Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Candidate statements/Blankfaze

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

blankfaze

Upon my recent return from a fairly successful wikivacation, I was unpleasantly surprised and disappointed to see that the Arbitration process has seemingly fallen into disrepair, or, in the least, "grinded to a near-complete halt".

It's possible that the Arbitrators, be them willing or not to affirm it, are simply burned-out. If that's the case, I'm willing, ready, and able to take up some of the slack.

Too many people see the Arbitration process as a sort of Inquisition or prosecutorial body; perhaps we need to be reminded of its original purpose: to arbitrate, to settle, disputes. If elected I would take a solutions-oriented approach to arbitration. There are times when punitive measures must be taken, but it should not be the go-to solution.

I would like to believe that I have a reputation for striving hard to be impartial and civil in all my endeavours. I think many if not most Wikipedians who know me well would attest to such. I offer myself up as a qualified, experienced, intelligent candidate for the Committee.

  • Less bureaucracy
  • Refocus on civilly resolving disputes
  • Common sense

BLANKFAZE | (что??) 04:04, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Questions

Any and all questions with any at all relevance are welcome here. I will try my best to thoughtfully and thoroughly answer each one. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 04:08, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some questions being asked of all the candidates by jguk

Q: How old are you and what do you do? (If student, please state what subjects you are studying.)

A: I am nineteen years old, as of next month. I work in the produce department of a grocery.

Q: How many hours a month do you think you will need to be a good Arbitrator and are you really willing to put in the time?

A: Hours per month? I couldn't really say. I can say that I'm willing to put in the time required.

Q: If chosen, you will need to arbitrate on disputes arising from the creation or revision of articles. Experience of creating and revising articles yourself, particularly where it has involved collaboration, is very valuable in understanding the mindset of disputants who come to arbitration. With reference to your own edits in the main article namespace, please demonstrate why you think you have the right experience to be a good arbitrator.

A: I'd prefer to let my experience and my work speak for itself. I'm not going try and tell people what to make of it.

Q: Please list out what other Wikipedia usernames you have edited under.

A: None.

[edit] Form question by Snowspinner

Being an arbitrator requires a finely tuned bullshit detector. What in your life has prepared you to detect bullshit with ease? Phil Sandifer 21:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Form Question from karmafist

Many policies contradict and overlap with each other, and then WP:IAR makes things even more complicated while making them paradoxically more flexible. When two or more policies apply and conflict, what do you do? karmafist 18:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Questions from User:-Ril-

The following questions are for each candidate, and do not specifically target you

Do you hold any strong political or religious opinions (e.g. concerning George Bush, Islam, or on which end you should break a boiled egg)? If so, would you recuse yourself from cases centred on these?

How willing are you to contest the decisions of other arbitrators rather than just "go with the flow"?

Do you view all requests to re-address cases, particularly requests made by those most penalised, as being automatically without merit?

In the case against Yuber, it was decided by the arbitration committee that it is the duty of arbitrators to investigate, and rule on the behaviour of not only one party involved, but all of them. Do you support this decision? [if current arbitrator] Does your visible behaviour on recent cases reflect this decision?


--Victim of signature fascism 16:42, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question from Marsden

As you probably are already aware, your age may be an issue to a lot of people. I am one of those people.

My particular concern is that, at your age, you are unlikely to have a broad grounding in the general background knowledge of (what passes for?) our culture. This potentially opens the door for others, possibly including fellow arbitrators, to foist their particular agendas upon you.

In light of my concerns about this, which I suspect others may share, how would you deal with conflicts that might be brought before you as an arbitrator on subjects about which you do not have good background knowledge? How would you keep yourself from just relying on the information supplied by another arbitrator or another person, information that might be biased?

Marsden 00:34, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

At your age, you are unlikely to have a broad grounding in the general background knowledge of (what passes for?) of Zulu culture. You probably also have little grounding in Eskimo law, or Micronesian coming of age ritual. Do you feel that would be a problem? --Victim of signature fascism 09:17, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


Do you support the creation of a Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct as I have just now suggested at User talk:Jimbo Wales#A sincere question? - Ted Wilkes 18:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question

I'll probably end up posing this question to all whose views I don't already know:

What is, in your opinion, the proper use of WP:IAR? When, if ever, should the rule be invoked to justify administrative action? Xoloz 17:20, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Questions to many candidates by PurplePlatypus

  1. How do you view the role (and relative importance) of WP:Civility in the process of building a factually accurate encyclopedia? How do you view editors who are normally correct in article namespace, but who may be perceived as rude – including to longtime, popular editors and admins – on Talk pages and the like?
  2. Do you have an academic background of any kind, and if so, in what field? How do you handle critiques from your peers and professors (assuming those aren’t one and the same), which may be sharply worded or otherwise skirt the edges of WP:Civility even if they are correct? Considering those professors who have recently had you as a student, what would they tell me if I asked them the same question about you?
  3. What are your views on the proposed policy Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct? Whether you think it should be a formal policy or not, do you believe you would generally act in accordance with it? What aspects of it do you think should not be there, or to put it another way, are there any proposals there which you can think of good reasons to ignore on a regular basis? (Please date any replies to this question as the proposal may well change over time.)

PurplePlatypus 08:17, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Support Wikipedia:User Bill of Rights?

Do you support Wikipedia:User Bill of Rights? (SEWilco 05:26, 21 December 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Questions being asked by Titoxd to all candidates

  1. How much of your Wikipedia time do you plan to spend on ArbCom business?
  1. If you were elected and had to spend most of your time in ArbCom delibations, which projects would you consider to be the most negatively affected by your absence?
  1. To what extent would those projects be affected?

Titoxd(?!? - help us) 06:31, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality question and Censuring questions from -Ril-

(Being asked of all candidates)

Do you believe that regardless of Jimbo Wales' own views on the matter, the community should be able to strip arbitrators of their position under certain circumstances, and if so, what circumstances?

As a corollory:Do you believe, regardless of Jimbo Wales' view on the matter, that a large number of signatories (e.g. 150 requesting censure against 50 supporting the arbitrator) to an RFC against an arbitrator is enough that the arbitrator should be judged as having been rejected by the community in light of their actions, and consequently for them to be forcibly stripped of their post?

wikipedia has a policy of NPOV. Excepting straw men, have you ever introduced a substantial opinion or fact that contradicts your own political or religious viewpoint into an article on a topic of which you have strong opinions, and if you have, how frequently do you do so compared to your other substatial edits to articles?

--Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 02:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Recusal, Code of Conduct, Expansion

I am asking these questions of all candidates:

1. Do you pledge to abide by the proposed recusal guidelines at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct#Recusal?

2. Are there any parts of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct that you do not agree with? If so, please describe in detail how you would improve them.

3. Will you please pledge to support expanding the number of seats on the Arbitration Committee? If not, how would you propose alleviating the present arbitration backlog?

4. Have you voted over at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Proposed modifications to rules? If not, why not? If so, please summarize your votes.

Thank you for your kind consideration of and answers to these questions. —James S. 06:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anarchism page

How would you resolve the situation on the anarchism page?Harrypotter 18:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)