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

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Howdy. I'm Improv, and have been on since late 2002 (initially under the username Pgunn). I've been an administrator for awhile, and a mediator since Jan2005 and an administrator since Feb2005. I also have been a Usenet moderator for a number of newsgroups for over five years. I should state that if I become an arbitrator, I will retain my post on the mediation committee, and continue to mediate as well, as I see no conflict in doing both (although I will abstain on any case that made its way through my mediation unsuccessfully). I don't have a platform, and promise only to be fair as I see it and to put in the effort needed in a timely fashion to prevent delay. All I can say on policy is that I think banning has a place, but I don't think it's possible to say anything useful as to how it should be handled in general. I will also suggest improvements that I think will be productive. I plan to write and make public an opinion on every case I participate in explaining my reasoning, things I have signed on to, and areas where I dissent. --Improv 00:28, 11 October 2005

Note: Added last sentence on --Improv 18:37, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

[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'm 27 years old, and I wear two hats at work -- I'm a neuropsychology researcher and a systems administrator at Carnegie Mellon University

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: I have no idea, and I'll put in what's needed.

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've been a Wikipedian for a very long time, longer than probably anyone else running. I've edited on a lot of topics, created the notice board for indian topics, etc.

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

A:My first username was Pgunn, although I switched from that some time ago.

[edit] Request from Dragons flight

Arbcom is overworked and no fun. Please review these discussions: [1][2] [3] Come up with a short list of suggestions for ways you would endorse for improving the arbitration process. Bonus points for actually managing to create new policy. Dragons flight 07:58, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm thinking about it. I'm not sure if candidate statements are the right place to work out new ideas though -- that process should come from open discussion (presumably on IRC) where objections can be raised and discussed immediately so people don't get too attached to ideas, rather than as part of a platform. --Improv 16:15, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Having thought about it a bit further, I'll summarize what I see as the issues in each discussion and my thoughts...

[edit] Discussion 1: How many arbitrators, and how to organise

I feel that the number of arbitrators should perhaps be given a bit of a bump, but the basic structure of arbitration should remain the same. Personally, I feel that the extremely open admin creation rules have led to serious dilution of what it means to be an admin, and I would hate to see that mistake repeated. Perhaps 20 arbitrators would keep things working smoothly. The only issue I see with this is that I'm not sure if there are enough prominent personalities on Wikipedia to step up for the post, and we may end up with some odd people elected because not enough good folk run. I think the overall structure is sound for the committee -- we need to make sure that there are not means for things to drag too long.

[edit] Discussion 2:Content Disputes

I feel that content disputes, when they get big enough, tend to trip over procedural lines which are themselves punishable, and that's a good way for things to work. For example, disregarding straw polls that make their way onto the village pump should be considered possibly punishable offenses, and that's not a content dispute per se. I am not comfortable with any of the remedies proposed.

[edit] Discussion 3:Running for Arbcom

I feel that it is inappropriate for me to comment on an election process that's going to judge me. If I am to successfully be elected, I will participate in such discussions afterwards.

[edit] Jguk's question

Why do you think the purpose of ArbCom is to punish? Isn't it to resolve disputes? jguk 06:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I think ArbCom does not have the purpose of punishment, but, unlike RfC, punishment/penalty is at least on the table for those who act in a way that is antisocial and harmful to the project. If elected, I intend to use my judgement, informed by precedent, on when it is appropriate to give an opinion for punishment and when it is not. I would hope that it would not be necessary often, but when it looks like it is, I have no problem with its application, and would note that the way we would like things to work is not always the way things actually work. To suggest that the court should never need to impose penalty is akin to suggesting that the court system of a nation should never need to impose penalty -- it wins points for idealism and optimism, but loses points for practicality. I realise, however, that you may have interpreted my mention of punishment as an indication that I view it as the sole remedy available to ArbCom. Given the brevity of my candidate statement, that's an understandable misunderstanding, but understand that I don't feel that it is the only remedy, or even the preferred remedy. So long as it fits with the duty to safeguard Wikipedia, the minimum force needed should be used, with later escalation happening if people do not react appropriately. And, of course, it is important to be fair on disputes and not assume corrective action to be necessary in all cases. --Improv 00:02, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Commitment

How many hours per week do you serve on the Mediation committee? How thorough are you in reading all statements? If you realized that you had to spend 30 hours per week in order to give what was needed on the Arbcom, would you be willing to put in that many hours? – Quadell ^(talk) 16:17, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Mediation is an off-and-on thing that doesn't typically require much time of me. If Arbitration requires much more, then I'll provide much more. 30 hours a week would be excessive -- I would suggest changes to the structure of the committee to find ways to reduce the load on individual arbitrators if I felt that that is what the current structure demands. I could see myself giving an hour or two every day if need be, but I do have a reallife job, sleep, and other things I enjoy to take care of too. Just like with surgeons who work excessively long hours, mistakes in judgement and burning out are bound to occur if you ask 30 hours a week to people who are gainfully employed. --Improv 00:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[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 21:21, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I did volunteer social work in a shelter in downtown ColumbusOhio some time ago, and worked with a mix of clients. I think that taught me to read people decently well, because there was an interesting mix of people there. I think that detecting deception is larigely a matter of being aware of rhetoric and the power of words to shape people emotionally. I've read and digested a lot of arguments of many kinds in political and philosophical debates (I've debated a few people when I was an undergrad) and reading philosophy. Finally, as a usenet moderator over many years, I've dealt with the usual bunch on Usenet. I think I'm pretty decent at picking this stuff up. At the same time, I'm not sure how much this trait is actually required in Arbitration -- unless people are making pleas for clemency based on facts external to Wikipedia, I don't see how the trait comes into arbitration. You may be right that I'll need to use it if elected/assigned/however Jimbo decides things should go, but as of right now, I can't imagine how that might be. --Improv 22:51, 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 18:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

It's hard to answer this kind of question beforehand. I suppose I can say that I see IAR as a policy of last resort, and think it has almost no practical input into decisions one might make and might easily be used to justify things that are clearly against policy. When rules conflict, I tend to judge situations by a few metrics:
- Principle of Maximal Meaning - Try not to interpret conflicting policies in a way that completely nullifies one of the policies in all of its possible contexts (unless said policy is not actually a policy, instead being a restatement)
- Keep promises and confidences, otherwise try to be as open as possible - sometimes balancing these two may be difficult, but I tend to lean towards the first even when the cost is high. This is probably more relevant to mediation than to arbitration
- Ask for advice (when it/in ways that) won't breach any promises/confidence when in doubt. I sometimes hop onto IRC and ask some people I trust about how they would handle situations or ask them, as a sanity check, if they think something I'd like to do seems kosher. My thanks especially to Sannse (although I've talked with others too) for occasionally being a sounding board or more when I wanted to chew on something.
It's, thankfully, usually pretty clear how policies interact with other policies. --Improv 16:58, 2 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 16:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

On strong opinions, I do have some (as, I think, do most thinking people, even if they're normally phrased in mild terms). I will recuse myself if I don't think I can handle the case properly. My opinions have never yet, in real life or online, led me into having problems of this nature, but I suppose it's possible that they may in the future, and my respect for the integrity of the Wiki process would stop me from staying on a case if I felt I could not deliver a good judgement.
I won't pretend to concur with other mediators if I don't actually agree. However, if I've had my say and other people still don't agree, I won't make trouble beyond that. This actually came up on a disagreement internal to the Mediation committee where we disagreed on some rules we go by -- I used a veto power to force a discussion, we all talked, and it turns out that the consensus was to go the other way. Given that we at least had the discussion, I didn't make any more waves even though I didn't (and still don't) agree witht, what was decided.
I am not intimately familiar with policy/tradition on re-addressing of cases. If it is permitted, I don't see any reason to frown on it -- I am inclined to initially trust the judgement of the Arbitration committee, but see no harm in reviewing things they have done, and if something doesn't seem right, I see no harm in talking with the arbitrators involved and possibly re-address past cases. I would think that most of the time things would not change -- we don't want to constantly be digging through old cases, but there may be exceptions. There are at least a few possible reasons for someone being frequently having judgements against them in ArbCom, from systematic bias, severe communications issues, disagreements on interpretation of policy, bad attitudes/expectations on part of the user, etc.
I am not presently an Arbitrator, and am not familiar with the case on Yuber. I think, however, that actions by others might play a small role in how cases on a user should be considered -- it should not excuse unacceptable actions, but might help in their understanding. The goal of punishment, when needed, in Arbitration should be to protect Wikipedia and give people warnings and time out from editing (sometimes only on problem topics). When people are involved on topics or with people with whom they can't productively edit, it is better to provide distance from that topic on a short or long-term basis than to apply a more general punishment (such as a general-purpose block). I think the latter are usually better reserved for when the person does not respect the topic-specific decisions of ArbCom. --Improv 20:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
- update on Yuber -- I haven't learned any more on Yuber, but I've thought more about this question -- actions by others are important in that they help put the actions that people do into context -- judgement of ill will and motivation for behaviour should play a role in how things are handled. --Improv 18:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ted Wilkes question

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 18:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

No. Many of these are good ideas, some are not, but the rules will, I think, eliminate a tradition of relying on good judgement for these things. The proposed recusal policy in particular seems to be badly broken. --Improv 06:36, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. Someone created the article without my knowledge. As such, would you mind offering some input? Thank you. - Ted Wilkes 18:10, 11 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 17:25, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

To be frank, I dislike the rule. When rules are unclear, there are circumstances where we need to use our judgement and go with what works. Others can challenge our handling of the situation as needed, and at that point discussion ensues. There are limits to how much interpretation is acceptable -- when people go far enough from the range of reasonable disagreement, especially when they have a pattern of doing so, then asking (or eventually forcing) them to stop may become necessary. In an ideal world where people communicate well and are receptive to criticism, things never go much beyond the discussion (and possibly polling) stage. It is very possible for people to disagree without ill will, and one hopes not to lose many people due to disagreements on principles. Admittedly, IAR is all about suggesting that judgement is involved in making decisions on Wikipedia, as I interpret it. However, it is easily interpreted to mean other things, and its self-referential attempts to be cute don't help things. --Improv 17:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Questions to many candidates by PurplePlatypus

(sig was PurplePlatypus 09:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC))

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?
- I view civility as being pretty important - although Wikipedia is not a social club (and people sometimes go way overboard with civility like thanking anons who vandalise articles), editors need to be steered away from the heavier forms of abusiveness. Wikipedians cannot afford to be very thin-skinned -- the normal human instinctual ties that keep us from being very bad to each other in person (seeing someone's face, hearing their voice) are absent, and it's too easy to occasionally slip. Howeever, repeated patterns of sufficiently bad abuse will have to be dealt with as part of dispute resolution. In my opinion, "bend over for the newbies" is not something to be encouraged, but there's a wide range of acceptable and productive behavour that may range into being a bit gruff that the project should tolerate. Strong/frequent personal attacks or treating editors in good standing like peons should not be considered acceptable even given a long history of very good contributions.
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?
- I do neuropsych research at Carnegie Mellon University, having done my undergrad in Computer Science (minor political science) at Ohio State. I don't consider myself expert enough in what I do usually to gainsay anyone else within the field - I typically go back to the relevant papers when my view is challenged to determine if I feel I am correct, or ask advice from others. It's important to note that academia is more of a harsh and critical environment than what we're trying to do at Wikipedia - one can reasonably expect to be able to criticise a colleague using academic papers in ways that would be completely off base here, because academia's style of collaboration is less cooperation-centric. I suspect the standards would have evolved to different ends if people thought they might be writing papers together even with people they strongly disagree with. We should not expect academic standards for interaction to work on Wikipedia, and likewise we should never consider it our jurisdiction to attempt to shape discourse and behaviour that is not strongly tied to Wikipedia.
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.)
- Someone else already asked this to most candidates, including me. Please read my responses above. --Improv 02:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed ArbCom code of conduct

On second thought, this is actually a good question that may be helpful. I only glanced at it before. Looking at the proposal:

With regards to recusal, I would simply and solely use my own judgement on when I would recuse and when I would not. I suspect that, if we have a larger number of arbitrators, there will be some reworking of how much of the committee is involved in each case, but even if not, I would generally recuse if I have had dealings with the parties involved that would cause me, in my judgement, to be unable to handle the case in ways consistent with my principles. As a mediator, for example, I am bound by confidentiality to keep mediation content private, and I would thus be inclined not to take Arb cases where I had mediated for a party in the case if mediation content would inform my positions. In unusual circumstances, e.g. if most of the other arbitrators were also to recuse, I would probably feel the need not to recuse purely to make sure that the committee can function, but I would feel the need to treat even more lightly in such a circumstance. I may choose to arbitrate in case that deal with close friends and family if I felt it were needed because I have never had a problem telling friends and family that they are wrong. As a matter of proper form, I would almost always recuse if I felt the need to submit evidence relating to the case, although if, for example, someone in a case were to email all of Arbcom telling them that they suck and that their judgement will be ignored and similar, I feel that that would be a circumstance whereby it would not be verboten for arbitrators to bring things up. If relevant, I see no harm in seeking out people not presently in the case and asking them to present for it. Purely having significant dealings with a person before should not be a major issue with me -- I believe I can be fair in those circumstances. In either case, Wikipedia is a small community -- there's a relatively small group of major personalities (probably about 50-100 people) who do big things, grab more people for the encyclopedia, propose policies, etc. Membership in that is open, but only so many people have the time, vision, proper attitude, or vision to participate. That group has members interacting with each other all the time, and it's too great a burden to tell members not to take cases on others within it, because the group tends to have a few ... controversial people as well. I don't have time to respond to the process section right now -- I'll get back to it later today if I have time. Sorry for not reading the question deeply the first time. --Improv 14:56, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

With regards to process, while I think that private arbitrator-party communication is questionable in most cases, I am not quite convinced enough that it has no place to be comfortable with a ban. Presuming innocence is one of those statements that is both unrealistic and hard to quantify. I would suggest instead that arbitrators keep an open mind, especially because occasionally people make it into power who probably should not have, and those people sometimes need to be kept in line. There are cases where people have a pattern of misbehavour, and it's not inherently problematic to treat things as such, provided one stays alert to other possibilities. I actually would tend to judge people in power a bit more harshly than normal editors because, having taken the position they have, they should know better. The retribution thing clause is very relevant and important, and I wouldn't need rules/guidelines to oppose retribution judgements. As for adequate explanation, I will strive to, time permitting, write a summary of my thoughts on each case and the judgement reached, as a supplement to the normal judgements reached, as an experiment in openness. More on the last bits of that proposed policy later. --Improv 17:56, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Finally, on decision guidelines, I think the no Ex Post Facto rules is a bad idea. It is useful to be able to learn from the present situation and set new precedent in a case, especially when it comes to how to interpret existing policy. This should largely be constrained to matters of interpretation though, not so much to actual new regulation, and the general spirit of avoiding rule revisionism should be an intent, even if an explicit policy is not a good way to get there. On Lese Magesty, there are plenty of fine lines that should be considered -- simply disagreeing with a decision should not be a big deal if it's done respectfully in a way and place that's not disruptive. Expressing an unwillingness to abide by arbcom decisions is very different, as are vandalism and allegations of serious abuse. Not knowing all the details behind it nor having investigated it very deeply, I am on first glance concerned about the recent Arbcom case where a user was sanctioned for simple disagreement with the committee's judgement, although I have not looked deeply enough into it to know if my concern is nothing or a problem. On the third part, I would be very reluctant to mandate userpage/talkpage content, and while I will not rule out the possibility of doing so, I will state that as of present I cannot imagine a circumstance where I would do so. --Improv 20:58, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wow, weird

I just noticed that the edit times for the three parts of my reply are done almost exactly three hours apart. Bizarre! --Improv 21:00, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Support Wikipedia:User Bill of Rights?

Do you support Wikipedia:User Bill of Rights? (SEWilco 05:36, 21 December 2005 (UTC))

No, I don't. Some of the rules seem to be better (such as 6 and especially 7) than others (virtually all the rest). --Improv 14:22, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Questions being asked by Titoxd to all candidates

How much of your Wikipedia time do you plan to spend on ArbCom business?

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?

To what extent would those projects be affected?

Tito xd^{(?!? - help us)} 06:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Answers:

I don't know. I suspect that, depending on the number of people on Arbcom and the feasability, Arbcom might reorganise itself a bit to make things go more smoothly. I have no idea how much of a burden it would be, either under current rules or under revised rules. Unless I knew, it'd be hard for me (or anyone else) to answer that question.
I am not presently involved with any deeply immersive projects. Mediation is a busy-notbusy kind of activity, but I don't see it being much affected. --Improv 07:20, 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 02:09, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

As to the first question, I've been struggling with this issue as part of a larger set of musings on wikipedia on my personal BLOG. It boils down to what we see as being prime guides for our actions, which has recently led to great controversy that you allude to throughout your questions.. The proper ranking of the following elements is the issue:

Jimbo's wishes/what jimbo is willing to declare by fiat rather than just argue for as a respected community member
Core policy
Goals of the project
Rules that we've lain down for ourselves
Respect for autonomy
Meritocratic judgement of individual editors (presumed to be aimed towards the goals of the project?)
Civility
Democracy of the now
Legal concerns

I understand that there is disagreement as to how we should structure these into how things are run, with different prominent members of the community weighing them differently. There are also concerns based on these values, like maintaining the integrity of the project against organised "invasion", whether that be from corporate marketingfolk, people who would use Wikipedia as the next Geocities (presumably voting to allow that en masse), etc. There are some cases where the democratic institutions may become twisted by organised subversion (the two above are not the only ways this could happen) whereby democracy doesn't work so well. Fortunately for us, we have a tradition of disregarding votes by particularly new users, and also fortunately for us, Jimbo does not get deeply involved in many disputes, so we haven't run into this much yet, thankfully.

All that being said, I have come to some conclusions as to how to rank them (note that these are specific to the wiki, and do not bear much resemblance to my real-life politics):

Jimbo's fiat is absolute. If he declares something to be so, the community should get in line or eject members who do not. He's our philosopher-king, and one of the two people we recognise as founders. He has further shown a history of good judgement. Besides, he runs the foundation and could turn off the project without much difficulty. :)
The law is a close second (although if it really comes to a conflict between Jimbo and the law, we should probably all leave the project). Exposing ourselves or Wikipedia to legal risk is not acceptable.
Core policy comes next. These are not-negotiable, cannot be voted on, and are the foundation of trust for the encyclopedia and its community. If it were to change significantly, a good number of people would probably give up on the project because these rules are foundational.
Keeping the project on-topic is very important (although it's difficult to separate from core policy cleanly). We don't want to slowly become the entire world-wide-web, google, or a web directory. We need to stay fairly close to topic (avoid creeping featurism)
Rules we've lain down for ourselves come next. Votes on specific matters are not an acceptable way to overturn decided policy. We should generally understand and obey these rules, and work to overturn them rather than IAR them. That said, some people have reasonable concerns that working with the current system to lay out new rules is an exercise in futility. I am undecided on the impact of that.
Looser, personal interpretations of project goals should come next. I suppose this puts me, in most cases, against use of IAR to justify everything, but permits its usage to defend core policy and keeping things on-topic.
Civility comes next. This does not mean bending over for the newbies, or to let people insert crap articles into wikipedia, but it does mean that when we are being firm, we should also be polite. Note that this notion of civility is different and more difficult than the limited civility mandated by the rules/policies. We should strive to outdo the minimum civility that's mandated.
Democracy of the now comes last (straw polls, etc). It's a good way to decide an issue that doesn't come down to matters of policy.

You will notice that respect for autonomy and meritocracy don't figure into my ranking. Personally I don't give the first more than token concern because I don't think it really is important on an encyclopedia. Other people disagree on that. I also don't give meritocracy specific weight because I don't think that experienced or long-time users should be able to throw their weight around in that way. Other people disagree on that. Long-time editors are more emotionally invested in the project, and may be presumed to have better judgement of its ends and knowledge of its policies, but only the judgement and knowledge are what have weight, not the length of the contributions itself (beyond a certain point, perhaps 3 months of registered editing). I am divorcing myself of a certain kind of pragmatism that I know some other editors have -- I think it is more important to be fair than to get the best contributions in the long run that we can.

Back to your specific question, I would never ignore Jimbo's fiat. If he decides something, it goes. Arbitration evolved out of Jimbo not being keen on handling all the judging stuff itself, and so I think of it as a devolved power from Jimbo. As such, it's up to Jimbo who is an arbitrator. If he decides to delegate that to the masses, or to consider their votes to be advice, that's his business. I don't think it's my place (or anyone else's) to tell him that the community will have someone removed. Wikipedia is not a democracy except to the extent Jimbo says it is, and I am comfortable with that so far.

On NPOV, I generally don't tend to edit that often on topics where my personal opinion comes into it, and I feel, as per my Rules of Thumb, that people should not be able to tell your politics by your edits. There have been a few times where I probably have done things roughly like you describe. For example, on God, at one point there was a section on neurological findings on belief that was removed because it was extremely POV and dismissive towards religion. I reworded it to be less POV and restored it, and with some negotiations with Codex Sinacticus, got it sufficiently neutral that he was comfortable with it. Eventually I came back to review it (I like to review areas where I've had conflict to make sure I feel I've done the right thing), and decided that I should not have restored it after all because it was off-topic for the page, so I left another note on the talk page and removed it. In real life, I'm a strict materialist and an atheist, and de-POVing (and eventually re-removing) the anti-religion stuff from God probably suggests I'm not a POV-pusher. My long history of edits should substantiate this (remember to check my old account, bypassing the redirect, too). --Improv 17:50, 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. 06:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

James, somebody else already asked this question. If you could scoot up a few entries, you'll find my responses to much of the spirit and specifics of your questions. Pledges are also problematic -- it is better to ask about people's judgement, not to bind them with promises that may be based on incomplete information. I want to comment particularly on your third question though. I feel that expanding the seats on Arbcom will likely only be productive if arbitrators become in the habit of not individually taking every case. Otherwise, having more arbitrators will not help things at all. That said, I think that adopting that habit would be a good idea combined with an expanded Arbcom. If we have enough people who are suited to Arbcom, splitting the load would be a good thing, and a bigger arbcom (maybe 20 members) would work. We don't want it to become too big though -- an ever-expanding arbcom would swiftly become a mess. --Improv 17:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Form question from Simetrical

What's your opinion on desysopping as an ArbCom penalty? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:47, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. That's an interesting question. I initially took it for granted, but I suppose I can see what the question is getting at -- is it appropriate for ArbCom to be able to apply a penalty that overturns what once was, presumably, consensus to apply a role and privileges to someone? Even more interesting, could Arbcom strip a bureaucrat or a steward of their role? I find myself wondering if the other language wikipediæ have their own ArbComs... I guess I'll just keep it simple and focus on admins. Admins are given a few additional abilities that normal editors don't have. Most editors don't have a particular need for the admin abilities -- as an example, I didn't seriously look into becoming an admin for several years on wikipedia because I didn't feel I needed the added tools or responsibility to contribute well to the encyclopedia. The tools are primarily intended to fight and prevent vandalism and protect the encyclopedia. However, the tools require good judgement and trustworthy use, because they can easily be abused. It has been rare that users have lost their admin privileges by any means on Wikipedia (hopefully this means that the judgement of the crowd that keeps an eye on RfAdmin is pretty good). However, just as it should be possible for something similar to RfAdmin to stip an admin of their power (hopefully for very good reason), I don't think it's an abuse for Arbcom to be able to do it as well. Arbcom is a powerful committee on Wikipedia, but its members are only powerful because they are presumably given a mandate by Jimbo and/or the community -- as far as I know there are no additional software-based privileges involved in being on Arbcom. I imagine Jimbo keeps an eye on Arbcom, and will always be capable of deciding if they've overstepped their bounds. I can't think of a principled reason that removing admin privileges should not be an available remedy for ArbCom, and while I am undecided if it should be limited to the cases where admin privileges were abused, I can certainly see that being an area where it can be fairly necessary in order to keep the project working. This is, however, a very interesting question, and if you want to put together an argument (use my talk page) that another way of thinking about it is better or if I've missed some critical line of reasoning, I may be swayable to another perspective. --Improv 07:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Currently, as you say, there is no effective community-consensus way to remove admin privileges from someone. The ArbCom is the only way. Given that the ArbCom never bars those it desysops from reapplying for admin status, how abusive do you think an admin should have to be before being removed? What exactly would abuse be, anyway? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC).

I think clear misuse of admin powers (by clear, I mean going well beyond the line of reasonable disagreement) would be a good case. As for other situations, I honestly haven't thought enough about it yet, as the previous question is what first got me thinking about it. My present inclinations are to be pretty shy about use of this penalty, considering it only if and after short-term blocks are not effective or for large breaches of community trust that admins would generally feel justified in using long-term bans for. --Improv 16:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Medcom

Quadell got me to think of a possible concern with being both on Medcom and Arbcom at the same time. There are issues with concentration of roles into too few a people, both for reasons that it could begin to resemble a cabal and that on the off chance I should be hit by a car, it would reduce fault-tolerance of the project too much. I therefore intend to take no new cases for MedCom, either resigning or becoming inactive once any cases I am handling at the time wrap up, while serving on ArbCom should I be elected. --Improv 23:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concerns over personal attack templates

User:Improv, who is also a candidate for the arbitration committee, has placed the following statement on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy):

I am concerned about templates surviving AfD that appear to contrast with established policy. In particular, I feel that these templates are Poisoning the well when it comes for how we treat our fellow wikipedians. There are circumstances where knowing too much about one's neighbours politicises how one deals with them. This is, to an extent, unavoidable in society, but wearing signs of hate as badges on our shoulders takes what is a small problem that we can usually deal with into the realm of being damaging to the community. Already, there have been signs of people refusing to help each other because they are on different ends of a political spectrum -- this seems likely to get worse if this trend continues. Some people cry that this is an attack on their first amendment rights (if they're American, anyhow), but that doesn't apply here because Wikipedia is not the U.S. government -- it is a community that has always self-regulated, and more importantly it is an encyclopedia with a goal of producing encyclopedic content. We have a tradition of respecting a certain amount of autonomy on userpages, but never absolute autonomy. We might imagine, for example, templates with little swastikas saying "this user hates jews". I am not saying that such a thing would be morally equivalent to this template against scientology, but rather that we should aim to minimise that aspect of ourselves, at least on Wikipedia, so we can make a better encyclopedia. The spirit of NPOV does not mean that we cannot have strong views and still be wikipedians, but rather that we should not wear signs of our views like badges, strive not to have our views be immediately obvious in what we edit and how we argue, and fully express ourselves in other places (Myspace? Personal webpage?) where it is more appropriate and less divisive. [4]

I am inviting all candidates, including Improv, to expand on this theme on their questions pages. Do you agree that this is a cause for concern as we move into 2006? How do you see the role of the arbitration committee in interpreting the interpretation of Wikipedia policy in the light of this concern? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:39, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a bit hard for me to expand on my thoughts because I think I've said most of my thoughts in the above paragraph. I do think it's a concern, yes, and that it has the chance to do considerable harm to the community. It would be better if userboxes had not not come about, because although I think the greater harm to the community is the long-term effect of userboxen, there is friction generated by their removal. I hope to find ways to prevent the damage that userboxes will do while causing minimal additional friction, which is why I hope a careful discussion can convince people to see them as harmful (although the possibility of convincing Jimbo to act is also worth considering). When it comes to Arbcom, I hope that a case like this never enters Arbitration, because although Arbitration is about dealing with grey areas with user conduct, I don't think that the particular grey areas involved are usually on interpretation of fuzzy areas of policy like this. There is a related matter where I believe ArbCom has spoken, which is on licensing issues (fair use in userspace), but that is, in my judgement, not fuzzy at all. Personally, I would probably seek the advice of Jimbo on the matter if such a case entered Arbitration (I sometimes ask advice of people I trust when I feel it might help), and in the end, I would consider the relevant policies (if they say anything), general core policies, and good of the project, and come to some sort of a decision based on that. Wikipedia is not exactly a democracy, it's a project that uses some democratic means to decide some policy. Given that our goal is not a democracy, we should not feel like we're being evil when we don't act like one in all respects. At the same time, having an open, careful, and honest discussion on policy is generally a good thing. So long as people don't assume that they'll always win if the discussion is "fair", they'll be more satisfied if there's at least a discussion, even if it's not a vote. It is, unfortunately, difficult to do that from ArbCom because by its nature it's differently structured (because it generally has different goals). It is my hope that at the very least, my plan to publish an opinion on every case will end up smoothing tensions (and possibly act as a springboard for further conversations that I hope I have the time for). (I should note that I'm not sure this answer is organised as much as I'd like -- I may come back and clean it up if I can find a way to make it a better answer) --Improv 05:06, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opinions

Your platform commits you to write an opinion on every case you are involved with. Given the increase in ArbCom workload, and the fact that even Supreme Court justices don't do this (instead more often than not endorsing other justice's opinions), don't you think this is too big a commitment? How much additional time do you think this will involve? --- Charles Stewart 21:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I will do my best to do it. I don't consider it as strongly binding as a promise, but I will endeavor to do so, at least partly for my own purposes. I believe in radical openness, and think that opinions would be useful both for the general public and for me. It would be good for the general public for transparency and because the consensus documents generally don't really capture any consistent single reasoning or contain an argument for what was decided. For me, it'd be immensely helpful should the need to revisit a past case come up (I understand it sometimes happens). As an added side benefit, the wikipedia public will possibly get a better understanding of the kinds of decisions ArbCom makes, so it can have a better handle on if it's working right, and if not, why. I suspect the burden on me would be less than most people because I write a lot on a regular basis, in my personal blog, for projects at work, and in other circumstances. In sum, it's important to me but if it doesn't end up working out, I will not do it. I don't know how much time it will take nor how long such opinions would end up being -- one might depend on the other. --Improv 04:26, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
- Would it seem too much time if you found yourself spending, say, a third or a half of the total time of your involvement in an ArbCom case drafting the opinion? --- Charles Stewart 05:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
  - I suspect the drafting the opinion would happen after the case is largely or completely closed, and I could imagine it happening a bit after so long as it's still fresh in my mind. I really don't think it's time so much as effort that decides if it'll be doable. The thing is, I'll be thinking about it while I'm getting ready to write it, and the actual time I use to write it could be quite brief. I wish I could give you a direct answer to your question, but I don't think about time that way, especially with regards to things I write. --Improv 05:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
    - I've supported your candidacy so far, but what you've said here has made me doubt that you have the time managment skills to be an effective ArbCom member. If you found yourself spending 60 hours a month on ArbCom and still felt that you were failing to do several cases justice, what would you do? --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 05:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
      - The cases obviously would take precedence over the opinions. If it turns out that I can't do the opinions justice, I either need to spend less time on them or stop doing them. If you're talking about things unrelated to opinions but instead to the core business of ArbCom, I would talk to the other arbitrators and see how they manage time, and make adjustments as necessary. I understand that I'm not being very specific here, but not having been an arbitrator before, I expect that if elected I will learn the ropes at that time, and will hopefully make decisions that are right for the role. --Improv 06:19, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
        
        OK, sounds fair. You're within 2% of 8th place, so you've got a fighting chance of putting your skills to the test... --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 06:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)