Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2011/Candidates/Coren/Questions

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[edit]

Skills and experience:
a) What skills and experience, both on Wikipedia and off, do you think you will bring to the committee if elected?

b) What kinds of personal experience have you had with the Wikipedia dispute resolution processes? If applicable, please provide links to Arbitration cases where you have been involved, or offered an uninvolved statement.
- a) I think that I'm a pretty decent arbitrator. I take the time to consider every side to disputes, to weigh in the good of the project as a whole, and to try to think outside the box when a dispute seems intractable. I'm much less of a diplomat that some, but I'm even handed and try hard at real fairness.
  b) I've been an arbitrator for three years now, and spent a year before that toiling as a clerk.
Strict versus lenient decisions: 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?
- I tend to err on the harsher side of sanctions when cases end up before the committee – if only because this means that lighter community intervention has already failed in most cases. My primary concern is to stop the disruption so that normal editorial processes can resume.
  That said, I've come to rely more on topic bans as a first measure – for someone who only is problematic in limited circumstances that gives them a chance for "good work" elsewhere without impacting the fundamental objective of removing the disruption.
ArbCom and policies: ArbCom has not historically made or altered Wikipedia policy, and it does not include matters of Wikipedia policy in its scope of responsibilities. Policies, however, often play a role in cases brought before the Committee. Can, and should, the Committee take positions on the appropriateness, effectiveness, or clarity of policies as part of the case resolution process? If so, should ArbCom be allowed to make changes to policy directly, or recommend specific changes to policy as part of the case resolution process? Please give reasons.
- It's essentially unavoidable. Whenever you get a body of rules of any complexity, you'll end up with tension between them.
  In Wikipedia's case, we have a sorta-kinda constitution in our five pillars that rules over all others, and dozens of rules that evolved over the years that sometimes conflict in edge cases. When those tensions cause disputes, then it's ArbCom's responsibility to fix the problem.
  The trick, of course, is to do minimal intrusion. Try to clarify; if that fails then tweak, or make a stopgap. Sometimes it means making "case law" when following a pillar or Foundation mandate ends up creating a hole in current policy (or directly conflicts with consensus). In other words, we don't make policy outside a dispute, and hesitate to do so even then. We apply duct tape and haywire when something is broken – no more.
  We probably should have a policy-making body – but the Arbitration committee isn't it (and shouldn't be it).
ArbCom and article 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? Please give reasons.
- I think that the way the committee can help in two ways: when the normal editorial process breaks down because of misbehaviour by some of the editors (whether overt or subtle), the "obvious" solution is to remove the perturbative elements so that the normal consensus-based model can work again.
  The second way we can help is when an issue becomes so divisive that even with everyone acting in good faith consensus is impossible to reach. Rather than rule on what content should be, we've created mechanisms to fix the dispute within the community itself in a binding manner. It might not fix the issue for good, but it has historically managed to render future discussion considerably easier because there was a workable starting point for it.
ArbCom and motions:
a) What is, in your view, the purpose of an ArbCom motion? Under what circumstances, or for what areas or processes, would the use of a motion be your first choice in handling the situation.

b) When is it not appropriate to start a motion? If the community has reached consensus on an issue, does ArbCom have the right to overrule that consensus with a motion? If the community is unable to resolve an issue for some time, and there is no active case related to that issue, can ArbCom step in and settle the issue themselves by motion?
c) There were a number of controversial motions this year. Please identify a few motions from 2011 that you believe were appropriate (if any), and a few you believe were inappropriate (if any). Discuss why you have reached the judgements that you did.
- a) A full case is, by necessity, a long and painful endeavor. Motions are used when there really isn't a question of fact that needs a detailed examination of evidence to avoid this ordeal when what is needed is a simple yes-or-no ruling. In other words, if everyone agrees on what happened.
  b) Those are three very different question: First, a motion shouldn't be used when the facts are in dispute; in those cases, taking the time to set out and examine evidence is a necessity rather than an avoidable ordeal. Secondly, the committee's responsibility is to rule when the rules conflict with themselves or the community – even when the community disagrees (otherwise there would have been no conflict). It's rare, but even a consensus could not override a Foundation directive or one of our pillars – even if everyone agreed that article X shouldn't be neutral, that wouldn't be acceptable for the project. Finally, I don't believe committee intervention in disputes that have not been brought to it should be frequent, but our job is ultimately the good functioning of the project and if an issue has become so divisive that it wastes a great deal of community effort with no resolution in sight, I feel we'd be neglecting our duty by not trying to help fix it.
  c) I agree with every motion I have voted to support. ;-) Seriously, I don't think there were any motions in 2011 that were meaningfully controversial. Of course, any decision (motion or not) that is made is almost certain to displease someone, and occasionally some local drama erupts around it, but no major community-divisive question ended up having motion work over it that I can recall.
Private information: In light of the mailing list leak:
a) Do you believe that the Arbitration Committee should keep records that include non-public information, including checkuser data and the real life identities of users, after whatever case or issue that information originally pertained to had been handled by the committee?

b) If the answer to any part of (a) is yes, how long should the information be kept, how should it be kept, and who should have access to it?
c) Currently, much of ArbCom business is handled over email, and in other non-public forums. Do you believe that all ArbCom discussions that do not directly concern private information should take place publicly? If so, how? Why or why not?
d) What, if anything, did the Arbitration Committee do wrong before, and in response to, the mailing list leak? What did they do right? What would you have done differently?
e) If your real identity is not already widely known, do you intend to publicly identify yourself if elected?
- a) We have to. The cases where an issue is revisited (sometimes years later) are frequent, and we simply wouldn't be able to do our job right if we didn't have a record of past discussion to refer to.
  b) Personally, I think roughly three years should suffice. In practice, we almost never have to refer that far back, and in the rare cases we do what we found is generally no longer relevant. That said, we are technically unable to expire our archives because of limitations in the software we are hobbled with at this time. I've just returned from a meeting with the Foundation where fixing this has been one of the primary discussion points, and we will soon have a new setup where we can apply a data retention policy beyond "keep everything or keep nothing".
  c) Most of what the committee discusses on the mailing list (that isn't private or confidential – nobody disagrees that should remain there) is necessary internal communication that will take place in a forum where it's fast and convenient, and contains conversations which are more candid than would be productive to make public. This is a necessary and unavoidable component of any group of people working together remotely – especially when from all over the world. In an office, you'd have the opportunity for meetings, water cooler discussions, and quick chats at the bar after hours; all of those are a necessary component of working together and will occur. If you forbid email, that will just move to IM. Since this will happen, I'd rather it occurs in a central location that keeps a record and has reasonable privacy.
  d) We, understandably, panicked quite a bit and were angered, dismayed and frustrated. Because of this, our initial communication were completely shod and we did poor PR over it. Then again, none of us are PR gurus used to spinning disasters as though it were an oil spill – so it's to be expected (and, I suppose, better than the alternative). In the end, we're working closely with the Foundation to change our work tools and (especially) how well it is audited to both reduce the chances of this happening again and to mitigate the damage if and when it does.
  e) My identity is well known and trivially findable to anyone who spends a minute looking.
Division of responsibilities:
a) What do you think should be the division of responsibilities between ArbCom and the WMF? Are there issues currently being handled by one that should really be handled by the other?

b) What do you think should be the division of responsibilities between ArbCom and the community as a whole? Are there issues currently being handled by one that should really be handled by the other?
- a) Up to date, the division was ArbCom does everything, and the WMF does nothing that we can see except occasionally make an imperious proclamation. Turns out this is less true even back then than we though, and is poised to shift a bit more in the future. The Foundation is small, and has limited resources to handle much in a way that scales to all projects so they will always remain fairly "hands off", but the relationship between the arbitration committees and them is on the road to tightening up a little and they will share some of the burden. There is no question, however, that the community will always be the front-line workers (and their Arbcoms on the projects where there is one).
  b) That balance has gotten pretty well tuned, by now. We might be able to argue a bit around the fuzzy edges of where and when the committee takes jurisdiction over which kind of disputes, but I don't think that there are many people who would make the argument that the current split is completely, or even significantly, off.
Challenges facing the project: Please share your views on the following subjects. In each case, discuss ArbCom's role, if any.
a) 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?

b) Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with factionalism? Why or why not? If there is a problem, what is to be done about it?
c) Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with editor retention? Does Wikipedia have an overall shortage of editors? Do specific parts or tasks have shortages of editors?
- a) In that (the Meatball Wiki) sense of "vested contributor", yes. There are users whose contributions are (often unarguably) valuable and copious – that's a good thing. Some of those editors believe that that value dispenses them from following community norms or policies – not so good. Not only does this create a climate of general unfairness (because editors no so privileged with "standing" feel that they are held to a different standard), but it makes a continually degrading work environment for everyone else.
  b) I don't think Wikipedia has a problem with factionalism so much as the world has one and it just unavoidably replays itself here. The good thing is the project worked: we are now the primary reference work for much of the world. The bad thing is that this means that we're now an important battlefield for anyone who feels a need to control information. Anyone who wants to influence public perception of a subject now has Wikipedia on their to-do list – this makes it all the more imperative that we keep even more diligently to our founding principles.
  c) Yes, for a number or reasons. First, the low hanging fruit is gone and we now focus more on quality than we did at first; this raises the barrier to entry significantly (and, to a point, not undesirably so). Secondly, we are becoming increasingly conservative as a community and as a project – this is an unavoidable consequence of our success: "it's not broken don't fix it" is a reasonable position, but it does mean we become resistant to experimentation. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, the editing environment has become hostile to newcomers.
  I'm not one to take the simplistic position that "it's because of templates and bots", but a combination of being set in increasingly complex ways with a continually degrading work atmosphere (see point a) means that editors' first experiences tend to be increasingly negative as time goes by.
  There is no simple solution. Indeed, the exact nature of the problem isn't entirely clear to begin with. The Foundation is working surprisingly hard at understanding and fixing the apparent problem, and we can help on the projects by rethinking some of our approaches.
Reflection on 2011 cases: Nominate the cases from 2011 you think ArbCom handled more successfully, and those you think it handled less successfully? Please give your reasons.
- Manipulation of BLPs was way off the mark, in my opinion. I think that the community, and by extension the committee, is trying very hard at blinding itself at the impact Wikipedia has on external disputes and how those disputes now cause Wikipedia to be manipulated. I think it's symptomatic on how we're increasingly set in our ways and unwilling to change our rules to maintain our principles. We're trying to pretend we exist in isolation from the world outside and failing – hard.
  On the other side of the fence, Monty Hall is a textbook example on how a case should be handled: decided (relatively) swiftly and (very) fairly despite a relatively complicated background.
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?
- I don't think there is anything major that needs to be changed with the committee. I still think we should re-examine some of our procedures for new ways of doing things (having all decisions taken en banc, for instance, is the primary cause of long resolution times), and I worry that our lack of experimentation will lead to even greater calcification, but it's a lesser problem given the current system works adequately, if not perfectly.
  What I'd want for the project is real governance – a legislative body if you will – but it's better if ArbCom stays at arm's length from any such discussion.

Individual questions[edit]

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:

#Question: #:A:

Don't worry about the pretty formatting I use for readability; I'll tweak around as needed.

Questions from Rschen7754[edit]

I use the answers to these questions to write my election guide; thus, not answering specific questions will affect my recommendation. 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, and 2010; if you've already answered them, feel free to borrow from those. Please note that question 3 has drastically changed from what it was in past years, though.

The first 9 questions are short answer questions. The last question is a bit open-ended.

What is your view on the length of time that it took for the case Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tree shaping?
- Ridiculously long, for a case that was surprisingly simple in the end. Summer inactivity partly explains this, though hardly excuses it. This is a symptom of our insistence on making every decision en banc: hoping that three dozen volunteers are all reasonably active at the same time is a futile exercise at the best of times. Decisions would best done by small panels of known active arbitrators who can then concentrate on just that task.
  Problem is, many members of the committee do not feel comfortable with even the concept of decisions not taken by all arbitrators.
Do you believe that WikiProjects can enforce standards (such as article layout) on articles, directly and/or indirectly?
- No. They guide, they certainly influence, but they cannot mandate.
  That said, they can provide a very good "default" standard, and I would expect that someone who goes against those standard without a reasoned argument would be correctly seen as disruptive for the sake of disruption.
An editor has made many productive edits to articles on Wikipedia, including several featured articles. This user has not broken policies per se, but is hard to deal with, giving "smart aleck" remarks, ignoring consensus, ignoring what administrators / experienced users tell them, etc. What are your views on this situation?
- Toxic behaviour causes a toxic work environment. I'd have thought that with the current worries about editor retention, the community would have been more aware of how those users make it hard for a newbie to join us (and stay).
An editor fails WP:COMPETENCE. What should be done in this situation?
- Ultimately, we are here to write an encyclopedia. Someone who hinders more than helps despite sincere attempts to guide them is a liability, and no good intention can make the drain on community resources worth it.
Do the circumstances described in questions #3-4 justify a community ban?
- As a last resort, yes. Of course, you want to try to direct them away from trouble areas first, or try to help them find other ways to help if they are of good faith; but ultimately we have to remove elements that consume more efforts than they are worth.
Do you believe that "it takes two to tango"? Would you consider mitigating the sanctions on one user given the actions of another? Eliminating them entirely?
- No. We need to look at the context, of course, but retribution is not one of our pillars. That someone has behaved improperly does not excuse acting improperly oneself.
When do you believe cases should be accepted by ArbCom?
- There are two reasons ArbCom should take a case: when a dispute drains community resources with no end in sight, or when one of our foundational principles are at issue (a.k.a "the good of the project"). Every case, in the ends, reduces to those two scenarios although, perhaps strangely, the current committee tends to be more conservative around the former than the latter.
When would you vote for the long-term ban of an editor?
- My general guideline is simple: when the continued presence of that editor prevents work from being done (by draining community resources, stonewalling consensus, or causing continual drama).
If elected to ArbCom, do you plan on being active for the majority of your term?
- Yes. My availability has been spotty for the past year, but I am confident I'll be able to be active for the vast majority of the next two. That said, I remain convinced that the committee is large enough that we should schedule regular vacations for every member.
What are the current problems with the Wikipedia community?
- Fossilization. It's damn near impossible to make any significant change in how we do things, now – let alone any fundamental ones. Because of that, the barrier for entry is getting higher, and we're not able to react sanely to changing conditions. We're stuck trying to pretend we're still in 2003, but any attempts at change can be prevented by even a small core of conservative editors.
  Not to say the current system is that bad to begin with – but the strain is showing and can only get worse with time.

Thank you. Rs chen 7754 23:59, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Alpha Quadrant[edit]

According X!'s edit counter you have been fairly inactive for the past year and a half. In the past 12 months you have made 1,028 edits, only 17 of which were in the article namespace. I understand that as an Arb, you may have difficulty finding time to edit. However, the main purpose of Wikipedia is to build an encyclopedia. As you have been fairly inactive for some time now, do you feel this will in any way affect you as an Arb? Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 01:20, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think it does. The skillset is very different, and I believe good content editing is best left to those who have more talent for it than I. Each of us brings something different to the project, and I'm much more of a "behind the scenes machinery" guy than others. For every ace pilot, there needs be people to man the tower and maintain the fighters – those of us who make sure they can do their job. I'd rather do a good job at the ATC than crash planes. :-)

Questions from NuclearWarfare[edit]

Note to readers and respondents

These questions are partially my own and partially derived from a set of questions Lar asked in the 2009 and the 2010 Arbitration Committee elections.
The Arbitration Committee may not ever be required to directly rule on some of these matters. Nevertheless, I believe that they should impact the Committee's thinking significantly and am interested in the candidates' thoughts. The responses will likely influence significantly my voting guide for this year.
To those who have answered these questions in the past, please feel free to reuse old answers. I would however appreciate a comment about how and why your views have or have not changed in the past few years.
Candidates: I would request that you please make an attempt to answer the core questions at the least. If you have the inclination to answer the additional questions, please go ahead.

Core questions

Is the English Wikipedia's current BLP approach correct in all aspects? Why or why not? If not, what needs changing? In particular, how do you feel about the following proposals: an expanded version of opt-out , "targeted flagging", and a more permanent version of the old pending changes trial. In your answer, please discuss your personal views on the pending changes trial: what you thought of it, whether we should ultimately implement some form of it (and if so, what form?), whether the community failed to come to a decision about it, and what you believe the role of the Arbitration Committee should have been.
- I can't manage to summon enough enthusiasm about our current BLP policies beyond a "Meh. Could be worse."
  I think the community erred in rejecting flagged protection – not that I am convinced that it did reject it (see my answer below about consensus). It certainly would have helped alleviating the problem, even if that wasn't a perfect solution.
  I do, however, remain strongly opposed to the subject of an article being given any sort of veto over its contents as a matter of principle. Don't make the mistake of thinking that "opt-out" is strictly about inclusion or not – not that this would be a very good idea either – but thinking that article subjects wouldn't "opt-out" only of biographies they don't like, or use the option as a bludgeon to influence contents is ignoring human nature entirely.
Please describe any experience you have had with extensive content disputes. If you have had any disputes where you felt that either yourself or another party was either not acting in good faith with respect to the neutrality policy or with regards to source gathering, I would be especially interested to hear about your experience. What do you feel you did incorrectly and how would you have realistically fixed that for future situations?
- I've actually managed to never get involved in content disputes related to my editing. No doubt, much of the credit for this achievement is due to the simple fact that I never did a great deal of content editing to begin with, and then usually in obscure areas entirely bereft of controversy. :-)
In my 2010 voting guide, I highlighted several quotes by other editors. Please select two from "On Administration" and state why you agree or disagree with them. If you agree, please describe how you feel you would help make Wikipedia a better place with respect to the sentiments stated in those quotes. If you disagree, please elaborate.
- Heimstern's quote (and, indeed, the entire essay it has been quoted from) is on the nose. He correctly points out a very real problem but ends up at the same place we all are with no clear solution in sight. The problem, however, is fundamental: we do not have a content dispute resolution process, and no way to make one. Even if you could get a supermajority of editors to agree to the need, you'd get twice as many opinions on one should be made and how it should work – with everyone vying to get a system in place that would give them the edge. In the end, Neutrality ended up being the most brilliant foundation to that problem – even if actually applying it is tricky at the best of times (hint: treating all viewpoints as equal isn't being neutral).
  Moreschi's touches on the same topic from a different perspective, but misses the target in his estimation of the cause. The problem isn't that administrators are unwilling to intervene in cases of breaches of the NPOV, but that absent some way of making a content ruling it isn't possible to figure out who is being neutral in the dispute (since all sides with claim they are neutral). The problem isn't that nobody knows, but that nobody has the authority to decide.
Do you believe that the policy on involved administrators using the admin tools should ever be relaxed to any extent? Here are some general scenarios to work with; feel free to use none, some, all of these (as well as others if you wish): In topic areas under community general sanctions or arbitration discretionary sanctions; in such a topic area but only on underwatched pages; when attracting the attention of other uninvolved editors or administrators has proved fruitless? Please elaborate.
- No. The requirement that an administrative action be done by someone uninvolved is critical for fairness – remember that not only must such acts be fair, but they must unfailingly appear to be fair. Beyond the clearly obvious cases of vandalism or suppression-worthy edit to remove, they should always seek the help of their colleagues.
  That said, it's also important to not stretch the definition of "involved" to the kind of ridiculous extremes we occasionally see on AE or ANI. An administrator who isn't involved substantively in a content dispute beyond previous administrative actions cannot be said to be "involved" simply because he once did an edit on a related page or interacted (even negatively) with a related editor. Involvement needs to be relatively current or significant; the litmus test isn't whether one of the currently involved editors sees involvement, but whether a reasonable uninvolved third party would.
Wikipedia:No legal threats spends a fair amount of time talking about legal threats, as one might expect. Interestingly, there is little in it about actual legal action. If editor A sues editor B over a matter that began primarily as a dispute on Wikipedia, what should be done onwiki? Should the two editors be interaction-banned? Should it be forbidden for either editor to mention the lawsuit? Should either of the editors be blocked? What, if any, should the role of the Arbitration Committee or the Wikimedia Foundation be?
- That question had me raise an eyebrow because I was pretty sure the policy did say it rather explicitly. Indeed, it says in the second paragraph that "[if you take legal action] it is required that you do not edit Wikipedia until the legal matter has been resolved".
  That said, the spirit of that rule is less about legal action than about bullying your way in a dispute by throwing around threats and legal jargon in an attempt to influence content or intimidate other editors. In many jurisdictions (no least of which most of the United States), even a futile legal battle is costly in time and resources for both parties; and most editors would not have the resources (or indeed desire) to defend against one. Allowing such bullying to stand would be contrary to our principles and destroy the principle of editing by consensus.
  As to your substantive question, anyone who has taken legal action against the project or one of its volunteers should be immediately and indefinitely blocked until the matter is resolved (if only because there can be no threat more effective than actual legal proceedings); but that's really an academic question because anyone who did so would almost certainly have their legal counsel tell them that editing while an action is pending is amongst the worst possible ideas ever. Add to that the fact that an editor who claims to have taken legal action cannot be reliably determined to really have done so, and you still end up with legal menace used as a bludgeon. Block.
  If I might respond: the policy merely requests that that the user refrain from editing and does not provide a mechanism for this if they are unwilling to stop editing. You should be aware of an incident where the Committee was informed of legal action taken by a then-and-now-unblocked editor who edited before, during, and after the actions. Obviously, none of the parties could do or say anything onwiki, but the Committee was informed about what was going on. Was it the Committee's responsibility do anything in this case? If not, what should have been done? NW (Talk) 02:23, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  Part of the problem is that in such cases (real legal action that isn't plastered on-wiki) there are constraints on what the committee can do without causing actual legal problems for the editors in question, the foundation or – indeed – the arbitrators themselves. I think that the committee can only intervene in cases like this under the request or advice of the Foundation counsel. Certainly, the committee made sure that Foundation legal was aware of the situation (they already were) and then took a holding pattern.
  Like I said, the policy is really about on-wiki bullying behavior; actual legal action that does not end up as legal manoeuvring on wiki limits our responses to what counsel advises we do with a default to "nothing".
  It occurs to me that your question is probably more related to the proposed TOS than it is to the Committe; you might want to look there and possibly comment while the terms are still being tweaked.
  Thanks for the link; I'll be sure to check it out. I did want to reply further though and pose an additional hypothetical: if the Committee were protected from legal liability by the Foundation in some way, do you think that it should get involved in cases like this? Or should the Foundation office? Or are editors just on their own? (I mean in an "ideal" world, not the one we have). If the latter, is there anything that Wikipedia should do to discourage legal action beyond what it is already doing? NW (Talk) 03:04, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  I don't think that should be the committee's job to intervene even in those cases. Ultimately, this is a matter of legal strategy and we'd be stepping on Foundation terrain if we did (and I expect that if they come up with an indemnification plan, it is likely to demand that we pass on legal issues to them and act only on request).
  That said, I can't discuss details because they are privileged, but I know the Foundation is revising its legal strategy with an eye towards discouraging vexatious litigation against editors and already took some steps in that direction. Ultimately, the WMF is the legal entity behind the projects and their legal defence (including that of its mission and contributors) is ultimately their responsibility.

Additional questions

What is your opinion of specialized content guidelines like Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)? Do you think it is a practice that we should encourage with other guidelines like Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (natural sciences) or Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history)?
- Probably. What is or is not a reliable source, verifiable or notable is eminently field-specific. The danger lies is specialized guidelines trying to word around our core policies rather that supplement them. They should specify, give examples, be more demanding than the general criteria; never relax them.
  
  I note that in your selection, you've elected to enumerate guidelines where that would be the case as a matter of fact; perhaps you already intended it this way?
  
  Indeed. Do you think the same should apply to the WP:GNG and the "special notability guidelines" like WP:ACADEMIC? Furthermore, do you think that the Arbitration Committee has any role to play here? NW (Talk) 03:04, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  Personally, I would. I've never hid the fact that I feel our inclusion criteria are already too lax, and I've never felt comfortable with guidelines which seek to justify relaxing them further. It's important to remember that notability isn't a pillar; it's a shortcut to verifiability. It's a set of rules of thumb to estimate whether it is possible to write a reliably sourced article on a subject, not a sufficient criteria for inclusion in itself. Guidelines that would seem to allow unverifiable or original research articles would be simply incorrect.
  But no, unless things get so far out of hand that verifiability and proper references are set aside and someone brings the matter to ArbCom, the committee doesn't have cause to play a role.
Do you think we should have a policy for medicine and health in the same manner that we have WP:BLP for living people? What about for corporations?
- Probably-ish. When it comes to health and medicine, we do have an ethical responsibility to do no harm if we can avoid it; and that may well translate to relatively stringent criteria for related articles. I think that'd be a good idea, although very tricky to get right.
  Corporations don't fare so well in my book. I could go on a long rant about how the very concept of the legal personality is one of the most abhorrent scab upon our society, and how insane the US legal system was to recognize that an artificial construct of strictly economical value might be said to have "rights" (grumble, grumble). No; we have no ethical imperative to go out of our way to protect corporations any more than we do mountains or subatomic particles. Vandalism is still vandalism, of course, and allegations against them need to be sourced (as does everything else, really), but there is no reason to give them the same protection living persons are afforded for compassionate and ethical reasons.
Given that it is said that the Arbitration Committee does not set policy, only enforce the community's will, and that the Committee does not decide content questions: the Committee has taken some actions in the past with respect to BLP that some viewed as mandating policy. Do you agree or disagree?
- I don't believe it was mandating policy. The directive about BLP is a Foundation mandate, and was already well known and established when the committee intervened.
  What the committee did do is forcibly put things back on track within that existing rule. It did mean that some of our current guidelines and policies were kinked, but that's a consequence of BLP being a prescriptive rule (like the pillars) rather and a description of current practice. In that case, the current practice was not compatible with the prescription and needed to be adjusted.
It has been said that the English Wikipedia has outgrown itself, that the consensus based approach doesn't scale this big. Do you agree or disagree, and why? If you agree, what should be done about it? Can the project be moved to a different model (other wikis, for example, use much more explicit voting mechanisms [we now have secret balloting available too, should we wish to use it])? Should it be?
- There are actually three areas where consensus is used, and its success varies between them.
  - Consensus as an editorial practice. There, it still works quite well. 99% of the encyclopedia is successfully written using that model. It does break down in topics that are particularly polemic or acrimonious in real life, but that's a consequence of the real life battle being imported on Wikipedia and not a failing of the model itself. In practice, consensus works well for small groups of people and most articles' editing communities are exactly that.
  - Consensus as a dispute resolution method. This works less well; as I noted above acrimonious disputes are much less amenable to resolution by simply sitting down to talk; this is why the committee exists, and where we should probably do some serious examination in other ways of settling disputes where the committee cannot (like contents).
  - Consensus as a method of governance. Oh, god, no. When Wikipedia had a few dozen dedicated contributors, it kinda worked. Now? Not even close. Even if you only take the tiny fraction of editors who even discusses governance, they are hopelessly unrepresentative of the community as a whole (whatever that means), and positions are so entrenched that you probably couldn't get consensus on what the current name of the project is! We need to find new ways to progress, because we have been essentially entirely paralysed for at least the past 4 years (and even before that, change had already gotten painfully hard).
    Perhaps the trick lies in creating a "legislative body"; perhaps we should use actual voting more often and take the majority as the correct default value (rather than always default to status quo ante).
  In short, consensus works for small things, fails at anything project-wide. I can sum up my opinion this way: "There is no proposal so eminently reasonable and considered that cannot be blocked by a vocal minority regardless of merit".
Some editors enforce the banning policy in a manner perhaps best described by {{BannedMeansBanned}}; others take a more lenient approach and only enforce the ban on what they believe to be "bad" editing. What is your opinion on this? Does the reason why an editor was banned have any impact in your analysis?
- The problem with allowing the "good" edits is that they never are: either the editor was banned because of behaviour (in which case the edits are at best pointy, and at worst an attempt to manipulate the system), or they were banned because their content was (in which case the edit is untrustworthy).
  In the end the reason why the editor was banned might affect why they should not be allowed to continue editing, but not whether they should.

Question from Tony1: Professional mediation and indemnification[edit]

Restraining aggrieved parties in emotionally charged scenarios is central to the Committee’s role, and arbitrators are in principle exposed to legal action by those parties in a real-world jurisdiction. It matters little whether an action is launched or merely threatened, and whether it is quite unreasonable: the costs for an individual arb to forestall a default judgment in a foreign court would be considerable (and I believe it’s not hard to transfer an order to the courts in one’s local jurisdiction). The risk is greater because as volunteers we can’t be expected to provide professional mediation as an intermediary between wiki and real-world judicial processes—mediation that might head off litigation in the first place.

Given the WMF's annual income of some $20M, what is your view on whether the Foundation should:

set up a process for engaging and coordinating professional mediation of disputes that have the potential to morph into legal action against arbs (where requested by the Committee and where the Foundation believes the arb has acted in good faith); and
- That's an interesting scenario I had not considered. I see no reason why that wouldn't be workable, though I see this as part of the next answer.
offer legal indemnity to arbs after either a litigious party has rejected an offer of WMF-funded mediation or after that mediation has failed?
- I cannot give details, because much of this is initial talk and examination, but one of the reason why ArbCom sent a delegation to the Foundation this November (i.e.: our liaison, Brad, and myself as chaperone) was exactly that concern.
  What I can say is that the Foundation is aware of that concern, receptive, and that scenarios are currently being examined. (Note that this would most likely not include only ArbComs but also some of the "higher" functionaries like stewards). There is a lot to be done, and it's a very complex matter (not least of which because it doesn't scale well); but it's being worked on.

Tony (talk) 00:55, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Sven Manguard[edit]

Looking over ArbCom cases from the past few years, it is clear to me that many times, editors involved in the dispute being heard in a particular case use the Workshop page as a platform to continue their disputes. These Workshop posts tend to take the form of 'finding of facts that the people on the other side of the dispute have committed heinous acts, heavy sanctions for the people on the other side of the dispute, and people on my side of the dispute get off without even a warning' (it's usually less transparent than that, but barely).

Do you agree with my above conclusion, in part or in full, or not at all? Please explain your reasoning.
- That's a pretty good assessment of the situation. The opinion about the usefulness and importance of the workshop page is divided within the committee itself, ranging from "indispensable" to "Oh my god, why do we even have these things?" (I'm in the latter camp, in case you were wondering). Add to that a very unhealthy habit of allowing a great deal of leeway on the case pages for fear of appearing to have prejudged anything (or anyone), a soupçon of "give them rope to hang themselves", and the result is the workshop.
If you believe that problematic activity occurs in the Workshop pages, (even if you don't agree with my statement), what solutions would you propose?
- It should be scrapped entirely. It's a bizarre leftover of the very original case workflow that dates from the creation of the committee, and serves no useful purpose whatsoever that I found. I think the arbs should engage more on the evidence page, ask questions and clarifications there. Discussion of the proposed decision should occur, in limited and moderated form, on the PD talk page.
  All of that said, however, I've found that the committee is surprisingly (very) conservative about its workflow, and suggestions on new way to work a case up have met reactions halfway between horror and apathy.

Questions from Russavia[edit]

There is a still open RfC at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification#Request_for_clarification:_Arbcom-unblocked_editors. As evidenced at this request, there are numerous admins and editors who have serious doubts over the Committee's unblocking of what is suspected, with a high level of good faith and WP:DUCK evidence, to be a banned disruptive sockpuppet. Do you think it is appropriate that after nearly a month and a half:

the community is still none the wiser as to what exactly lead this sockpuppet to be unblocked? Your answer to this question is important, as the Committee has not indicated that there were any privacy concerns requiring this unblock to have been dealt with in secret.
- Pretty much by definition, an appeal of a ban for sockpuppetry will involve checkuser information with is private by default.
of being asked to identify themselves, those responsible for approving the unblock have still yet to do so, let alone follow a Committee members suggestion a month ago that those responsible for the unblock should be commenting?
- Well, that my be the three members of BASC, but most arbitrators chimed in during discussion.
there is still no clear answer as to why an editor is told by the Committee that future concerns in relation to the editor should be taken to the community, with a heads up to the Committee (I still have the email from 24 September as evidence of this), whilst the clarification request is indicating that the Committee will deal with all future issues in relation to this editor? Despite the email from 24 September saying that the editor in question is not under any "protection" from the Committee, once could reasonably assume that this is the case, or...
- There is no protection. It would, of course, be inappropriate to simply reblock an editor unblocked by the committee simply because one disagrees with the appeal being granted (that is, after all, the point of an appeal); but that does not prevent a new block if new (and, hopefully, sufficient) evidence comes in or different misbehaviour takes place.
  Ultimately, it's the committee's responsibility to be more stringent than the administrators with evidence, and to demand higher certainty that expected for routine administration: our decisions have no (practial) appeal.
the Committee refuses to explicitly acknowledge that it may have erred in this case, and given lack of Committee response turn it back to the Community to deal with?
- That would be because it did not err. In this case, the evidence was not sufficient for a finding of sockpuppetry and, given the appeal of the user, we unblocked. "Assume good faith" translates to "innocent until proven guilty" when sanctions are considered; and regardless of whether that editor was or was not socking, they were blocked much too swiftly and on flimsy evidence.

The last question is especially important as there are numerous uninvolved admins and admins who have previously dealt with the user in question, who are too "afraid" of going over the Committee's head, even in the face of evidence; if one assumes ownership of a problem as the current Committee has, then surely the current Committee must also assume ownership of their actual ownership of the problem possibly being part of said problem. If one looks at the answers thus far given at the request from arbiters closely, one can see that there seems to be a theme amongst arbs to suggest that the Community block the editor for other current issues; all the while the Committee avoids answering Community concerns at the actual clarification request. However, the other issues have only strengthened the opinion of sockpuppetry amongst other members of the Community.

As an arbiter who is seeking re-election, I would also request a response to the following:

did you play a role in the unblocking in this particular case? If so, please explain your role, and whether you involved or not in the unblock, were you in favour of the unblock in subsequent discussions?
- I saw the checkuser results, the provided diffs, and agreed that there was not sufficient evidence to warrant a finding of sockpuppetry.
depending on the outcome of that clarification request, and of course your re-election bid, if re-elected what will you do as an individual arbiter to prevent such things from occurring in the future? that is, of course, apart from permabanning me or banning me from requesting that the Committee take responsibility for its actions :)
- You are presuming there is something to prevent; I certainly disagree that the committee should do anything else than examine evidence with a critical eye and demand it be convincing before it upholds an indefinite block.
  As for your snark about being banned for criticism, I find it a little amusing really: historically, the committee has never even considered banning someone for being a critic – no matter how acerbic – and has even given more leeway than reasonable to disruptive activity to critic to avoid even the appearance of trying to stifle criticism. That little bit of hyperbole certainly does not help support your line of questioning.
absent the declared issue of privacy concerns, do you think that BASC should publish all of its decisions with a clear rationale on wiki for Community review?
- It already does, on the arbitration noticeboard. Obviously, no checkuser data can ever be posted there.
how important do you think it is that editors should willingly admit when an error is made, fix it, and then move on?
- That's critical. I believe I've always followed that principle myself, and have always voted and acted within the committee so that it does the same as a body.
  That said, this does not mean admitting to an error whenever someone disagrees with something I, or the committee, did. Your question presumes again that the committee erred in this matter when it did not: it applied a higher standard of evidence, and the result remains that at that time there was not sufficient evidence to warrant an indefinite block.

Questions from Cool Hand Luke[edit]

I preface my questions with this: these are sincere questions based upon real concerns. I do not know how you will answer.

Why did you briefly step down from ArbCom in July 2009, and what convinced you to rejoin?
- I suppose it has been long enough that I can briefly summarize the situation without inflaming the dispute, now.
  The short of it, members of the committee were honestly and sincerely intending to turn a blind eye to an administrator socking deceptively because "some people" were aware of it, and he was part of the old guard. Supporting the "old boy's club" this way is so fundamentally unjust and abhorrent to me that I could not possibly condone this course of action – even passively.
  I stepped down so that I could bring the case myself to light if the committee was unable or unwilling to. Side-channel communications with some of my colleagues convinced me to wait, in the hopes that they would wake up. They eventually did; and resolved the case by applying the same standard to the socking admin every other editor was subject to. This was the necessary condition for me to rejoin.
  I'll never know if my stepping down was necessary or even useful as a shock for the committee to act properly in that instance, but I do know that I could not have honestly serve with a body that had wilfully acted in a dishonest way.
Above you write that email communication "is a necessary and unavoidable component of any group of people working together remotely – especially when from all over the world. In an office, you'd have the opportunity for meetings, water cooler discussions, and quick chats at the bar after hours; all of those are a necessary component of working together and will occur." How do you square this statement with your reaction to the leaks (see, for example, your email Wed, Jun 30, 2011 at 1:46 UTC)? What has caused your apparent change of heart toward the ArbCom list and the committee itself?
- It's important to not confuse "A reasonably secure mailing list is a necessary tool" with "we can use a mailing list that is currently known to leak".
  At the moment I unsubscribed from the list, we had no indication that it was not currently being read by the leaker; I had no intention of providing further fodder for the kibitzers on Wikipedia Review. I resubscribed to the list once it became apparent that current discussion was not visible to the leaker (or, at least, not leaked). Nevertheless, improving the security and privacy of that mailing list has been my priority in our discussions with the Foundation and more steps to secure it are on the way with Erik Möller taking the lead on the WMF side.
Under what, if any, circumstances do you believe ArbCom should knowingly allow a pedophile to edit Wikipedia?
- There are no such circumstances, provided we have enough evidence of the matter rather than moral panic on hints and suggestions.
  There are two reasons why that is. Firstly, we obviously do not want Wikipedia to be used for advocacy and grooming. Secondly, we don't want to give the appearance that this can occur. There are few cases where I believe our quasi-constitutional mandate to prevent the project "from falling into disrepute" comes into play, this is clearly one. Faux-news would have a field day of Wikipedia bashing if it became known that the project knew about a pedophile and let them edit (nevermind that ArbCom isn't the project – news media are not known for their discernment and comprehension of our subtle organization), and the moral panic around the subject is so strong that it would irreparably harm the project and the foundation.
Several of the cases you've offered to draft have stalled out. From the perspective of this soon-to-be former colleague, you seem to withdraw somewhat when criticized, leaving others to wrap up the details. Do you believe this has been a problem? If so, how have you been working on it?
- Arguably my greatest failing. I get frustrated to the point of becoming incoherent when the committee falls into reactionary mode – which is pretty much anytime any change to "the way we do things" is contemplated.
  Those cases you refer to are when I attempted a new tack, and it was rejected out of hand without (I felt) deliberate consideration of a new approach simply because "we never did it this way". In those cases – especially if I feel I'm alone in my corner – I have the unfortunate reflex of stepping back with a "fine, have it your way but don't expect me to help you fuck this up" attitude. I'm not very good at dealing with internal dissension within the committee because I feel that its outer functioning is so much more important than even my opinion on how we could improve things; so I duck behind the furniture rather than continue a dispute that might lead to a breakdown in group relationship – even if I feel that the committee is being (collectively) stupid.
  I should point out that the 2011 committee has rarely managed to make me feel this way: there was a significant influx of new(er) blood that was a little more willing to try new things even if we were still in the minority. But as we say in French, "chat échaudé craint l'eau froide" [the cat that was scalded fears cold water], and I've also been more leery about making suggestions for changes. I still think that's a loss for the committee, though.

Thanks in advance. Cool Hand Luke 05:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a follow-up to 47, you didn't really answer what you would do to improve. I'm not sure what cases you think I'm talking about, but from my subjective observation, it seems to be a fairly consistent problem. What's gone on with the Abortion case, for example? Do you think this case has gone well? If not, what will you do to improve case resolution?
- Jclemens had numerous distractions preventing him from drafting the case, and nobody (including me) really took the ball from him because of regular reassurances that he would get the time to do so shortly. Sometimes real life concerns take away our attention and, no matter how well-intended, volunteer effort takes a sideline. I can empathize, because it's not always immediately clear from the thick of things that delays will pile up, and one can honestly say "I'll have the time to sit down tomorrow/this weekend/next week to do it" without knowing that the opportunity won't actually materialize.
  I don't think there is a magic bullet solution – in the end, we too are volunteers and we don't always have the liberty of setting time aside for fixed periods as we could for a paying job. I think that it's a bad idea to rely on designated drafters to the exclusion of collective decision writing because it adds a bottleneck that's difficult to evaluate from case to case, but collective writing brings with it its own set of problems.
  Perhaps the solution lies in having an actual coordinator that could reassign cases as deadlines near? Or perhaps decisions should be crafted directly on-wiki bit by bit rather than have an entire decision posted in one draft that is potentially held up for a long time over a particular snag? I don't have any obviously correct solution to offer — but I am willing to experiment with different workflows until we find a better one. I certainly have delayed case resolutions in the past by my unavailability – and there are few of us who can honestly claim they never did. The solution probably lies in systemic methods of avoiding bottlenecks rather than praying for them to not occur.
As an additional follow-up to 47, I think you're right to be concerned about possible "breakdown in group relationship." This is a widespread problem on the site. Consider, for example, an admin who belittles others for their good faith concerns, and then posts the message "fuck you all," and storms off. Say that this editor returns a few days later without an apology or even an acknowledgement that there was any problem with his or her conduct. As an arbitrator, how would you deal with such users to improve the collaborative environment of the site?
- I think the key here is "without an apology or even an acknowledgement that there was any problem with his or her conduct". Nobody is immune to fits of anger or frustration – especially in highly stressful situations – and while best avoided that's not always possible (it's not called "loosing one's temper" randomly). Even a simple "sorry I blew up" does a great deal to mitigate this, and unless the matter is habitual enough that it becomes seriously disruptive, such incidents are no cause for great concern.
  That said, your hypothetical bears an uncanny resemblance to the incident you alluded to in question 45. Perhaps you intended this as an opportunity for me to discuss my return to the list? If that is the case (and in any case otherwise), this is probably best summed up by quoting the first message I wrote to the list on return:
```
Hey all,

I must apologize for the outburst that led to my leaving the mailing
list.  While I did have some serious concerns about its privacy, the
fact that I was frustrated and stressed by the theft and leaks is not an
excuse for that particular kind of language.

You all know me to be candid, I hope you also know me to be civil and
respectful despite my (thankfully) rare outbursts.  I intended no slight
to any of you, and was flailing in rage at the situation rather than at
any of you specifically.

-- Coren / Marc
```

Thanks again. Cool Hand Luke 20:20, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a follow-up to number 48, I agree that volunteers are only likely to do work that they have time to do and that interests them. I'm not likely to be very active on the site in the foreseeable future for this reason. I also agree that ArbCom should tinker with the way cases are drafted to determine whether there's a better way. Given that happy and interested volunteers are more likely to be productive ones, do you think it's possible that you are more interested in (and better suited for) work besides dispute resolution? For example, have you considered working more on the technical and meta aspects of ArbCom, such as those discussed on your recent trip to WMF in San Francisco, and perhaps avoid signing up for activities that frustrate you "to the point of becoming incoherent"?
- I do think we should have better defined roles a some separation of duties within the committee. Certainly, I intend to keep on top of (and concentrate on) the technical and meta aspects, for there lies my strength and skill.
  That said, it's probably best described as "besides some aspects of dispute resolution". I don't think I'm especially suited for drafting cases (especially given that I have such superb colleagues to compare to in that aspect), but I don't think there is any question that my contribution to case decisions or internal deliberations is any less valuable than the other members'.

Thanks again; you have fairly answered some of my concerns. Others linger, but readers should be able to make that judgment. Cool Hand Luke 23:43, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question from TYelliot[edit]

Have you ever been contacted outside or within the site by someone attempting to exploit the system through your authority, and, if so, how did you deal with it?
- I have, and I expect most if not all sitting arbs did at one point or another. In my case, it was little more than blustering and a rather pitiful attempt at blackmail, so I simply laughed in their face.
  It's important to not belittle the problem, however, as being in a position of perceived (if dubious) authority will attract the less savoury elements and more serious attempts at bullying have occurred in the past. The proper response in those cases is to immediately disclose the nature of the threats to the committee and the foundations and contact the authorities. In more extreme cases, arbitrators have had to withdraw for a while while the matter gets settled.

Thank you for your cooperation. TYelliot | Talk | Contribs 14:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Thryduulf (talk)[edit]

Are there any topic areas from which you will (almost) always recuse? If so please list them.
- Probably not, although I expect that if a dispute about Québec politics came before the committee I'd play it safe and recuse. I would also almost certainly recuse from cases significantly involving two or three editors with whom my relations to date have been rather less than cordial (the issue there being whether their involvement in the substantive matter is peripheral or central).
If a party or observer to a case request asks you to recuse on a case before you have opined (beyond "waiting for (more) statements" with no indication of leaning), how will you respond?
- It's all about the rationale. While it's important to avoid "judge shopping" by simply granting every request by parties or observers, we should be careful to not ignore reasonable concerns even if we are certain they would not affect our fairness and impartiality.
  That said, the safe course of action is to get third opinions; it occurred once to me that parties demanded my recusal for what I felt were frivolous reasons, but when uninvolved observers noted that it'd be wiser for me to recuse, I did.
If a party or observer to a case request asks you to recuse on a case after you have indicated your support, opposition or leanings, how will you respond?
- I don't think that demands different handling than before we opined. Tradition demands that the opinion expressed be struck but retained on record, and not counted towards acceptance of the case, but that's paperwork. In substance, there should be no difference.
What are you feelings regarding a sitting arbitrator being a party to a case? Is there a conflict of interest? Does the level of their involvement in the events leading up to the case matter?
- It's definitely best avoided, though by no means a catastrophe.
  We have a number of internal safeguards in place to avoid conflicts of interests (a separate list to which the party arbitrator will not be subscribed to discuss the case, for instance, as well as a strong prohibition from discussing the case with our colleagues). Despite that, however, there is no question that perception will be that an arbitrator will have an unfair advantage during a case, so it's a bad idea regardless.
If you find yourself in the above situation, how will you ensure there is no conflict of interest?
- Like I've said, the committee carefully segregates interval communication to avoid a party to the case having an "inside ear", or being privy to deliberations. In addition, I'd be especially careful to remain as objective as humanly possible (give diffs, set out verifiable facts, refrain from giving opinions) to both avoid personalizing the dispute and giving the impression that my opinions are given more weight than other parties'.
Should a sitting arbitrator refrain from getting involved in lower-level dispute resolution during their term? If so, why?
- Almost certainly, both to avoid ending up a party to a case and from being involved in a dispute that might end up before the committee later.
  That said, there are two cases where it's reasonable for a sitting arbitrator to do "normal" administration and DR work: for simple and uncontroversial cases certain to never reach the committee (simple vandalism, for instance); and for cases where a quick intervention by a "senior" administrator (or at the very least one which holds a measure of community trust) might prevent a situation from degenerating far enough to explode.
  Of those two, the latter is the most likely to backfire and must still be done gingerly and with great care.
Should a sitting arbitrator refrain from getting involved in policy discussions during their term? If so, why?
- That's much less clear. On the one hand, every arbitrator has been an editor for quite some time and has spent a great deal of time involved in policy and their interpretation, and tend to be the editors most aware of what problems exist and what their repercussions are – it would be silly to pretend that their opinions aren't valuable in policy discussion.
  On the other hand, the separation between what the committee does and its avoidance of making policy makes it an iffy proposition if it's perceived as the committee involving itself in policy discussion. The important part is to make it clear that the person participating is an editor who happens to be an arbitrator, not the arbitrator-as-role.
  In practice, I haven't seen this to be a serious concern in the past. I've occasionally involved myself in some aspects of policy discussion while I was sitting on the committee, and I've seen my colleagues do the same from time to time, and there never seemed to have been confusion on this front.
In what circumstances can incivility be excused?
- I don't think there are. There are certainly cases where it can be forgiven, and some cases where it's best left to slide (the occasional outburst borne of frustration and anger is eminently human, and few can claim to have never blown a gasket once in a while); but unrepentant or habitual incivility is downright poisonous and needs to be eliminated.
  Many seem to forget that the requirement of civility is one of our founding pillars, and no less important than neutrality for instance. I've always been particularly frustrated by the community's perennial failure to settle on behaviour standards and enforce them. The result is that we're at a point where rudeness is the norm, and that scares away a great many new contributors.

Questions from Joe Gazz84[edit]

I would like to apologize for the late questions, I've only just gotten the time to write them. If you see a question that you've already answered or one that is similar, please proceed to answer it, you may think of a new way to explain your idea/answer. Please answer all of these questions, they will weigh in heavily when I vote.

Can you please elaborate on what you answered above as to what needs changing? Why does that need changing? Why would that benefit the community and the committee?
- We desperately need governance. I think an elected policy making body would be the simplest way of getting there, though I wouldn't give good odds to this idea getting off the ground with anything resembling consensus; hence the catch-22: we're stuck with no system to make project-wide changes, because raising consensus on anything significant is now entirely impossible (there are no proposals – however considered and well thought out – that will not have enough editors opposing it to block any consensus); and we can't put such a system in place because that would be a significant project-wide change.
  At some point, we'll have to fix this before we calcify ourselves out of relevance in the evolving world.
Given that the committee doesn't create policy but only enforces policy set-forth by the community, do you believe it would be allowed or acceptable for the committeeto set a policy if it sees a need for one?
- Like I said above, we can't make policy but we have a mandate (and responsibility) to make sure that currently problematic holes or conflicts are patched up. To day, the committee has always followed an implicit doctrine of "minimal intrusion": we will clarify if possible, tweak if necessary, and otherwise apply liberal amounts of duct tape and haywire until the community comes up with a more permanent solution.
  A fairly good recent example is the BLP proposed deletion process which was crafted by the community to take over from the temporary stopgap we made with a motion.
An editor, who has been extremely helpful to the wiki and it's surrounding community (many good articles, helps clear backlogs, etc.) one day comes to ArbCom for breaking a rule, do you/would you discount the offense and let the user off with a "warning" not a full ban because they have a good history? Why or why not?
- That question is a little odd because it's not clear that the hypothetical you describe can actually occur.
  In practice, I don't think anyone would ever have face the committee over a single isolated incident unless it's an especially egregious one – certainly, nothing below the level of gross abuse of administrator privileges or harassment.
  Even then, first offenders will rarely get more than an admonishment or (perhaps) a limited restriction of some sort except in extraordinary cases of extremely severe misconduct. It's not so much that the past history has been good (I don't believe that misbehaviour is offset or "balanced" by good behaviour) but that there wasn't an history of misbehaviour to aggravate matters. But no – 40 featured articles under your belt (or whatever) do not otherwise give you a dispensation from following the same rules everyone else must abide by.
How do you know what your limits are when dealing with a case? (No, I will not define "limits", please use your interpretation of what I am asking.)
- It really isn't clear what you mean by this question. Ultimately, we are just a website; we don't hand out death sentences or life imprisonment. We help grease the wheels of the machine where they squeak, and we play an important role there, but none of what we do is so critical as to bring us to personal tolerances.
  That said, we are all passionate about this project and we all have our pet peeves and aggravating nits; it's important to stop and back away if you feel that anger is beginning to take over, or if frustration is getting the best of you.
If you could sum-up your experience here at Wikipedia, in one word, what would it be and why? (This question has more meaning to it than you think, I care more about the "Why" part though.)
- Frustwarding. Your question demands a single word answer, and I felt I needed to construct an admittedly awkward portmanteau to answer it with any sort of justice.
  We bicker, fight and dispute over the lamest things, we are stuck in reactionary inertia and fear any change – to the point of rejecting our lifeblood: new contributors. Our policies conflict with each other and sometimes work against our objective, yet we bury ourselves in more of them every day. We're a battleground for every dispute and war out there, a soapboax for grinding every axe, and the primary target of marketeers and other promotional weasel. Every corner you look in – especially the dusty, less traveled ones – you can see vandalism and misinformation lurking.
  Yet, despite all that (or maybe because of all that) we have succeeded. We are, by far, the greatest repository of knowledge in humanity's history. We inform, educate, entertain. We spread knowledge and information, and we allow the entire world access to the world itself. We managed to instil (some measure of) critical thinking to the masses who had little but the propaganda of mass media to live on before us.
  Wikipedia is an exercise in frustration, but it becomes oh so rewarding when we get things right (which is, in the end, most of the time).

Thank you, JoeGazz ♂ 22:06, 26 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Gimmetoo[edit]

How should one identify when an arbitrator speaks as an individual rather than "officially"? How and when is it appropriate for an arbitrator to say what "the arbitration committee thinks"? Is it appropriate for an arbitrator to speak as an individual in a way that affects future arbitration?
- One should always presume an arbitrator speaks for themselves. Even our collective decisions are but the census of our individual opinions; we each have a voice but none speak for the committee. That said, we occasionally opine on what the rest of our colleagues' positions may be. I, for one, am always careful to edge such opinions appropriately. I might say that "most of the committee is likely to think that X", or that "you're unlikely to find support for Y amongst the committee at large". Those are mere opinions. Educated opinions, perhaps, but not official by any standard.
  Our only "official" statements are those which are the result of a vote (or at the very least a demonstrable consensus). Final case decisions, motions or announcements posted on the Noticeboard. Rarely, a block or unblock with a specific note that this was a committee action.
  The rule of thumb is simple: unless we very explicitly say we are speaking for the committee, we aren't. If we say "you should do X", or "you shouldn't do Y", or even "the committee thinks that Z", then what you are getting is guidance from an editor or administrator that happens to be on the committee, and who might be presumed knowledgeable about its working and history; not an edict or pronouncement from "on high".

Question from Martinevans123[edit]

If an editor creates multiple accounts to edit articles in different subject areas, not realising that this is in breach of WP:SOCK, how should he or she be dealt with? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, unless the editor is under sanctions, more than one account is involved in project space, or there is overlap, what you are describing isn't a violation of WP:SOCK; it's one of the few uses of multiple accounts that are generally accepted by the community.
  In the case there actually is a violation, the best way to handle it is have the editor pick any one account to edit from, and block the others.
Thanks for a very prompt and clear answer. Is there no limit to the number of accounts one editor may hold, provided the edits made (only to ordinary articles) never overlap? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:58, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think no limit is right. Like all things, even normally acceptable alternate accounts can be abused; and someone making dozens where a handful would have been perfectly acceptable is probably veering into disruption; I'd start looking into motives (such as trying to avoid legitimate scrutiny by separating edits that would raise questions if they were viewed as a whole).
  In the end, this is why we don't have a strict code of law to delineate everything that is allowable or not in meticulous detail; we have policies that explain what is expected of editors, and what is generally considered acceptable, but human judgement and common sense must always factor into it. That's what Ignore All Rules is about.
Thanks. That seems perfectly fair. Do you think such an editor should be blocked indefinitely without any requests for explanation at all? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:31, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I can't reasonably make a call like this without enough context to decide. It'd depend on how many accounts there were, what the edits were, how the editor behaved in general, and so on.
  It seems fairly obvious you have a specific case in mind when asking your questions; if you were a little more explicit, then I'd be in a better position to give my opinion on the matter – otherwise, I'm pretty much stuck with generalities and "it depends".

I may well have a specific case in mind, but I don't want to get bogged down in specific cases. Your response gives me a very good idea of your stance. But perhaps I could post another general case for your consideration? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:40, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That is what this page is for. :-) — Coren ^(talk) 22:50, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Let's imagine, in this second case, that an editor suspects another "two editors" of in fact being the same person, because of the similarity of their interests, and the fact that they often support each other on various talk pages, including their own. So he takes a look at their pattern of editing over the course of a month, and finds that their editing never overlaps, i.e. there is one stretch of Editor A edits and another of Editor B edits, but they always alternate. His suspicions seem to be confirmed. But, of course, they could simply be a husband and wife, sharing the same computer. The editor is reluctant to make his suspicions known, as both accounts make a large number of high quality contributions over long periods of time. So should he simply assume they are two users who for some reason time-share access to the internet? Or should he bring his suspicions to the attention of an administrator? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- This is a delicate matter, and the reason why we generally advise that housemates (whether they be spouses or not) avoid contributing to the same areas of the encyclopedia (this is advice I agree with, for that matter). The problem, ultimately, is that if it's not possible the separate the accounts' behaviour they need to be deemed as the same editor for purposes of policy enforcement; it's regrettable, but there are too many troublemakers all too ready to abuse holes for us to be able to take a claim like this at face value.
  That said, this is one of those cases where a quiet intervention on the side is almost certainly the way to go: the scenario you describe is one where a checkuser would be entirely justified in making a check and most likely to poke the committee rather than act directly (especially if, as you say, both accounts are trouble-free and otherwise good contributors). We'd then contact the editor(s) and if they make a credible claim of being housemates then we'd advise them to publicly disclose the link or work in different areas to avoid any potential impropriety (including appearances of impropriety).

I see. That seems very reasonable. And would it make any difference if one of those "two" editors, was an administrator? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk)

Not in substance, though it would pretty much guarantee that a checkuser would pass the buck to the Committee. — Coren ^(talk) 00:46, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very honest answer. Thanks for the discussion. You are a very worthy candidate. Martinevans123 (talk) 00:56, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]