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Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/Loosmark/Questions

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General questions

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  1. Skills/interests: Which of the following tasks will you be prepared and qualified to perform regularly as an arbitrator? Your responses should indicate how your professional/educational background makes you suitable to the tasks.
    • (a) reviewing cases, carefully weighing up the evidence, and voting and commenting on proposed decisions;
    • (b) drafting proposed decisions for consideration by other arbitrators;
    • (c) voting on new requests for arbitration (on the requests page) and motions for the clarification or modification of prior decisions;
    • (d) considering appeals from banned or long-term-blocked users, such as by serving on the Ban Appeals Subcommittee or considering the Subcommittee's recommendations;
    • (e) overseeing the allocation and use of checkuser and oversight permissions, including the vetting and community consultation of candidates for them, and/or serving on the Audit Subcommittee or reviewing its recommendations;
    • (f) running checkuser checks (arbitrators generally are given access to CU if they request it) in connection with arbitration cases or other appropriate requests;
    • (g) carrying out oversight or edit suppression requests (arbitrators are generally also given OS privileges);
    • (h) drafting responses to inquiries and concerns forwarded to the Committee by editors;
    • (i) interacting with the community on public pages such as arbitration and other talk pages;
    • (j) performing internal tasks such as coordinating the sometimes-overwhelming arbcom-l mailing list traffic.
    A:
  2. Stress: How will you be able to cope with the stress of being an arbitrator, potentially including on- and off-wiki threats and abuse, and attempts to embarrass you by the public "outing" of personal information?
    A:
  3. Principles: Assume the four principles linked to below are directly relevant to the facts of a new case. Would you support or oppose each should it be proposed in a case you are deciding, and why? A one- or two-sentence answer is sufficient for each. Please regard them in isolation rather than in the context of their original cases.
  4. Strict versus lenient: Although every case is different and must be evaluated on its own merits, would you side more with those who tend to believe in second chances and lighter sanctions, or with those who support a greater number of bans and desysoppings? What factors might generally influence you? Under what circumstances would you consider desysopping an admin without a prior ArbCom case?
    A: This should be evaluated on a case by case basis. I believe in second chances for those editors who are here to create content. For those I would give a second chance and probably a third, fourth and fifth as well. On the other hand those people who use wikipedia as a battleground, create dramas non-stop, who engage in personal vendettas and similar behavior should be dealed strictly. But mind in principle I am not a big fan of topic bans and especially of widely constructed topic bans. As for desysoppings, I fully support the desyopping of problematic admins, wikipedia has a tragic problem there which is twofold: 1) the RfA process sucks 2) it's literally impossible to desyop an admin.  Dr. Loosmark  21:10, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  5. ArbCom and policies: Do you agree or disagree with this statement: "ArbCom should not be in the position of forming new policies, or otherwise creating, abolishing or amending policy. ArbCom should rule on the underlying principles of the rules. If there is an area of the rules that leaves something confused, overly vague, or seemingly contrary to common good practice, then the issue should be pointed out to the community". Please give reasons.
    A: That's a really difficult question to answer. At the moment I think I am leaning more towards disagreeing. In an ideal situation I would agree however the problem on wikipedia is that the community has become so big that is usually unable to reach consensus apart from the really most clear case situations. Juts take the recent flagged revisions, what was the result of the recent test? Hell I don't know, I followed the discussions for awhile but everything got stuck and I got tired of following it. Now, I think it would be best to form some sort a body, elected by the community, who would deal with policies. But until then ArbCom should have the power to amend policy.  Dr. Loosmark  20:57, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Conduct/content: ArbCom has historically not made direct content rulings, e.g., how a disputed article should read. To what extent can ArbCom aid in content disputes? Can, and should, the Committee establish procedures by which the community can achieve binding content dispute resolution in the event of long-term content disputes that the community has been unable to resolve?
    A: The reality of the situation is that most of the cases which end up before the ArbCom are based on heavy content disputes. In my opinion the big problem is there simply aren't enough uninvolved admins who are motivated to engage in those hotly disputed areas. What happens then is by the time the case arrives before the Arbs it becomes such a complicated mess it's almost impossible to solve without a huge amount of work and an even bigger amount of drama.  Dr. Loosmark  20:44, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Success in handling cases: Nominate the cases from 2010 you think ArbCom handled more successfully, and those you think it handled less successfully? Please give your reasons.
    A: I have followed 3 or 4 cases closely and lets just say that the performance of the ArbCom wasn't exactly stellar. Maybe the global warning case was a bit better than others since at least they have finally done something about it.  Dr. Loosmark  20:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Proposals for change? What changes, if any, in how ArbCom works would you propose as an arbitrator, and how would you work within the Committee towards bringing these changes about?
    A: I described one idea somewhere bellow.

Individual questions

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This section is for individual questions asked to this specific candidate. Each eligible voter may ask a limit of one "individual" question by posting it below. The question should:

  • be clearly worded and brief, with a limit of 75 words in display mode;
  • be specific to this candidate (the same individual question should not be posted en masse onto candidates' pages);
  • not duplicate other questions (editors are encouraged to discuss the merging of similar questions);

Election coordinators will either remove questions that are inconsistent with the guidelines or will contact the editor to ask for an amendment. Editors are, of course, welcome to post questions to candidates' user talk pages at any time.

Please add the question under the line below using the following format:

  1. Question:
    A:
  1. Question by Tony1:I very much like your priority of reducing "noise" on evidentiary pages. What do you think will be the key challenges in doing so? Tony (talk) 12:14, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    A: Hi, Tony. The main problem, at least based on some cases I have observed, was the Arbs didn't even bother to react to the noise. (Other than some token general statement here and there). And if the Arbs apparently don't care then it's only natural that the clerks don't feel like exposing themselves either.
    IMO if we want to improve the situation we should start from the Arbs. They should be much more active in promptly indicating what kind of information is useful and what is useless noise. The clerks would then be more motivated to do the job and reduce the noise. It goes without saying that the ArbCom should then protect the clerks from any possible harassment/retaliations.  Dr. Loosmark  13:53, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Question from Shooterwalker It's pretty bold to even consider ruling on policy. But it's honest. When do you think ArbCom should get involved in a policy ruling, and on what basis should ArbCom set policy (in your mind)? How can ArbCom resolve policy disputes that have resulted in no consensus, in way that represents or collaborates with the community instead of acting like a philosopher king? Shooterwalker (talk) 22:40, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    A:Don't get me wrong, I don't think the ArbCom should now to start to dictate policies or anything. The ArbCom should just rule in favor of certain policies in some critical cases when the community seems to be stuck and unable to express a clear consensus, and when waiting is not really an option. But as I have stated somewhere above I believe wikipedia desperately needs a special elected body which would deal primarily with policies. The community has just become so big that reaching a clear consensus on my issues has become extremely difficult.  Dr. Loosmark  13:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Discussion of this answer is located at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/Loosmark/Questions#Discussion_of_question_from_Shooterwalker
  3. Question from Sam Blacketer: Your idea of investigating the circumstances of cases instead of relying on the evidence presented by the parties is worth pursuing, but can you give more information on how you see it working? Would it be a private report to the committee or an open process on which the parties (and third parties) could comment? Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:05, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    A: In my view the report should be public and posted on the case page. The system should work as follows: there would be a pool of editors who would be willing to do this job and who would have the trust of the community (either elected or whatever). They would have a noticeboard. Now whenever a case would open an Arb could come to this board requesting a, lets call it, "report of facts". The job of these "investigators" would be simply to try to report the facs/events as neutrally as possible and in correct sequence as they happened (that's important). They would not write any opinions, make no judgment calls or suggest sanctions or anything of the kind. They would simply report facts. All Arbs could request an additional report by another investigator or a more narrow one about any specific aspect of a case. The Arbs would get the report(s) but then it would up to them to what degree would they use it in their decision making process.
    A: In general the idea is that the reports are as much as possible facts so there is not much to comment about them, and whoever of the involved parties would try to attack facts would simply undermine his own position.
    A: Finally I think a whole system could be set up, for example one option is that whoever wants to become an Arb should first do this "report of facts" for say 1 year or 5 or 10 cases.  Dr. Loosmark  16:51, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Question by HerkusMonte: On 8th of November you deleted your talkpage[1] and announced you're not interested in this project anymore. What or who changed your mind? HerkusMonte (talk) 15:18, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    A: To be precise I did not say that I am not interested in the project anymore but rather that I don't want to be a part of it. The reason was I very frustrated by how the ArbCom handled the situation of an Arb retiring/disappearing; they did not even bother to announce to the community what happened or at least that he retired. When I inquired about it, the answer I got from one of the Arbs was it has nothing to do with the ArbCom which left me speechless. I was very frustrated but then it occurred to me that I could try to improve some things.  Dr. Loosmark  16:11, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Question from Offliner: In your signature you call yourself Dr. Loosmark. Dr is used as a designation for a person who has obtained a doctorate-level degree. The press fried Wikipedia when it emerged that arbitrator Essjay claimed false credentials (including a doctorate degree in theology). The question is, do you really have a doctorate degree and in what discipline? Offliner (talk) 18:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    A: Hi, Offliner. It's just a humorous nick which some friends teasingly gave after Il Dottore because allegedly I was talking some non sequitur. Don't worry, I am not intending to claim false credentials ala Essjay. Btw Offliner, I couldn't help but to notice that in your "voter guide", among other things, you are claiming that I have "grievances with many different editors and admins" and that I have "zero experience in dispute resolution". You are of course very entitled to have your opinion but I can assure you that I don't have any grievances against anybody, my only grievance is with the wikipedia dispute resolute system which is broken. Editors are for the most part victims of a bad system. Also, I am a member of 3 WikiProjects where we are quite successful in dealing with disputes.  Dr. Loosmark  19:51, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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