Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2007/Candidate statements/Sam Blacketer

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[edit] Sam Blacketer

I have been thinking about running for a bit and hope I am not too late. I would very much like to be on the Arbitration Committee and help its work. I may not be the first to jump into threads on the administrators' noticeboard but I have often helped with three revert rule checking and enforcement which has taken me into some arbitration cases, and I have commented on others where I was not involved.
If appointed I would want to spend some time drawing out from the parties how they see their editing on Wikipedia, to make a calm judgment about whether they are able and willing to work with others who they do not agree with. Particularly with harassment (including off-wiki) I will try to determine whether problem editors have become disruptively obsessed with personal power struggles either with other users or with their point of view.
There are some big arbitration issues coming up, which include multiple editors edit-warring to push 'nationalist' positions. There are areas where policy is vague or non-existent, where editors try to push boundaries, and I would look to test whether this is 'trolling' or good faith belief. I am also concerned with precipitate action by administrators. There is rarely a good reason for applying lengthy blocks to established editors where disruption is neither happening nor imminent; discussion should be preferred. In crafting arbitration decisions I think it would be helpful to write findings which do not just indicate where someone went wrong, but also indicates what procedure should have been followed. Arbitration should help guide, not just criticise.
I hope that I have shown good 'people skills' in my time on Wikipedia. I have tried approaching all difficulties with diplomacy and tact but this may be deceptive. I have learnt not to get fooled when dealing with disruptive editors but I have also learned to keep cool and civil with them even when they are unlikely to reciprocate. Sam Blacketer (talk) 00:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)