Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/Kww

Kww

Formalities out of the way first: I'm in my fifties and use my real name. I have no alternate accounts. I'll identify myself formally to those that require it.

I've been on Wikipedia for 6 years, and an admin for about 40 months. I've always been disturbed by Arbcom's ability to miss the point and ignore obvious implications of all issues brought before it, and my primary goal is to change that.
This year, I'm even more disturbed by the rack of candidates running. Some of the names here would do more damage to Wikipedia than I can conceive of. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the structure of Arbcom or the flow of our processes, I think the problem is a people problem: we have the wrong people in Arbcom. We shouldn't elect more of them.
I'm not nice. I've never pretended to be. But most people that make an honest evaluation of my efforts will see that I'm fair. I don't tolerate misbehaviour, no matter how glorious of a copywriter someone may be. I don't tolerate socking, even by people that are socking to support my own positions.

I realize that I have neglected to mention User:Kww-newbie and User:Kww-newbie2, both of which were used for testing the user experience for newly created accounts when I was testing the patch to disable Visual Editor.

Candidates are advised to answer each of these questions completely but concisely. Candidates may refuse to answer any questions that they do not wish to, with the understanding, however, that not answering a question may be perceived negatively by the community.

Note that disclosure of your account history, pursuant to the ArbCom selection and appointment policy, must be made in your opening statement, and is not an optional question.

General questions

What skills and experience, both on Wikipedia and off, will you bring to the Arbitration Committee if elected?
Externally, I am a computer professional, and have a wealth of technical experience in that area. On-wiki, I have been generally involved dealing with socks and ban evasion.
What experience have you had with the Wikipedia dispute resolution processes, both formal and informal? Please discuss any arbitration cases, mediations, or other dispute-resolution forums in which you have participated.
I've been involved in several Arbcom cases, in roles ranging from target to evidence-providing-bystander to collateral damage. Most recently I was dragged into the whole Manning naming issue because I made the mistake of volunteering to help close the requested move discussion.
Every case is evaluated on its own merits ... but as a general matter, do you think you would you side more often with those who support harsher sanctions (bans, topic-bans, desysoppings, etc.) against users who have misbehaved, or would you tend to be on the more lenient side? What factors might generally influence your votes on sanctions?
I tend towards the harsh side, but, at the same time, I tend towards fairly rigid standards for misbehaviour: I generally won't sanction someone that hasn't clearly and intentionally done wrong.
Please disclose any conflicting interests, on or off Wikipedia, that might affect your work as an arbitrator (such as by leading you to recuse in a given type of case).
Like most people, I have an employer, so I shouldn't get involved in cases where that became a factor. It hasn't ever come up. I probably would have to recuse myself in cases where Kirill Lokshin was involved, despite the fact that he doesn't seem to feel he should extend me the same courtesy.
Arbitrators are elected for two-year terms. Are there any circumstances you anticipate might prevent you from serving for the full two years?
None that I anticipate.
Identify a recent case or situation that you believe the ArbCom handled well, and one you believe it did not handle well. For the latter, explain what you might have done differently.
The Muhammad images case was interesting, and not badly handled. I firmly disagree with the final result, in that I think that as an encyclopedia, we are obligated to give no consideration to religious-based objections to our content. The process used was not that bad, though: the truly obnoxious editors championing censorship were admonished or banned, those of us that talked about it a lot were cautioned not to be like those two, and the fundamental question was thrown to an RFC. That the community failed to get the right answer in the RFC isn't Arbcom's fault, and I'm not certain that I would want them to be more forceful about generating the right answer.
The Manning case was handled poorly: Lokshin's effort to railroad the decision into sanctioning people that had upheld policy and rewarding those that had abused their positions nearly succeeded. As a result, the Arbcom case was nearly as acrimonious as the original dispute. In the end, Arbcom came to nearly the right answer, but it wasn't the best of paths to get there.
The ArbCom has accepted far fewer requests for arbitration (case requests) recently than it did in earlier years. Is this a good or bad trend? What criteria would you use in deciding whether to accept a case?
In general, the less Arbcom inserts itself into, the better.
What changes, if any, would you support in ArbCom's procedures? How would you try to bring them about?
Its procedures don't tend to be problematic. It's a people problem, not a process problem.
What changes, if any, would you support in ArbCom's overall role within the project? Are responsibilities properly divided today among the ArbCom, the community, and the WMF office? Does the project need to establish other governance committees or mechanisms in addition to ArbCom?
As above, it's a people problem, not a process problem.
It is often stated that "the Arbitration Committee does not create policy, and does not decide content disputes." Has this been true in practice? Should it be true? Are there exceptions?
I certainly think that Arbcom can take positions on policy. One of the reasons things get to Arbcom is because our policies surrounding the events are unclear, and it would be ludicrous to expect them to explain decisions without making reference as to what portions of policy they found irrelevant, unclear, or impeding what they perceived as a just result. Based on my general distrust of Arbcom's ability to get the point of the material laid in front of them, I don't trust them to directly modify policy. I have no problem with Arbcom starting RFCs that recommend changes in policy, and that's generally how I would like to see it done.
What role, if any, should ArbCom play in implementing or enforcing the biographies of living persons policy?
It needs to make it clear that WP:BLP does not mandate that we obey people's wishes about how they should be portrayed, it mandates that we follow sources about how people should be portrayed, and fall back on people's wishes when necessary. There's been a disturbing trend over the years to honor people's desires even when that results in us distorting things.
Sitting arbitrators are generally granted automatic access to the checkuser and oversight userrights on request during their terms. If elected, will you request these permissions? How will you use them?
I will certainly request those permissions. Since most of my administrative work involves dealing with sockpuppeting, I anticipate using checkuser in support of that.
Unfortunately, many past and present arbitrators have been subject to "outing" and off-wiki harassment during their terms. If this were to happen to you, would you be able to deal with it without damage to your real-world circumstances or to your ability to serve as an arbitrator?
My real world identitity is already known.
Should the Arbitration Committee retain records that include non-public information (such as checkuser data and users' real-life identities) after the matter the information originally related to is addressed? Why or why not?
Only for a short time. There's no reason to expect years-old evidence to suddenly become useful, but burning it two nanoseconds after the case is decided is probably an overreaction as well.
Under what circumstances, if any, should the Arbitration Committee take action against a user based on evidence that has not been shared with that user? That has not been shared with the community as a whole?
Rarely, but it is reasonable to do if the evidence itself creates a hazard to either party. The community has held outing to be a serious offense, and needs to recognize that in some circumstances, revealing evidence forces outing.

Individual questions

Please ask your individual questions here. While there is no limit on the number of questions that may be asked, please try to keep questions relevant. Try to be as clear and concise as possible, and avoid duplicating questions that have already been asked.

Add your questions below the line using the following markup:

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Questions from ColonelHenry

You indicate that you were unhappy with how the Manning case progressed, how would you have directed it differently? How would you have interpreted the policies that were at issue? Why do you agree with the results despite your differences over how they were reached?
I think Kirill's efforts to railroad the case to an indefensible conclusion were so obvious that his contributions to the draft should have been completely replaced. There was no need to dignify them by voting against them.

This response does not answer my question.--ColonelHenry (talk) 05:15, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly wasn't intended to be evasive. I was one of the three admins that closed the move request before the Arbcom case was opened. In general, I feel that correct interpretation of our policies favours views that look at other sources and follow them. Our policies also clearly favour honouring people's self-identification. As a result of this tension, none of the actual activities of moving the article in either direction are clear, black-letter law policy violations. Policy and behaviour problems didn't begin until people started to move-war, use tools to protect favoured positions, and hurl insults and accusations at people. Kirill's first pass at handling it was a biased travesty, and it wasn't until AGK began to work against him that the Arbcom case began to correctly reflect the issues in the case. The eventual result cut through that thicket reasonably well, sanctioning the most egregious of misbehaviour from both sides.

In terms of the final result of where the article wound up, I see the appropriate location as having shifted over time. The attempt to move it instantaneously was wrong, as it put us in the position of being ahead of other sources. Having it at "Chelsea" now is correct, as that is where sources have moved to. If people hadn't moved it instantaneously and had waited for sources to shift, the move would have been much less contentious and the article would have wound up at "Chelsea" weeks earlier than it actually did.—Kww(talk) 16:01, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Rschen7754

I use the answers to these questions to write my election guide. There is a large correlation between the answers to the questions and what the final result is in the guide, but I also consider other factors as well. Also, I may be asking about specific things outside the scope of ArbCom; your answers would be appreciated regardless.

The questions are similar to those I asked in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012; if you've already answered them, feel free to borrow from those, but make sure the question has not been reworded.

What is your view on the length of time that it took for the case Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tree shaping?
It seems quite long. You ask this one every year: is there some particular thing you think this particular slow case identifies that you would like me to specifically address?

Actually, next year I am changing the case. :) --Rs chen 7754 04:15, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What is the purpose of a WikiProject? b) What is the relationship between stewardship of WikiProject articles and WP:OWN? c) What should be done when there is conflict between WikiProject or subject "experts" and the greater community?
A)To bring together a group of users with a common interest with an eye towards improving coverage of an area and coming to a consensus about how Wikipedia guidelines and policies shape coverage of a topic area. B)It can be a problem. Some Wikiprojects work pretty well, some attempt to subvert policies and guidelines to favor inclusion of material and absolute control of material. C) Wikiprojects have been forcibly disbanded before, and may be again.
Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with "vested contributors"? Why or why not? If there is a problem, what is to be done about it?
Of course it does. I don't really know what can be done about it so long as people are willing to buy into the notion that good content contribution can excuse bad behaviour.
a) Do you believe that "it takes two to tango" in some circumstances? In every circumstance? b) Would you consider mitigating the sanctions on one user given the actions of another? Eliminating them entirely?
There's a continuum. There's an unfortunate tendency to excuse bad behaviour based on flimsy pretexts, but there have been cases where one user's chronic harassment of another has to be taken into consideration. In general, though, I think a willingness to maintain good behaviour while dealing with a problematic user is a part of what's needed to edit here. Extreme provocation can occasionally mitigate minor misbehaviour, but only rarely, and only slightly.
zOMG ADMIN ABUSE!!!!!!! When do you believe that it is appropriate for ArbCom to accept a case, or act by motion, related to either a) abuse of the tools, or b) conduct unbecoming of an administrator?
When there's a good faith reason to believe that either one has occurred.
What is the relationship of the English Wikipedia (enwp) ArbCom to other Wikimedia sites, "Wikimedia" IRC, and so-called "badsites" or sites dedicated to the criticism of Wikipedia? Specifically, what do you define as the "remit" of ArbCom in these areas?
I think IRC falls squarely in Arbcom's remit, despite its reluctance to step up to the plate in that regard. Off-wiki behaviour can certainly be considered when dealing with motivation statements: an editor that claims he is dealing only with a content issue that can be shown to be bragging off-wiki about how he is humiliating another editor shouldn't expect that we are going to pretend to believe him because the bragging occurred off-wiki.
What is your definition of "outing"?
Pretty standard: tying someone's on-Wikipedia identity and off-Wikipedia identities together in a way that he has not.
What is your opinion as to how the CU/OS tools are currently used, both here on the English Wikipedia, and across Wikimedia (if you have crosswiki experience)?
The CU tool is clearly underused: our policies restricting its usage need to be reviewed and relaxed.
Have you been in any content disputes in the past? (If not, have you mediated any content disputes in the past?) Why do you think that some content disputes not amicably resolved?
Certainly I have participated and mediated. They won't always get resolved because this is the real world: not all parties have common grounds.
Nearly 10 years from the beginning of the Arbitration Committee, what is your vision for its future?
I would like to see it return to being the pinnacle of the dispute resolution process and shed most of its add-on functions like BASC.
Have you read the WMF proposal at m:Access to nonpublic information policy (which would affect enwiki ArbCom as well as all CU/OS/steward positions on all WMF sites)? Do you anticipate being able to meet the identification requirement (keeping in mind that the proposal is still in the feedback stage, and may be revised pending current feedback)?
I see no obstacles to compliance.

Thank you. Rs chen 7754 02:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Mark Arsten

What do you think of the way that BLP is enforced on Wikipedia right now? Does the community generally do a good job? Are there any recent situations that you think were handled poorly?
In general, it's handled quite poorly. Too many people are under the impression that our BLP policies mandate following a subject's wishes in any number of areas. Our BLP policies mandate that we hold the wishes of subjects in respect and give them due consideration when we make editorial decisions, but not that we blindly follow them. To do so is to risk becoming a public-relations organ, not an encyclopedia.

Questions from Collect

I also use these questions in my voter guide, and the latter four were actually general questions asked in 2012, which I asked be used again.

An arbitrator stated during a case "I will merely say that now arbitration of the dispute has became necessary, it is exceedingly unlikely that we would be able to close the case without any sanctions. Problematic articles inevitably contain disruptive contributors, and disruptive contributors inevitably require sanctions." Do you feel that once a case is opened that impartial arbitrators will "inevitably" have to impose sanctions?
"Inevitable" is too strong, but there is a pretty strong correlation between finding grounds to open a case in the first place and someone needing sanctions of some kind (even if it's just an "admonishment" level sanction). Opening a case and then not doing anything is a sign that case shouln't have been opened in the first place.
Do sanctions such as topic bans require some sort of finding about the editor being sanctioned based on at least a minimum amount of actual evidence about that person, or is the "cut the Gordian knot" approach of "Kill them all, the Lord will know his own" proper?
There are some ethnic disputes where I could conceive of taking the position that both sides were equally wrong. The attitude that it's proper to mete out indiscriminate punishment isn't reasonable, though.
Do you feel that "ignoring evidence and workshop pages" can result in a proper decision by the committee" (I think that for the large part, the evidence and workshop phases were ignored in this case is a direct quote from a current member about a case) Will you commit to weighing the evidence and workshop pages in making any decisions?
I will certainly review the evidence and workshop pages, certainly. I can't promise that I will invariably find the contents of the pages relevant to the arbitration.
Past Cases: The Arbitration Committee has historically held that prior decisions and findings were not binding in any future decisions or findings. While this may have been wise in the early years of Wikipedia, is any avoidance of stare decisis still a valid position? How should former cases/decisions be considered, if at all?
I don't know of any judicial system that permits stare decisis to be a straightjacket, so, in that sense, previous decisions should not be binding. That doesn't mean that subsequent decisions shouldn't be informed by previous decisions, and, when a new decision represents a major break with the past, Arbcom needs to figure out what to do about the past.
The "Five Pillars" essay has been mentioned in recent discussions. Ought it be used in committee findings, or is it of explanatory rather than of current direct importance to Wikipedia?
Explanatory. In general, I find that discussions that devolve down to being based on the five pillars are discussions where people are simply convinced they are right and are unable to provide any meaningful evidence to support that belief.
Biographical articles (not limited to BLPs) form a substantial part of conduct issues placed before the committee. Without getting the committee involved in individual content issues, and without directly formulating policy, how should the committee weigh such issues in future principles, findings and decisions?
Conduct surrounding biographies tends to be problematic because people take them personally, attempting to defend or attack the subject in a way that they don't on most other issues. That doesn't make the underlying issues any different: well sourced information belongs in articles, poorly sourced information doesn't, and editors that can't make themselves behave while discussing the difference need to be dealt with.
"Factionalism" (specifically not "tagteam" as an issue) has been seen by some as a problem on Wikipedia (many different names for such factions have been given in the past). Do you believe that factionalism is a problem? Should committee decisions be affected by evidence of factionalism, in a case or around an article or articles? If the committee makes a finding that "factions" exist as part of a conduct issue, how should factionalism be treated in the remedies to the case?
To ignore factionalism is to ignore reality. I think it has two impacts:
I) We have to recognise that some conflicts will never be resolved. An Arbcom resolution will do nothing about Palestine or Macedonia.
II) We have to recognize that some "evidence" is produced through highly selective cherry-picking, and expect Arbcom to do due diligence in collecting the whole picture.

Thank you. Collect (talk) 13:01, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Questions by Gerda Arendt

Thank you for volunteering.

Basic first question of three: please describe what happens in this diff. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What's happening with that diff is that Gerda Arendt is trying to trap me into making a brief statement on a complicated issue. There's a constant tension between "it's one encyclopedia, so all articles should look like they came from the same place" and "every topic area has the right to set a set of formatting standards that suit the topic area well." I don't think we've hashed that out well in the collision between "an infobox for everything" and the objections of the classical music project to infoboxes. I haven't paid enough attention to the issue to decide what I think the right answer is.
Sorry to be impolite, but you are wrong. I only try to find out if a candidate will look at facts instead of assumptions. Will you, please? It's a very simple diff, not a complicated issue, and others (most but not all) were able. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
On a technical level, an infobox is being moved from an unusual location (collapsed at the end of the article) to a more normal one. An image is being moved from the article to go inside it, but the editor used an incorrect syntax, so the image has effectively been deleted.
You observed well. The image was back with the next edit. - Question 2 of 3: imagine you are an arb on a case, and your arb colleague presents the above diff as support for his reasoning to vote for banning the editor, - what do you do? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Investigate the context of the edit. While innocuous on the surface, if the edit was made in furtherance of a disputed position (say, for example, a long-running edit war over whether classical music articles should have infoboxes or not), it may be that the editor deserves some form of sanction for intentionally editing against consensus.
Good idea, to investigate the context. (Concerning your clause: there had been a long-running edit war over whether classical music articles should have infoboxes or not, that started long before my time on Wikipedia. A discussion on Robert Stoepel had lead to an infobox for that composer, Planyavsky got one following the example. "intentionally editing against consensus" seems not quite the right description for an edit restoring it, in keeping with the wish of the article's author, - something considered so important if the wish is against an infobox.) - Last question: imagine further that after said arb voted to ban the editor, and an equal number of arbs voted against it, it's your turn to cast the one and final vote that will ban or not. Will you? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:52, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Questions by Ealdgyth

You said above "The Muhammad images case was interesting, and not badly handled. I firmly disagree with the final result, in that I think that as an encyclopedia, we are obligated to give no consideration to religious-based objections to our content. The process used was not that bad, though: the truly obnoxious editors championing censorship were admonished or banned, those of us that talked about it a lot were cautioned not to be like those two, and the fundamental question was thrown to an RFC. That the community failed to get the right answer in the RFC isn't Arbcom's fault, and I'm not certain that I would want them to be more forceful about generating the right answer." I'm curious about why you disagree with both the final result of the case and with the final result of the RFC? If you had been on the Committee - what might you have done differently?
I think that arguments based on religious grounds are irrelevant to a secular project, and Arbcom could have gone further in support of that position prior to initiating the RFC to determine the content issue.

Thank you for your answer. I may have a question or two tomorrow - your candidacy is causing me some issues as I like large parts of your viewpoint but your views on civility are diametrically different (not opposed, just different) enough that I'm greatly concerned to support you. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:12, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Tryptofish

What are your views about possible changes to procedures concerning the confidentiality of communications on the arbcom-l e-mail list, as proposed at the bottom of this draft page and in this discussion?

Question from Sceptre

Between allowing a fringe POV pusher to roam free in Sexology, the massive embarrassment of the Manning dispute, and ArbCom instructing admins to undelete libel (see Jimbo's talk page), how would you seek to repair Wikipedia's reputation amongst LGBT–especially transgender–lay-readers?
That question assumes facts not in evidence. I welcome pointers to the POV pusher and the instructions to undelete libel, but the Manning debacle was not caused by Wikipedia as a whole: it was caused by David Gerard forgetting that Wikipedia follows sources and never leads them, no matter how noble the intent. I would hope that reasonable members of the LGBT community that followed the issue noted that processes eventually worked in the way that you would expect an encyclopedia's processes to work.

Question from User:SirFozzie

First off, thank you for volunteering. I note that you say in your statement "I'm not nice". To some people, that means that you may have a problem maintaining the proper decorum required of being an Arbitrator. Do you think you have to be "nice" to deal with the amount of abuse that comes with the role?
It's a mistake to confuse niceness with lack of decorum. I think you would be hard put to find a case where I have demonstrated a lack of decorum.

Question from Newyorkbrad

In response to both BLP questions above (general #11 and Mark Arsten), you express concern that Wikipedia is too accommodating toward article subjects' desires about their biographies. In fact, this is the only BLP issue you identify. I will grant that unduly positive or sanitized BLPs do exist. Nonetheless, it is jarring to see you respond not once but twice to open-ended questions about BLP policy by emphasizing that we mustn't be too ready to act on input from article subjects, without any mention that we must also remain committed to ensuring that articles are kept free of defamatory, unsourced negative, unduly privacy-invading, and unduly weighted material. This is the type of material that, if kept in an article on our exceptionally prominent site, has the potential to actively damage people's lives. In this, the year of the Qworty fiasco, do you really think that the greatest problem we face in the BLP arena is that we are too considerate of our article subjects? Whether or not you are elected as an arbitrator, will you rethink your approach to this issue?
If we simply treated detailed and balanced sourcing of everything as mandatory, BLPs would be taken care of quite nicely. I've been around long enough and been vocal enough that I do tend to take as a given that people realize that I believe that only well-sourced material should be in any article, and support the removal of unsourced material from BLPs, defamatory or not. That said, I also favor removal of unsourced material from articles about butterflies, fish, cartoon characters, and any other topic you can name. The mistake was in ever carving off BLPs as needing special treatment in regard to sourcing, because it makes too many people think that it gives them permission to be slip-shod in regard to sourcing other articles. Every article should follow the requirements of WP:V and be based on material found in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Every article.
By way of follow-up, I understand what you are saying about valid sourcing as an essential element for both BLP and non-BLP articles (your views on that topic start out from policy and good practice, though I consider them idiosyncratically exaggerated and applied). What about BLP problems apart from sourcing. A significant number of BLP issues resolve around the question of whether content that is sourced and presumptively accurate should nonetheless be omitted because it gives undue weight to a single aspect of a subject, because it unfairly infringes on someone's personal privacy without compensating encyclopedic value, and so forth. I am still concerned that your emphasis on not honoring subjects' wishes as the core BLP issue facing Wikipedia today is insensitive to these points, and invite you to comment further if you wish.
Again, my feeling is that applying our general policies fairly and stringently would eliminate the vast majority of problems. WP:UNDUE prevents us from unreasonably emphasizing one attribute of a subject. It's difficult to find reliable secondary sources for truly private information, so that issue comes up less often than it is generally portrayed as. I was asked what I think the biggest problem facing BLP enforcement is and where Arbcom should insert itself. I continue to believe it to be misapplication and excessive deference to the subject's wishes. That doesn't mean that I think that our BLP policy needs to be eliminated. It's reasonable and rational to avoid dubious claims of criminal acts, assertions of scandal, and similar material. The community has those issues well in hand. We have disputes and differences of opinion on how to deal with things, but the community resolves most of those things fairly readily once an issue is brought to light. The intractable disputes center around the cases where the material is well-sourced and obviously true but there is an effort to suppress it either by a group of editors or by the subject directly. Since intractable disputes tend to rise to Arbcom level, that's where the problems relevant to Arbcom lie.

Question from Piotrus

(Note borrowed from Rschen7754): The questions are similar to those I asked in 2012. If you've already answered them, feel free to borrow from those, but make sure the question has not been reworded.

when would you see a full site ban (full block) as a better choice then a limited ban (interaction, topic, etc.)?
Limited bans are worth a try when the misbehaviour is clearly limited in scope and the editor seems to have a genuine desire to work on the project rather than to fulfill a specific agenda.
wnumerous ArbCom (also, admin and community) decisions result in full site bans (of varying length) for editors who have nonetheless promised they will behave better. In essence, those editors are saying "let me help" and we are saying "this project doesn't want your help". How would you justify such decisions (blocking editors who promised to behave), against an argument that by blocking someone who has promised to behave better we are denying ourselves his or her help in building an encyclopedia? What is the message we are trying to send? (You may find this of interest in framing your reply)
I tend not to worry much about what people promise to do, only what they actually do do.
to an extent we can compare the virtual wiki world to the real world, what legal concept would you compare a full site ban to? (As in, an interaction ban is to a restraining order what a full site ban is to...?)
exile.
The United States justice model has the highest incarceration rate in the world (List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate). Is something to applaud or criticize?
That's a false dichotomy. It's something to observe and understand first.
a while ago I wrote a mini wiki essay on when to block people (see here). Would you agree or disagree with the views expressed there, and why?
It doesn't reflect my thinking well, as it focuses on the "net positive"/"net gain" logic. My view is that acceptable behaviour is close to a binary decision while content quality is a far more nuanced situation. It's not possible to weigh the two against each other.
I respect editors privacy with regards to their name. I however think that people entrusted with significant power, such as Arbitrators, should disclose to the community at least their age, education and nationality. In my opinion such a disclosure would balance the requirements for privacy (safeguarding Arbitrators from real life harassment), while giving the community a better understanding of background and maturity of those entrusted with such a significant power. Would you be therefore willing to disclose your age, education and nationality? If not, please elaborate why.
I think your focus on nationality is misplaced: I've been a permanent resident of three countries and a short-term resident of a fourth, and was born in a country that I was never a citizen of. Why does that matter? My other details are all public, and I tend to think our focus on pseudonymous editing is a mistake.

Thank you, --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:38, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question from User:MONGO

Please detail your most significant Featured or Good article contributions. GAN, FAC or even Peer Review contributions qualify as evidence of teamwork in bringing an article(s) to a higher level of excellence.
The only FAC I'm credited with is Natalee Holloway. Most of my major content contributions have been in the form of templates supporting the music chart area, such as {{singlechart}}, the rack of Billboard-related templates ({{BillboardURLbyName}},{{BillboardID/A}}..{{BillboardID/Z}}, and User:Chartbot.

Question from Sportsguy17

Is this actually a good solution, or do you think you may handle it differently as an arbitrator?
I think we need to look closely at out-of-policy unblocks. Any unblock of an editor that has stated he has no intention of following our policies is out of bounds for any administrator, regardless of which policy it is and how that admin may feel about it.

Question from Anthonyhcole

Back in 2007 and 2008 in discussions about the title, you misrepresented the consensus regarding the preferred title for Natalee Holloway. See Talk:Disappearance of Natalee Holloway#The title. Do you still do that kind of thing - do you think misleading your interlocutors is a legitimate tactic to win an argument? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your question is based on a false premise. If anyone moderates these pages, I suggest that it be stricken.—Kww(talk) 13:18, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. This user appears to be carting over a grudge from elsewhere. This issue is currently be debated at ANI. - ^theWOLFchild 19:01, 24 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question from User:Worm That Turned

Firstly, please accept my apologies for adding to the list of questions! I'm one of the less controversial arbitrators but even I have had my writing twisted, my honesty questioned, my personality derided. I've been the target of unpleasant emails and real life actions. Other arbitrators have been subject to much worse. Have you thought about how being an arbitrator might affect you and what have you done to prepare?
It doesn't seem substantially worse than being an admin, only different in intensity. There's already the lunatic fringe that accuses me of being an Aruban secret agent and members of that group have called me on the phone at work. Looking above, you will see that my honesty is being questioned as we speak. I don't know that there's anything to do to prepare besides be prepared.

Question from User:Thewolfchild

Kevin, let's say you're facing an issue where WP's policies are in direct conflict with your opinions and values. Do you feel you can maintain your neutrality? Would you readily admit any bias?
I have to face such issues every day: most of our articles fail my personal standards for retention. I haven't gone off on a deletion or blocking spree in the years that I have been an admin, and expect that I will continue to be able to manage the difference between my personal expectations and policy-based expectations.

Thank you. - ^theWOLFchild 19:56, 24 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question from User:HectorMoffet

The number of Active Editors on EnWP has been in decline since 2007.

This decline has been documented extensively:

In our own "Editor Trends Study"
In popular media ("Nobody wants to edit Wikipedia anymore")
In scholarly literature ("How Wikipedia’s reaction to popularity is causing its decline")

This raises several questions:

Is this really problem? Or is it just a sign of a maturing project reaching an optimum community size now that the bulk of our work is done?
I don't believe that we have mechanisms that seek an optimum community size in place, but I think the shrinkage is primarily due to maturity. Adding content that gets retained is harder than it used to be because it needs to fit into a complicated, standardized format that has been established by other articles, and that doesn't appeal to as many people as the free-for-all of earlier days.
In your personal opinion, what steps, if any, need to be taken by the EnWP Community?
We need to learn how to squabble less and reason more.
In your personal opinion, what steps, if any, need to be taken by the Foundation?
I'll surprise people here by saying that I think a working Visual Editor would be a good step. The problem with our current one is that it is focused on getting newbies to make make trivial edits, and it misses the mark: there's no way to explain to a newbie why changing a date in a lead is different than changing a date in an infobox (for a trivial example) and there's no way to give a consistent presentation of the two cases. It needs to focus on how to make someone's changes fit into the established style for a class of article and lead them through doing that.
Lastly, what steps, if any, could be taken by ArbCom?
Make fair and reasonable decisions that don't make people leave in disgust.

Question from Carrite

Sorry that this comes so late in the game. What is your opinion of the website Wikipediocracy? Does that site have value to Wikipedia or is it an unmitigated blight? If it is the latter, what do you propose that Wikipedia do about it? To what extent (if any) do you feel that abusive actions by self-identified Wikipedians on that site are actionable by ArbCom?
Not an "unmitigated blight", but sometimes it's close. I wish they could self-police a little more. I think the patently absurd accusations made against me there are recognizable as delusions by nearly everyone, but some of the accusations made against others are plausible enough that they could do actual damage. I don't think there's much that Arbcom can do about the site itself, but I do think that people actions over there can reasonably be used as evidence for motivation behind actions over here.

Thank you. Carrite (talk) 03:33, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from iantresman

How important do you think is transparency and accountability for Admins and Arbitrators, bearing in mind that: (a) Checkuser and Oversight have no public logs, even though we could say who accesses these features (without necessarily giving compromising information)? (b) ArbCom has its own off-site discussion area.
I see lots of ArbCom cases where editors contribute unsubstantiated acusations without provided diffs, and often provide diffs that don't backup the allegations. Do you think ArbCom should do anything about it? (ie. strike though allegations without diffs).
Incivility on Wikipedia is rife. Sometimes it is ambiguous and subjective. But where it is clear, why do you think enough is done to uphold this core policy?
Editors whose username lets them be identified easily in real life, are frequently subjected to "oppositional research" by anonymous editors who can readily achieve WP:PRIVACY. Do you think this double standard is fair, and should anything be done?
I see lots of ArbCom cases where Arbitrators appear to ignore the comments of the editors involved. Do you think that basic courtesies should require Arbitrators to make more than just an indirect statement, and actually address the points being made?

Question from Bazonka

Wikipedia is largely an on-line community, and some editors prefer their activities to remain entirely on-line. However, other Wikipedians engage in off-line, real world Wikipedia activities, such as Wikimeets, outreach work, or training. How much are you currently involved in these off-line activities, and would this be different if you were or were not on the Arbitration Committee?

Question from user:Ykantor

Should "Petit crimes" be sanctioned? and how ?
The present situation is described as User:Wikid77#Wiki opinions continued says: "some acting as "inter-wikicity gangs" with limited civility (speaking euphemistically)...Mob rule: Large areas of wikis are run by mobocracy voting. Numerous edit wars and conflicts exist in some highly popular groups of articles, especially in recent events or news articles. In those conflicts, typically 99% of debates are decided by mob rule, not mediated reason...Future open: From what I've seen, the Wiki concept could be extended to greatly improve reliability, but allow anonymous editing of articles outside a screening phase, warning users to refer to the fact-checked revision as screened for accuracy (this eventually happened in German Wikipedia"
At the moment there is no treatment of those little crimes. i.e. deleting while cheating, lying, arguing for a view with no support at all against a well supported opposite view, war of attrition tactics, deleting a supported sentence, etc. The result is distorted articles and some fed up editors who discontinue to edit. I can provide examples, if asked for.
In my view, each of these small scale problems does not worth a sanction , but the there should be a counting mechanism, such as a user who has accumulated a certain amount of them, should be sanctioned. What is your view?
Does Our NPOV policy mean that an editor is violating the policy if he only contributes to one side?
The issue is discussed her: [1].
In my opinion, the view that every post should be neutral leads to a built in absurd. Suppose that the best Wikipedia editor is editing a group of biased articles. He is doing a great job and the articles become neutral. The editor should be sanctioned because every single edit (as well as the pattern of edits) is biased toward the other side. !
There are ignored rules. Should we change the rules or try to enforce them? how?
e.g.
As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone
lying

I can show that those 2 rules were ignored in the wp:arbcom but those are just an example. There are more ignored rules. So, Should we change the rules or try to enforce them? how?

Question from bonze anne blayk

Regarding the "fringe POV pusher", who is not really "fringe" but has indeed been relentless in pushing a certain POV as the sole legitimate "scientific explanation" of all things transsexual while offering glib insults freely to all those who disagree… Kww, do you believe the statement linked in this "Rebuttal to Cantor's Rebuttal", containing a global denunciation of the intellectual standards of all Wikipedians who do not qualify as "scholars," reveals an appropriate attitude in a Wikipedia editor?

Questions from user:Martinevans123

Should articles ever use The Daily Mail as a reference source? Should articles ever use YouTube videos as external links? Is there still any place for a "WP:civility" policy, or does it depend on how many "good edits" an editor makes? Would you expect to see more or less ArbCom activity in the next 12 months, and why? Should the status of admins and ArbCom members be permanently indicated in some way? What percentage of edits can one make at an article RfD before one becomes "disruptive"? Should editors be blocked for making what are seen as "surreal" comments? Should editors be forced to use a {{humour}} template when they want to lighten the mood? Thanks for your time. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:16, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

... only 90 mins left to win me over to that hearty abstention.... Martinevans123 (talk) 22:32, 9 December 2013 (UTC) [reply]