Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/LFaraone/Questions

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Question from Smallbones

2. Wikipedia is starting to have a reputation for bullying and misogyny, see, e.g the recent article in The Atlantic by Emma Paling, "Wikipedia's Hostility to Women”.
   Are you willing to take serious steps to stop bullying of editors on Wikipedia? especially bullying directed toward women editors? Is this one of your top 2 priorities? What would you consider to be a more important priority than stopping the bullying? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:59, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

   Harassment is a serious problem, on Wikipedia and in many other communities. Unfortunately, in many cases the Arbitration Committee does not have the power to stop bullying or harassment; we can try to help foster a collaborative and positive editing environment, but most of the tools we have available to us are big hammers used after a long, deliberative process. Most importantly, we cannot prevent actions from occurring off-wiki.

Question from Tryptofish

2. You are running for reelection in a year when many editors have been criticizing ArbCom harshly, so my question to you (and to any other sitting Arbs who may run for reelection) has to do with why you should be reelected. Please describe something that you expect to do within the next two years if reelected, that will improve how ArbCom works. Please be as specific as possible. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 20:13, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

   Streamlining committee processes, specifically how we handle private communications. The way the committee handles private communications is archaic. Messages sent to the committee only reach ArbCom members after often substantial delays. Any sort of tracking of requests (such as those handled by the now-disbanded BASC) needs to be done manually. Accordingly, things are dropped on the floor. This is unacceptable, and the community deserves better.

Thank you! --Tryptofish (talk) 01:25, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Questions from Gerda Arendt

Thank you for stepping forward!

2. Arbitration findings and the wishes of principal editors govern the use of infoboxes in articles. If you want to win my "neutral" please say how you would close the discussion at Talk:Joseph (opera)#Restore infobox?

   If the discussion were to be closed at that point, I would close it as supporting the addition. There were no valid arguments against addition made. ("I wrote this, and don't want it" is just OWN) However, I would probably let the discussion continue for a longer period before closing.

4. An editor has been blocked for a month in the name of arbitration enforcement for having said that he creates half of his featured content with women. I find it kafkaesque and remember the opening of The Metamorphosis for an analogy. If you want to win my "support", please - on top of #1 - suggest improvements to get from arbitration enforcement ("not a fun place") to arbitration supervision, where such a thing would not happen. I offered some thoughts, wishing to see Floquenbeam's "no foul, play on" more often, or Yunshui's "The edit was unproblematic and actually made Wikipedia better."

   I'm not sure what you mean here.

Perhaps follow "offered some thoughts"?

Sorry, it was specifically to "arbitration supervision", which I wasn't really clear on. In re the proposal you make: it is interesting, but I do worry that such a system could be gamed. For example, blatently violating a restriction, then taking a leave of absence. We'd need some more leeway offered to administrators. Or, it might encourage making a bunch of small violations, hoping that nobody brings up any one of them in isolation. We can design a system to work around that, though, and I think AE process could definitely use some more attention. LFaraone 01:42, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from Biblioworm

2. Do you have any experience in successfully resolving disputes, either on-wiki or off-wiki? (I know you're an arbitrator, but as I mentioned in the question, I would like examples of successful dispute resolution. If you want to use your ArbCom work as an example, could you demonstrate what you believe to be your best work in resolving disputes?)

   Prior to joining the committee, I spent a good deal of time dealing with BLP issues raised via OTRS. Often, when a particularly sensitive request would come to WMF Community Advocacy that was outside their scope, I'd be asked to help work with them. On the committee, I'm fairly proud of the resolution resulting from Kww and The Rambling Man.

Questions from Collect

2. Can a case be opened without presuming that sanctions will be necessary? Do you feel that once a case is opened that impartial arbitrators will "inevitably" have to impose sanctions?

   As I stated in 2013: I do not believe that the opening of a case should commit the Committee to any action, including the issuing of sanctions. While sanctionless cases perhaps would indicate that the Committee that more care should have been taken in the acceptance of the case, it is better to close a case without sanctions than to assign them just because one must do so. Several cases I've heard while on the committee have been closed without sanctions.

4. If an administrator states (hypothetically) "You will vote however you like, and I am frankly not interested in changing your mind, but you should at least be honest about why you are opposing me. At the moment, you are not", would that administrator be considered "involved" or "impartial" in any way with the editor in whose talk space he made such an edit?

   That would be heavily depend on the context surrounding the discussion.

6. Are arbitators under any reasonable obligation to afford editors who are out of the country on a trip, or have other substantial reasons for absence from a case, any delays in considering cases concerning them? If such a person is given only 1000 words to rebut 1000 words from each of five or more "evidence providers", is that a reasonable limit to place on the defendant, or ought the limit be raised to allow rebuttal of each such section?

   Reasonable accommodations can and have been made. Of course, there are different considerations for, say, a case with a dozen or more parties. With regards to evidence limits, we have generally allowed requests to expand on a case-by-case basis.

Questions from Antony–22

2. In general, does enforcing civility harm free speech? Does it help it?

   Any standard of behaviour is, by its very nature, a restriction. That said, Wikipedia does not guarantee a right to freedom of speech.

4. It's been pointed out that incivility and harassment are not precisely the same thing. What is the line between incivility and harassment? How much does incivility, when it doesn't cross the line into harassment, affect our ability to retain editors, including but not limited to its effects on the gender gap?

   I think they're pretty orthogonal. Yes, some harassing activity may include uncivil speech that is also uncivil, but it is possible to act in a prima facie "civil" manner while still engaging in harassment. Harassment is a pattern of behaviour, while civility (or the lack thereof) describes individual actions. Incivility certainly has an impact on retention; while some may relish conflict, most prefer a collegiate and supportive environment to get work done.

6. Arbcom's actions have come under scrutiny from the outside press lately. Do you think the Arbcom has a role in educating reporters about cases when they come under such scrutiny, to reduce the factual inaccuracies that sometimes creep into these articles? For example, do you think that releasing statements, such as been done once on a previous case, should be considered in the future? If so, how could they be made more effective?

   I worked on that statement, along with many other arbitrators, with some assistance from the WMF. I don't think that the GamerGate statement was the best writing I've ever produced, far from it. But Wikipedia is not a vacuum; it exists in the real world, and affects real people. Its processes are complex and difficult to navigate. It can be beneficial to provide clarification.

   Were a similar situation to arise in the future, I think it may be appropriate for the Arbitration Committee to issue a statement. I don't have concrete answers on how to improve the process; we worked hard to engage with advisors on the best way to communicate our message and yet the result was less than ideal. Part of this is due to how committees operate; it is incredibly difficult to get a dozen or so people to agree on the text of a motion at times. Creating consensus over multiple paragraphs of text in the heat of a case is hard.

8. This question is optional, since candidates don't necessarily like to talk about current cases. But imagine that you are a current member of the Arbcom and you are delegated the task of writing a succinct, neutral primer for the press, of no more than a few paragraphs, on the circumstances leading to the current case Arbitration enforcement 2. Write that primer below. Do not cover or express an opinion on the proposed or actual decision, but concentrate on how you would help a reporter understand what happened before the case was filed.

10. One last question. Wikipedia relies primarily on volunteer labor, and many are attracted to Wikipedia in part due to its countercultural, even transgressive nature of subverting traditional gatekeepers to knowledge. Recently there has been increasing participation by professionals from academic and cultural institutions. This is perhaps causing some angst that the community and its interactions may become "professionalized" to the exclusion of established editors. Do you feel this fear is warranted? How can volunteers and professionals with different standards of conduct be made to coexist on Wikipedia with the minimal disruption to our existing contributor base?

    It isn't warranted. More professional interaction on Wikipedia would be welcomed.

Question from Brustopher

Hi, and thank you for running for Arbcom. These questions focus on WP:OUTING. For the purposes of these questions please assume the editors' usernames are far more distinct and unique than the ones I have given.

2. User:Foo get's into an edit conflict on Wikipedia with User:Bar, and end up as parties to a large Arbcom case. Soon afterwards on reddit someone going by the username Bar begins posting lots of critical and disparaging threads about Foo. In these threads they claim to be Wikipedia user Bar. The Bar account on Wikipedia is older than the Bar account on reddit by several years, however the Wikipedia account had only really begun active editing a few years after the reddit account had been created. Foo notices these posts and complains on Bar's talk page and ANI. Bar responds by accusing Foo of WP:OUTING and claims that the account might not even be his. Is it OUTING to connect the Bar reddit account with the Bar Wikipedia account?

   Maybe. The best first step would be for Foo to contact the committee privately. This would allow for the evidence provided to be considered without any possibility of violating WP:OUTING. It would heavily depend on the circumstances; for example if additional PII is disclosed through linking the off-wiki account. Age of accounts isn't particularly relevant; there are many places where lfaraone is an already-registered username.

4. User:Alice is a party in an Arbcom case. She is browsing the internet one day and decides to google her Wikipedia username. She finds that somebody has uploaded naked photos of another woman to a pornsite and labelled them "Alice of Wikipedia." She looks into the account that has uploaded these files and comes to the conclusion that it is owned by Wikipedia User:Bob, an editor she had clashed with heavily on wiki. In the process she also finds out his real life identity. She emails her evidence to Arbcom. Alice then decides to go to Wikipediocracy's forums, and makes a thread informing them of this porn site account. She asks them if they can guess which Wikipedia editor is behind it, and mentions that she also knows his real life identity. They independently come to the conclusion that it is User:Bob and figure out his real life identity without Alice giving the game away. Alice confirms that this is the case. Nobody in the forum finds it remotely questionable that Bob owns the account in question. In such a situation is it appropriate for Arbcom to pass a finding of fact stating "Alice posted inappropriately to an off-wiki website apparently with the objective of having the participants identify a Wikipedia editor by name." Furthermore is it appropriate for them to then use this supposed violation of WP:OUTING as part of their justification for site banning Alice?

   The finding of fact is appropriate, yet that is not sufficient to justify a site-ban of a user, especially when mitigating circumstances (target of harassment) exist.

Question from Yash!

2. In the past couple of years, the ArbCom has closed various cases, passed motions, and such. Is/Are there any outcome/s that you disagree with? If yes, which? And, what result/s would you have rather preferred? Yash! 01:45, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from Pldx1

2. Dear candidate. As you probably have noted, an user describing himself as a Grammar Badguy asked the question he asked to most of the candidates. In my opinion, the way each candidate answered this question is an important criterion of choice. Therefore, I think it could be fair to give you an occasion to comment. Pldx1 (talk) 10:00, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

   I'm a 22 year-old white pansexual cis male living in San Francisco. I grew up in the Washington, DC area.

Question by Müdigkeit

2. How many hours per week do you plan to work on the Arbitration Committee?--Müdigkeit (talk) 19:03, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

   On average, about 20 hours. In practice, I've had plenty of instances of all-weekend-plus-most-of-the-weeknights, and there're the occasional momentary lull in casework / BASC / other matters.

Question from Harry Mitchell

2. Just because I've always wondered ... how should I pronounce your surname?

   My family has always pronounced it "fa-rown". But in the old country, it is "faRA-own-ne" (trilled Rs, down on the "on", up on the "ne"). Apologies for not providing the IPA; I never managed to develop a fluency in it. I am unrelated to any of the it:Faraones.

Questions from GrammarFascist

2. Please divulge as much of your demographic information as you are comfortable making public. Specifically: your gender, including whether you are cis, trans or other; your sexual orientation; your race and/or ethnicity; where you live (feel free to specify you live in Triesenberg if you want, but a country or continent will do just fine — even just "Southern Hemisphere" or "Western Hemisphere" is helpful); whether you have any condition considered a disability (even if you're not so disabled you're unable to work) including deafness, physical disabilities, developmental disabilities and mental illnesses, again being only as specific as you wish; and what social class you belong to (e.g. working class, middle class, etc.). ¶ If you prefer not to answer any or all of those categories, I won't count it against you. My intention in asking for this information is not to out anyone or try to force affirmative action. However, when deciding between two otherwise equally qualified candidates, I would prefer to be able to vote for more diversity on ArbCom rather than less.
   (I do recognize that another editor has already asked you a variant of this question, and I consider the answer you gave them, above, more than sufficient; I want to have posed these identically-worded two questions to each candidate, however, in the interest of fairness.)

   Appreciated. As you mentioned, answered above.

2. Please list at least one pro and one con of having non-administrators serve on ArbCom.

   Non-administrators could provide a unique perspective (compared to an otherwise all-Admin ArbCom). As the WMF has acknowledged, an ArbCom election is certainly sufficient to establish community trust in the role, and the qualifications passing RfA are distinct. That said, unless they are granted either temporary access to tools or placed in a special user group, their effectiveness as arbitrators would be significantly hampered through a lack of certain user rights. (viewing deleted content, editing through full page protection, &c). I've voted accordingly in the ongoing non-administrator Arbitrators RfC.

Thanks for responding, LFaraone. —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 01:55, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Questions from SageRad

2. I see your answer to SmallBones above as sort of throwing up one's hands about bullying, as if we can't do much about it. What would you think of stronger guidelines about bullying behaviors within the civility guidelines, and an anti-bullying task force made up of volunteers as a way to curb long-term problematic bullying behaviors?

   To be clear, I was talking about the Arbitration Committee's ability ability to take action on bullying. We aren't a GovCom; we can't create policies by fiat, and most importantly we are not able to prevent bullying and harassing behaviour that takes place anonymously off-wiki or by individuals who are already site-banned. Stricter community standards of behaviour would certainly help improve the editing climate. A task force might be an interesting approach given the low signal:noise ratio of ANI. For egregious cases, however, I feel that the only entity that has the scope and resources to investigate is the WMF; they have the ability to hire professionals who are better-equipped than ArbCom to support victims of harassment and the financial resources to assist those who wish to pursue charges.

4. Do you think that ideologies can bias perceptions about whose behavior is within guidelines? Do you think there is sometimes a problem of a political nature in controversial areas, where editors of one "side" may get a different treatment from those of another "side"?

   It can. However, arbitrators are expected to recuse from areas where they cannot be impartial. I cannot speak for my colleagues, but there have certainly been circumstances where I've voted for harsher sanctions against editors whose PoV I agree with than those on a side I was less fond of.

Questions from Ryk72

Thank you for stepping forward; your commitment to serving the community is greatly appreciated.

Please accept my apologies for the lateness of these questions.

2. The en.Wikipedia community has been likened to that of a gaol (US:prison), with members of various gangs aggressively supporting each other in disputes, which are policed by trusted inmates. Do you agree with this view? If so, why so? If not, why not? To what extent are the behaviours which lead to this view enabled by AN/I, AE & ArbCom?

4. Do you believe that our current processes & procedures encourage adversarial methods of dispute resolution? If so, is this a good or bad thing? If bad, what role should ArbCom play in addressing this?

   ArbCom cases generally follow an adversarial (rather than inquisitorial) model. For Arbitration specifically, I think this is a good thing: it helps reduce perception of bias and makes a large caseload more managable, since we rely almost entirely on party-submitted evidence. There's generally significant investment by the various parties in the dispute that generally this evidence is sufficient. In forums such as WP:AN/I, however, additional research by administrators and other responders can often help uncover information omitted by reporters. (relevant to the next question)

6. What are the advantages and disadvantages of WP:BOOMERANG? Would you support it's retention, restriction or abolition? Why?

   WP:BOOMERANG isn't a policy to be retained, restricted, or abolished. Rather, it is a reflection of what I think is fairly common sense: if you come asking for action to be taken against another party then you can expect your conduct in the matter to be examined as well.

8. We see regular use of WP:DUCK/WP:SOCK to justify indefinite blocks of new editors entering contentious topic spaces, without those editors being explicitly linked to banned accounts. Is this use justified? If so, why so? If not, why not?

   Well, it depends. If an account is blocked by a CheckUser based on non-public information then it may be appropriate to not make public an explicit link. In other cases, however, it is certainly suspect to block for sockpuppettry alone without a statement as to who the editor is a sockpuppet of. It would be difficult for the community to review such a block for propriety.

10. In Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_3#Remedies, ArbCom implemented a "500/30" limit on edits to the Palestine-Israel (the 3rd topic space in which this remedy has been used). What are the positives & negatives of this remedy as written? Would a more technical/formal implementation (akin to semi-protection) be an improvement? What other improvements, if any, might be made?

12. A hypothetical editor, involved in a contentious topic space, regularly derails Talk page discussion with personal views on the subject, anecdotes of their off-Wiki involvement in the topic, epistemological first principle reasoning for exclusion of material, "hatting" of discussions, and snide attacks on new editors. Administrators have failed to address this editor's behaviour; WP:AE has failed to address the editor's behaviour. What should be done?

    Is the subject matter or editor covered by a arbitration sanction? If not, WP:AE is not an appropriate venue. If WP:AN/I and related boards have been tried and failed, the matter may be suitable to bring to arbitration. It is hard to answer definitively w.r.t. hypotheticals, though.

14. Would you be prepared to recuse from 1/3rd of cases, and encourage other Arbs to do likewise, so that each case might be addressed faster, and by fewer Arbs?

    That wouldn't accomplish its intended goal. Most of the delays are due to the volume of evidence, lack of time on the part of drafting arbitrators and coordination failures therein. For cases that have moved to the proposed decision stage, arbitrators are generally pretty liberal about moving themselves to inactive if they cannot vote expediently.

Many thanks in advance for any answers. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 15:30, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from User:Blackmane

2. This is a hypothetical that is somewhat based on real threads that have occurred on WP:AN and WP:ANI in the past. An editor who self identifies as having a mental disability or disorder has been indefinitely blocked for a variety of violations, take your pick of edit warring, NPA, disruption, CIR, POINT, Godwin's etc, and is now seeking to return to editing. Quite a few members of the community have sought to advise this editor on why they were blocked but struggle to get the editor to understand. I'd like to hear your thoughts about how Wikipedia works with those who suffer from such disorders. This is an open ended, and deliberately vague, question that will no doubt be difficult to answer, but is more for me, and presumably other editors, to get a grasp of your thoughts. Blackmane (talk) 02:06, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from User:Wikimandia

2. Many editors were unhappy with the results of the recent Neelix fiasco, in which the AC closed the case as soon as Neelix resigned as an admin, despite the fact that many of the issues brought up in the evidence page had nothing whatsoever to do with misuse of administrative tools or even his redirect spam, including building walled gardens and violation of WP guidelines concerning advocacy in editing. This led to accusations of a double standard for admins and regular editors. (If a non-admin had done the same, there could be no such easy dismissal as we don't have tools to resign). Neelix never acknowledged or agreed to stop any of this behavior, simply (eventually) apologized for the redirects only and then later resigned with no further comment. There was significant support for at least a topic ban at the ANI. Do you believe a topic ban or other measure should have been applied in this case?

   Arbitration exists to deal with matters that the community has failed to resolve. As there does not exist a community-based mechanism to remove administrative rights, the question of whether Neelix should remain an admin could only be decided by the Arbitration Committee. After he resigned, however, that became a non-issue, and the community is capable of implementing further sanctions if they are needed.

Question from Dcs002

2. From ArbCom policy: "The Committee may take notice of conduct outside its jurisdiction when making decisions about conduct on the English Wikipedia if such outside conduct impacts or has the potential to impact adversely upon the English Wikipedia or its editors." Arbcom may not regulate offsite behavior, so what exactly does it mean to "take notice of conduct"? If one editor is harassing another editor on another site, and the harassment is unrelated to ENWP, to what extent should you "take notice" of that harassment if there is no such harassment happening here?

Note: Polls are still open for a few more days. Some candidates have not been responding to more recent questions. I hope to hear from you! :) Dcs002 (talk) 00:57, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

1. Off-wiki harassment is a serious problem; it can create a poisonous editing environment on-wiki and act as a chilling effect. To what extent off-wiki harassment is "taken notice of" depends on the situation; there are many instances where such behaviour might be important to consider as part of a case, such as if the editors had interactions or were in conflict on-wiki. In the hypothetical you pose, there's a conflict between two people who are also Wikipedia editors, but the harassment is entirely unrelated to anything happening on-wiki and has no impact on the project? That'd probably be less likely to be something we would be able to action or factor into decisions.