Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Roger Davies

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This is the talk page for discussing a candidate for election to the Arbitration Committee.

Edit Analysis[edit]

A detailed breakdown of this candidate's edits in article and Wikipedia spaces can be found here. Franamax (talk) 02:03, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

LessHeard vanU As I do not believe in a system where my support may be rendered ineffective by the considerations of Jimbo and the existing ArbCom I shall only be supporting Risker; however, had my vote potential been not been constrained by the apparatus employed I would have supported this candidate. LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:09, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom's duty[edit]

The Rules say: "the Committee will decide cases according to the following guidelines, which they will apply with common sense and discretion, and an eye to the expectations of the community:

  1. Established Wikipedia customs and common practices.
  2. Wikipedia's "laws": terms of use, submission standards, bylaws, general disclaimer, and copyright license ...."

Wikipedia policy serially refers to the need to protect the encyclopedia from harm. Examples:

  • WP:BLOCK: "All blocks ultimately exist to protect the project from harm"
  • WP:COPYVIO: "Such a situation should be treated seriously, as copyright violations not only harm Wikipedia's redistributability but also create legal issues."
  • WP:SYSOP: "a present and very serious emergency (ie, reasonable possibility of actual, imminent, serious harm to the project ..."
  • WP:VAND: "Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia ... and will not be tolerated."
  • WP:BLP "From both a legal and ethical standpoint it is essential that a determined effort be made to eliminate defamatory and other undesirable information from these articles as far as possible.

In the light of this, would you consider striking your oppose vote or, better still, switching to support :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 16:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment[edit]

(cp from my talk page) I'm sorry to spam you but I have (exceptionally) commented on your oppose. If you wish to respond, would you please do so on my election talk page. Thanks, --ROGER DAVIES talk 21:25, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Roger. My take is that if you are so concerned about your privacy, ArbCom may not be a venue for you. Outing happens all the time, and there are those sleuths that pride themselves in that nefarious activity... (remember what happened to NYB?) Dunno, maybe just me, but the way you responded (or did not...) to these questions, gave me a feeling that ArbCom may not be for you... Am I wrong? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:16, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I realise that outing happens all the time but I'm not going to comprehensively out myself, which providing a complete list of websites and user names would do :) What I've done is look at other candidate responses and updated my questionnaire in line with other's degree of disclosure. I will though try to get this clarified for next year's election so that similar questions are expressly in general terms. --ROGER DAVIES talk 23:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, in short, if you are susceptible to harassment because of the nature of your workplace, family, or living situation, then you shouldn't run for Arbcom. Period. There are people who are motivated and well-funded who are willing to spend considerable amounts of time and money figuring out who you are and then using that information to blackmail you, harass you, or both. And chances are, if they pick you, they're going to succeed. Not everyone on Arbcom is thus targeted but it is something that every candidate should be prepared for. Anonymity isn't a sufficient defense because it is impossible to maintain in the face of motivated opposition with resources.

Second, the questions aren't intended to out you. They're intended to gauge your leadership skills, the breadth of your dispute resolution experience, and your level of social engagement. I don't consider candidates who lack any leadership experience beyond college or grad school to be good candidates, which is why I ask the question.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First, everyone is susceptible to harassment in some form or another. I do not believe there's a single member of ArbCom who would, for example, be indifferent to having their windows smashed or their car tires slashed. The point here is not whether personal harassment is a possibility but whether your questions make it significantly easier for the harasser/stalker to get to work. Your Q.3. says:
Can you summarize your involvement in other on-line projects and communities, including the identities under which you have participated at those communities?
Fully answering this not only tells the potential harasser where to go harass but also exactly who to harass. That aside, I cannot for the life of me understand why an eBay account name (which is within the scope of your question, literally interpreted, along with MySpace, Flickr, Amazon, Gaydar, Facebook, etc etc) is any business of Wikipedia. But it gets worse, because your Q.8. is even more intrusive:
Do you have any friends, family members, or other people close to you IRL who edit Wikipedia? What are their user names and their relationships to you?
This provides a harasser with an at-a-glance list of completely innocent people to start harassing, with the real prospect that some of them might be youngsters. What were you thinking of when you asked this? Didn't BEANS cross your mind?
Incidentally, I understand your reasoning about leadership skills though in the absence of verification ...
--ROGER DAVIES talk 05:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While in some sense, everyone may be susceptible to harassment, there is wide variation in the susceptibility of people to blackmail perpetrated from a remote location. For example, one former arbcom member is male, unmarried, in his late 20s, has a history of fighting back in the courts when harassed, and has an employer who is a) unaffected by adverse publicity and b) doesn't care about the former arbcom member's Wikipedia activities. On the other hand we've seen Wikipedians who have had to discontinue editing because their employer found out about it and had a policy against public statements or press contact, even if unrelated to work; we've also had Wikipedians who have vulnerable people close to them who make them unusually sensitive to certain kinds of harassment.

The question about friends and family members is there mainly because we've had some claims over the years that roommates, friends, etc., are in fact responsible for what appears to be good hand/bad hand socking. I believe that by asking the question up front I can lay the groundwork for dealing with any future misunderstandings in this area should someone run a checkuser that returns surprising results.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

re: Durova[edit]

I'm puzzled by this message and, more precisely, what I've done to be savaged thus:

Oppose: The bane of our election process is that it favors people who work hard and don't step on any toes. These people may be great Wikipedians, but are they really equipped to handle the site's toughest disputes? The 2008 ArbCom has been plagued with too many milquetoast pass-the-buck remedies. Remedies that address serious administrative misconduct by asking people to play nicely together; remedies that delegate authority to WP:AE in the form of general sanctions. And as we've seen many times including very recently, those discretionary sanctions can cause more trouble than they solve. It's time to elect arbitrators who have a track record of solving conflict, not sidestepping it. Roger Davies has blocked only 11 people during his tenure as an administrator--which has only been since February of this year. Those blocks were easy calls. You're a wonderful Wikipedian, Roger. But you're too green for the position you're seeking. Come back in 2009. DurovaCharge! 23:19, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The suggestion here, of course, is that I'm an ineffectual, buck-passing, indecisive yes-man ... Where, I wonder, is the evidence for any of this? The only hard fact in sight is that I've made eleven blocks as an administrator. The rest is speculation.

Where is my track record of side-stepping trouble and buck-passing? There isn't one. I have a track record of tackling problems at source rather than slapping a plaster on the symptoms. Has my leadership led to paralysis at Milhist? Certainly not. We have a reputation for boldness and many of our innovations are now wiki-standard.

Above all, I'm surprised by your suggestion that all ArbCom's ills can be solved by a few Judge Dredds and well-publicising lynchings of the usual subjects. ArbCom's problems run much deeper than that: secrecy, inconsistency, delay, indecision, and lack of direction. These are systemic issues which I'm well equipped to address and I don't know why you dismiss so lightly an experienced and innovative consensus builder, with advanced diplomacy skills and considerable clue. I may not be a typical candidate but, hey, Wikipedia prides itself on diversity. Right? --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:03, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is an attempt to savage you. I agree completely with Durova's statement but will likely support you if you run again in a year. The fact is that someone with only 11 block in their admin log just has not been that involved with the more nasty aspects of the project. And ArbCom deals only with the nastiest of the nasty. Throwing you in there would be like throwing a person who has just learned to swim into a storm tossed sea. It won't be good for you and it won't be good for the ArbCom. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Don't you honestly think that we're being just a little bit overdramatic here? First, I have seen plenty of longterm disputes at Milhist and worked towards sorting them. There's a bit more to solving disputes than dishing out blocks. Second, I have over twenty years experience of dealing with much nastier real life stuff. Thanks, though, for your quick response. --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nastiness here isn't identical to nastiness IRL. It might be a good idea to ask if yourself if you've ever dealt with anything like the massive ethnic disputes that periodically come to ArbCom or with wheel-wars or with serious BLP issues. I don't see much of any of that in your contribution list. I might have exaggerated slightly in saying that you won't be good for ArbCom. But there are certainly candidates with experience in those areas who will be better as a result of that. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:59, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have been dealing with real life BLP issues in the media for years and have covered ethnic disputes (from Northern Ireland to Middle East). I can talk to people on both sides without preconception and with some insight into their issues. I have not dealt with wheel-warring but that strikes me as an area that is overdue for clarification, which would probably reduce a lot of it. --ROGER DAVIES talk 05:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec x2) Actually, Roger, when I wrote the oppose I'd have been glad to support you next year. I had been meaning to leave a friendly note on your user talk wishing you the best since it's looking like you'll make it this time around. Yet your reply introduces new doubts I never had before. Surely there's reasonable middle ground between eleven easy userblocks in ten months of adminship, or--to use your term--Judge Dredd. That reasonable middle ground is the candidates who come to the table with more of a track record in dispute resolution: people such as WJBscribe or SirFozzie or several others. I've seen how they perform under pressure. ArbCom isn't a training ground. The first I've seen of you under pressure is this: you construct a binary and frankly prejudicial straw man argument while simultaneously boasting of your own advanced diplomacy skills. Oh really? Good luck to you. DurovaCharge! 04:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The short answer, I suppose, is if the thrust of your objection was my eleven blocks why did you wrap it up with so much extraneous stuff? ("The bane of our election process ... don't step on any toes ... [not] really equipped to handle the site's toughest disputes ... milquetoast pass-the-buck remedies ... asking people to play nicely together".) Using synecdoche to bulk out a thin oppose was prejudicial and unnecessary, especially when the criticism had little to do with me at all. This is the essence of the logical fallacy at the heart of your oppose, (2) doesn't follow from (1).
  1. Some editors attract support because they are ineffectual, buck-passing, indecisive yes men.
  2. Roger has attracted support but hasn't made enough blocks, so therefore he must be an ineffectual, buck-passing, indecisive yes man.
Yes, of course, there's mid-ground on the block count. There's mid-ground on all aspects of a candidate's suitability: no blocks but loads of related/complementary experience or loads of blocks and no external experience. The fact remains though that gaps in one candidate are complemented by qualities in another. It's a collegiate process, which reduces the need for individuals to fit a stereotype. Finally, (1) ArbCom will always be a training ground for new arbitrators as there's no way to accumulate precisely all the right skills outside it and (2) the Judge Dredd imagery was hyperbole not logic. --ROGER DAVIES talk 05:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(od) Apology --ROGER DAVIES talk 09:18, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apology accepted. Best wishes on your recovery. DurovaCharge! 17:29, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Apart from sounding all gravelly like Harvey Fierstein, things are improving rapidly. --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:01, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

re: Trusilver[edit]

I wonder how carefully you've compared my replies with those of other candidates. I did a comparison a short while ago and concluded I haven't handled anything too differently to anyone else.

  • Alone of the candidates, I have provided a list of links to key discussions in my candidate statement. There are nine of these and the number will grow daily.
  • I have replied to 250+ questions so far.
  • I have answered more questions than most other serious candidates.
  • I have gone into more than adequate depth on many answers. Some remain a bit unfocused but this reflects the immensity of the task rather than evasiveness on my part. All other candidates have glossed over stuff too, probably for similar reasons to mine.
  • I have completely revised and updated many important questions.
  • For several questions, I've devised new procedures and described how they would work.
  • For one, I drafted a motion.
  • I have not promised the earth in my replies because, even if elected, I am in no position to deliver most of them. My voice will be one of fifteen; additionally, Jimmy Wales has a veto.
  • For similar reasons, I have avoided tub-thumping rabble-rousing rhetoric.
  • Hypothetical questions have (largely) been given hypothetical replies.
  • At 127K, my replies are among the shortest. Typically, others are 10% longer. One runs to 180K.

--ROGER DAVIES talk 04:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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