parts of its members eventually, and delegating that responsibility to other editors just gets into Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? issues.
3. Oh sure. Perhaps it isn't politics per se but more the personalities that go along with them. It's fine to have people with strong and differing views on important issues on the Committee (indeed, it's why it's a committee); they just have to be the sort that can work well even with people who disagree. I wish I could tell you that I have a solution for our these problems. I don't, except that I hope that the community will elect, now and in the future, non-drama causing personalities to the Committee.

NW ( Talk) 21:57, 30 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Comments moved from #Questions from GabeMc

Questions: 1) Do you think it's appropriate for an admin to close an RfC/RfM when said admin had previously participated in an AN/I report discussion, supporting the resulting indef-block for a highly vocal party to the mediation from which the RfC originated? 2) Assuming that a) this has in fact happened, and b) you indeed think it's inappropriate, what then would you suggest as a remedy? GabeMc ^{( talk| contribs)} 01:16, 2 December 2012 (UTC) reply

A:I do not think it would be appropriate to respond to a "hypothetical" like this that appears to be based on something that actually occurred, as I would want to read the details of what happened. NW ( Talk) 18:04, 3 December 2012 (UTC) reply

Right, I actually thought the idea here was to word the questions in a vague way so as to avoid naming names or finger-pointing to specific situations. You can find links to the actual situation here. GabeMc ^{( talk| contribs)} 01:07, 4 December 2012 (UTC) reply

Preliminary thought, without reading the discussion you linked to: Yes, that is appropriate depending on the situation. An administrator performing a review of an editor's contributions for policy violations is not WP:INVOLVED unless there are substantial mitigating factors—for instance, an indication that this is personal somehow or previous involvement in the topic area. Assuming that the latter has indeed occurred, a remedy could range anywhere from admonishment by a single editor, an overturning or review of the closure by actually uninvovled administrators to more serious sanctions imposed by the Committee. It's dependent on the situation. NW ( Talk) 20:18, 4 December 2012 (UTC) reply

After lightly reviewing the ANI discussion (I vaguely remember reading it this summer), I do not believe that the administrator in question did anything wrong. His participation on that thread was limited to evaluation of an editor's behavior, which does not preclude him from later acting as a closer of an RFC. NW ( Talk) 20:26, 4 December 2012 (UTC) reply

Moved comments from #Question from Martinevans123

1. Question: "The use of four letter words by editors in Wikipedia "discussions" is perfectly acceptable, as it quickly brings everyone to the "same level." - Do you agree? Thanks. Martinevans123 ( talk) 23:06, 8 December 2012 (UTC) reply

   A:Well, no. Cursing can be effective in making a point but rarely is it terribly helpful, and it certainly often degrades the quality of a conversation or drives people away.

   Do you want to follow up? It is hard to respond without knowing more of what you are trying to lead the conversation towards... NW ( Talk) 22:26, 8 December 2012 (UTC) reply

   Thanks for your quick response. It was just a question, not a conversation. But I was trying to lead to your views on incivility and whether or not any editors have more of a right to be uncivil than others (?) Personally I would have thought that everyone ought be very careful not to offend even the most lowly of contributors, and certainly never risk appearing to be an oafish and condescending bully. After all, without co-operation this encyclopedia is nothing, is it, no matter how clever or knowledgeable individual editors like to think themselves to be? Martinevans123 ( talk) 23:06, 8 December 2012 (UTC) reply

   And indeed, those who have been around the longest have the most obligation to make sure they are not creating an uncomfortable atmosphere to join our project. As I said above, civility is more than the individual words used, but that doesn't mean that words can't contribute to an uncivil atmosphere that drives away new editors. This is not just a theoretical problem—anecdotally, from female editors relaying the experience of other female editors, I have heard of this happening, which is an especial problem with our gender gap issues. NW ( Talk) 06:08, 9 December 2012 (UTC) reply

That's a very good answer. I feel you are a candidate worth voting for. Thanks. Martinevans123 ( talk) 18:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC) reply