Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Candidates/L235

L235

Hi, I'm Kevin. I've been editing for eight years and have served on the Arbitration Committee for the last two years. I'm running for a second term because I love our project and what we stand for. We today provide high-quality information through an open, volunteer, consensus-based system to the world for free — an incredible feat and one worth preserving.

Serving on the Committee is not always easy, but it is a vital task, and I am deeply proud of the work of the two cohorts I have served with.

During my first term, I strove to address problems head-on, especially when it's hard; to keep an open mind; to act evenhandedly but compassionately; to seek information before making decisions; to compromise and facilitate consensus; and to treat all with dignity and respect.

If I am elected to a second term, I will focus on:

• Discretionary sanctions. During my first term, I was a drafting arbitrator on discretionary sanctions review. While the formal review process is nearing completion, much work remains. I hope to focus on the hard implementation work of writing easier-to-understand templates, setting up the new system of topic-specific guidance pages, responding to feedback, and helping folks with any growing pains the system might experience.
• The clerk system. I was a clerk for almost six years, and after two years as an arbitrator, I think the clerk system is not well suited for today's ArbCom. Our dedicated and hardworking clerks spend much time to have little work to do (clerk training now takes 6+ months because there's little work for trainees to be trained on). At the same time, ArbCom's internal processes are in desperate need of clerical assistance that the clerks currently can't help with. While I don't have all the answers, I will advocate for streamlining the clerks' current tasks while exploring ways in which the clerks can relieve ArbCom's administrative burden in more areas.
• ArbCom's relations with the Stewards, the Ombuds Commission, the WMF, sister project ArbComs, and similar bodies, such as the forthcoming UCoC Coordinating Committee. These groups have an impact on ArbCom's work, and I will prioritize more regular communication with them.
• Block appeals. Checkuser and other block appeals take a massive portion of ArbCom's effort, but ArbCom is not well positioned to handle most appeals. I will explore ways to reduce the appellate burden and speed up the disposition of appeals.

Declaration: As a current arbitrator, I am identified to the Wikimedia Foundation and will continue to comply with the nonpublic information policy. On occasion I edit using L236 (talk · contribs); I also have some non-editing accounts.

• L235 (talk · contribs · count · logs · target logs · block log · lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · socks · rights · blocks · protects · deletions · moves)

Individual questions

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There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

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Questions from Red-tailed hawk

2. Hello. Thank you for volunteering to serve on the Arbitration Committee. Would you please explain your understanding of WP:INVOLVED, and would you summarize the extent to which you agree and/or disagree with how the Arbitration Committee has applied the principles of involvement with respect to administrator conduct in Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block, Manning naming dispute, and Climate change? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:12, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

   Thank you for your question. Out of respect for the specific people involved in those cases who didn't ask to be brought up here (many of whom are still editing), and because I am less familiar with some cases than others, I will speak to the principles in these cases and not the individuals in question.

   I was a drafting arbitrator on the Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block case and stand by the decision in that case. I think the principles and findings in that case were not particularly disputable; that case did not involve a difficult application of policy.

   The principles and findings in the Manning naming dispute case seem reasonable. Using tools – especially to take such non-urgent action as lowering protection – after opining on the relevant content dispute seems like a violation to me.

   Principles 15 and 16 in the Climate change case seem like reasonable reflections of 2010 policy to me. I don't think I would have voted for Principle 17, as written, because I think it uses less precise language than I would prefer. Because the findings of fact are written broadly without reference to specific incidents, I do not have a good basis to judge the findings of fact in that case. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 07:52, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Questions from TheresNoTime

2. How do you foresee the role of the Arbitration Committee changing with regard to the adoption of the Universal Code of Conduct (namely, due to the enforcement guidelines, and the introduction of the global Coordinating Committee)? — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 05:58, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

   The original vision of a universal code of conduct was not a bad idea. Many non-enwiki projects have poorly-developed conduct enforcement pathways that turn out to be insufficient, and the UCoC could play a useful role in stepping up that enforcement. My understanding of the original intent behind the UCoC was to have a minimal impact on projects like the English Wikipedia. It's hard to say whether that will in fact be true when the U4C is established, and I think we will have to see how the U4C ends up getting selected and how it interprets its own role. I am heartened that the U4C is explicitly a "co-equal body" with ArbCom under the Guidelines and will not have jurisdiction to review enwiki's or ArbCom's decisions unless there are "systemic failures" (a high bar that I hope enwiki will never meet). I would have preferred more significant restrictions on the U4C's ability to do so (e.g. a 2/3 vote to find "systemic failures") but I am hopeful that the current guidelines are satisfactory. In any event, good luck to the U4C. That seems like a difficult job and I hope they get good people on it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:04, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

4. Is ANI pronounced A-N-I or Annie? Thank you for standing, and good luck. — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 05:58, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

   I say A-N-I in my head, but when talking with Annie-camp editors do find myself switching to Annie. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:04, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Question from MJL

2. Can you please expand on this statement: I will advocate for streamlining the clerks' current tasks while exploring ways in which the clerks can relieve ArbCom's administrative burden in more areas. [emphasis added] What kind of administrative burdens do you have in mind? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:03, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

   Thanks for the question – I've been looking forward to the opportunity to discuss my priority areas in greater depth.

   The great majority of the Committee's work takes place by email, and not a particularly well-organized email system either. Here are some illustrative (but non-exhaustive) examples of administrative burden currently being shouldered by arbitrators when it comes to our email system:

   • There is no systematized way to keep track of what is pending and what has been resolved – other than block appeals, which are manually tracked in a hard-to-update table. I try to keep track of what needs attention, and so do other arbs – each imperfectly, and with much duplicated effort. This frequently leads to matters falling through the cracks.
   • When I sit down to do arb work, there is a lot of wasted effort in triaging where to spend my time. Ideally, as an arb, I'd receive a report every so often listing what things need my attention and what I have and have not voted on yet; instead, when I sit down to do arb work, my first action is to click around in my email inbox for things that seems urgent and important enough.
   • Inbound emails require ackowledgements. Appeals need to be responded to with our standard questionnaire. Other kinds of correspondence often requires very routine responses that nonetheless take time to draft. These are all things that collectively take a lot of time for arbitrators to handle.

   Now, some of these things clerks could probably never help with – some of our correspondence relates to matters internal to the committee, for arbitrator eyes only. But I think there are ways to explore delegating some of these tasks. After all, all but one of the current active clerks are indeed NDA'd functionaries. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:24, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Questions from Gerda Arendt

2. Do you believe that we still have infobox wars? If yes, do you have better ideas than the 2013 arb ruling to end them?

   I'm not a huge fan of the "infobox war" framing – anyone who genuinely thinks of themselves as waging an "infobox war" on one side or another has lost sight of why we're here (to collaboratively build an encyclopedia) and should probably not be editing about infoboxes. Anyway, like I wrote in 2020, I haven't personally been involved in infobox disputes. From my vantage point and without having proactively searched for problems, while there is still disagreement in the community about the usefulness of infoboxes on particular articles, there haven't been widespread infobox conduct issues since the Civility case. This is a first impression, of course, and just like with everything else, if anyone thinks a new case is necessary I'll set aside my first impressions and make a decision based on the evidence presented. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:34, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

4. Thank you, and I never liked the "wars" framing for disagreements. - Follow-up question, the same for all who answered the first: Where does the recently closed RfC for Laurence Olivier sit in your perspective?

   I think I generally feel that RfCs like this are a poor allocation of editor time and effort, but I understand why our dispute resolution system relies on time-consuming RfCs for certain disputes. As long as there isn't a clear trend of folks abusing the RfC process or trying to attrition out others, or a sense that the process is otherwise breaking down, I don't think this kind of RfC rises to the level of an ArbCom problem. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 12:38, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Questions from El_C

2. Did I hear someone mention infoboxes? Erm, anyway, in regards to the role of clerks, something which you devote the most time in both your statement and answer (to MJL). I'd like to ask you about about the same thing, but from a different angle. You end The clerk system bullet point with having clerks relieve ArbCom's administrative burden in more areas.
   My angled question is: what about clerks relieving editors' burden in more areas, also? A couple of days ago at AN (full discussion: live/permalink, ARCA) I spoke to you about the high ceiling of navigating various ArbCom requests and queries. That the process is not nearly accessible enough, even to veteran editors experienced in editing the DS area (like my party at ARCA).
   I had said: I think it would make sense to have something along the line of clerks assisting users, who, like in this instance, were able to accomplish community consensus for their proposal to add/adjust an existing ArbCom sanctions regimes (diff). You did not reply to that, so let me press you now, and do so even further. How about having Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Clerks#Noticeboard serve as such a platform? Featured prominently as such a platform? Because, even with simplified templates (Inshallah!), the processes, procedure, and just general orientation, can still be daunting. Receiving assistance for requests (as opposed to complaints at WP:AE), is that effort something you could see yourself standing behind? Even spearheading? Anyway, sorry for the length of this, I realize I asked a lot of questions (I'm allowed a million, right?), but hopefully, you will bring it all together in your answer. Yours, El_C 14:12, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

   Hi El C. Great to see you here. I didn't see your response at AN, but this is important to me, so thanks for highlighting it here. WT:AC/C already informally serves as that platform for help (if you go there and ask for help someone will definitely help you) but if it would help, I would champion making that "official". The good news is that we don't even need a Committee motion to do so – an internal discussion among the clerks and arbs would suffice to e.g. change the text at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Header to highlight WT:AC/C. I'd feel weird starting such a discussion right now during ACE (like I'm using my current position in a way other candidates can't), but if an arbitrator or clerk thinks this is a good idea they should feel free to do so. Otherwise, I will start such a discussion after ACE is over if I'm still affiliated with the Committee either as an arbitrator or, if I'm unsuccessful at this election, as a clerk.

   Making the Committee's processes more accessible and understandable has been a priority for me during my first term. It's for that reason that I've put so much emphasis during WP:DS2022 on templates and procedural documents, and said that a procedural change that I proposed which would enable those improvements may actually lead to some of the most important improvements to the system. I've also internally proposed other process improvements like creating a wizard for those appealing their blocks to ArbCom rather than expecting folks to be email in a complete appeal, up to our standards, wholly unguided. We should try to eliminate every barrier to accessing the arbitration process that does not serve a purpose. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 17:51, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

2. More a follow up than a question. Yes, definitely intended for after the ACE, as a 'campaign promise,' rather than anything during. Good answers; good ideas; good commitment that inspires confidence. At the pes-same-ist time, I just hope that a meaningful shift to greater accessibility does happen with the next ArbCom. Because not a lot has changed for the better in that regard during this past Committee. So I submit to you that it'll require drive and tenacity (tenacity to keep badgering other committee members about it!). Otherwise, it might not meaningfully happen this time around, either. Though, WP:DS2022 is a good sendoff, and it does seem poised to bring us a good way forward. Still, some areas might get 'stuck' in half-measures, with a considerable Arb ceiling thereby still persisting. So, I'll also add, vigilance to watch for and to identify those, and to correct when needed. Either way, you got my vote! 🗳️ El_C 18:42, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Questions from Kudpung

2. Findings of Fact: Should the Committee have a duty to investigate the veracity of the de facto evidence presented by the complainant(s) and/or uninvolved commenters?

   I would agree that the Committee has a responsibility to ensure that it's basing decisions on appropriate evidence. That means that only evidence that has probative value for a finding of fact should be considered when voting on that finding of fact, and the Committee needs to do enough checking to ensure this. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:43, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

4. In your opinion, are sitting arbitrators exempt from due process if and when they commit an indiscretion that would get a normal editor blocked or sanctioned?

   Both normatively and (generally) descriptively, no. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:43, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers. I asked all candidates the same questions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:11, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

question from lettherebedarklight

2. why do you edit wikipedia? → lettherebedarklight → 晚安 → おやすみ → 13:44, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

   Thanks for the question. I edit for the same reason as I give at the start of my candidate statement: I love our project and what we stand for. We today provide high-quality information through an open, volunteer, consensus-based system to the world for free — an incredible feat and one worth preserving. On my userpage I go into a bit more depth: I believe in our project. I believe in our vision, that of a world in which every person has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. I believe that our work makes the world a better place every day, and as long as I believe that I will dedicate my time and energy to this project. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:30, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Question from Anythingyouwant

2. Have you read both WP:MANDY and WP:NOTMANDY, and if so which is a more correct interpretation of Wikipedia policy? Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:16, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

   I had not read them before you asked this question. I generally believe that we should present any views found in reliable secondary sources in proportion with their prevalence in those sources as required by WP:UNDUE. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 12:47, 7 December 2022 (UTC)