Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/Hullaballoo Wolfowitz

Hullaballoo Wolfowitz

I stopped editing on Wikipedia because of this person. He is corrupt. He deletes anything that goes against his personal values. It's ironic that he should be eligible for this committee. It's like nobody can touch him. I refuse to be a part of Wikipedia ever again because of him and people like him. Have a look at his record and it becomes very obvious what he's all about. He's great at pulling the wool over people's eyes, but he remains an example of the kind of corruption that the founder of Wikipedia was complaining about in the media a few months ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.89.182.143 (talk) 14:22, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

• 197.89.182.143, why are you posting anonymous comments and making unsubstantiated accusations? If you have a valid point - make it openly and nicely rather than hiding behind an IP address. If you don't have valid point - then please don't try to ruin Hullaballoo Wolfowitz's candidature by posting such messages. Such acts are very discouraging for a candidate. He is a very experienced user and for sure has contributed much more (positively) than someone who does not even have the courtesy to come forward and be open to what another experienced editor has to say. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 14:55, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
• The anonymity doesn't concern me, but at least give some evidence (e.g. in the form of diffs). Otherwise it is, per Arun, unsubstantiated. De Guerre (talk) 22:39, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Repeating what I said in response to another candidate discussion below: "[...] for the benefit of uninvolved electors, accusations of this kind should be sourced, preferably in the form of diffs. Unsubstantiated scuttlebutt can and will be ignored." De Guerre (talk) 02:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

The bias and uncompromising nature of the candidate is obvious to anyone who has interacted with him. He refuses to accept any sourcing for articles on subjects he dislikes, yet contributes to unsourced articles on other subjects. His incivility has driven off many contributors. Those who have left Wikipedia due to editors like this are not going to do your work for you. The candidate's history is all there. Look now, or learn later. 2600:1012:B12D:7826:E8B3:3950:8A20:2CBB (talk) 00:53, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

• The idea that this candidate here would be suitable to approriately deal with "personal attacks and other abusive behavior directed at fellow editors" or "bullying and harassment" in a "Level headed" manner, based on his editing actions so far here on Wikipedia, is, at best (and to ironically quote the candidate himself), Orwellian. Also, not that this matters at all, the Bob Dole incident referred to in this candidate's statement actually occurred in the 1988 election cycle.  ;) Guy1890 (talk) 06:36, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Corrupt, eh? Hey, if I vote for you @Hullaballoo Wolfowitz: what kind of—erm... connections are you offering? --Monochrome_Monitor 00:08, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

mmm . . . doughnuts? The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 01:07, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

You've got yourself a vote, my good man! --Monochrome_Monitor 02:12, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

So far the only bad thing I'm hearing is "The truth is out there." That was a fun premise for a 90s TV series, but not a very informative argument against a candidacy. Dcs002 (talk) 10:18, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. I am posting anonymously because of fear HW will retaliate as I have seen him do. Listing diffs to articles would let him make life miserable for people. Articles would suffer also. Please read:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Hullaballoo_Wolfowitz&oldid=400628625
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Hullaballoo_Wolfowitz&oldid=398337167

The criticisms can not ALL be wrong. And I can say he did not change as a result of the rfc. Incivility is only the beginning. Righteous bullying behavior is the OPPOSITE of what the job needs. 46.102.239.191 (talk) 19:31, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for actually sourcing your criticisms. It still needs to be evaluated critically, which we can all do for ourselves, but some justification is better than no justification. De Guerre (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo), I am concerned by these issues. I did not see a response from you on these pages though, and they are five years old. Would you please comment? These are issues that concern me greatly. Allegations of retribution against an editor who posted an agreement to an opinion against you need to be addressed. Allegations that you do not respond to requests for explanations for numerous deletions and edits trouble me too. Your statement was very impressive - the best I read - but these concerns trouble me. If this is your history, will you be responsive as an arbitrator? Did you do all the things that were alleged? Have you changed? Dcs002 (talk) 04:54, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I didn't respond at the RFC because, as one admin noted, it was never validly certified. I responded at some length when the complainant raised similar issues at ANI ([1]), and, yes, I was really pissed off there, because the complainant had (for the second time!) failed to place an appropriate notification of the discussion on my talk page. The bottom line, for me, was that the complainant was trying to deter editors from !voting against their AFD nominations by demanding discussion of each individual !vote, fairly clear WP:BADGERing. The claims of retaliation were never supported by legitimate evidence, because there wasn't any. I was systematically removing NFCC violations and promotional sourcing from Japanese porn BLPs; an editor complained about it, then insisted that when I continued to make similar edits after the complaint, I was retaliating against him by not skipping over articles to which he'd contributed. That's simply not a legitimate complaint. Perhaps it's just coincidence that this complaint was placed here shortly after I removed another batch of NFCC violations from Japanese porn bios, perhaps not. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 20:00, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. That was helpful. De Guerre (talk) 03:03, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the response. It was helpful, and sorry I took so long. Dcs002 (talk) 09:05, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

3 Questions

Hi @Hullaballoo Wolfowitz:

1. Re Arbcom is inefficient and ineffective. It needs to resolve disputes more rapidly and more clearly, rather than trotting out a standard list of fossilized bromides. - Which ones will you keep in the stable?
2. Re It has adopted procedures which incorporate time- and effort-wasting elements of the legal process without adopting procedures which promote efficiency, fairness, and good decision making. - Which ones are on your Top 10 (or Top 5) make/break/fix list?
3. Re If elected to Arbcom, I will immediately propose, as a first step, that when a case is accepted, the Committee provide a clear statement of which matters it intends to address in that case. That will do much to eliminate the absurd waste of community time and effort when amorphous cases turn into free-fire zones and timesinks, both in evidence and workshop pages. I also believe far more discussion should take place in public. - Cool. What are your Steps 2-10 (or 5)?

Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 01:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not familiar enough with the matter to make a really informed comment, but my cursory impression is that the linux community has established a de facto level of technical competence for contributors, avoiding the social networking aspects of many online communities, and has been admirably resistant to attempts to inject external issues. Here, the first is contrary to the WMF's commitment that anyone can edit; the second is a battle lost long ago; and the third is probably the community's greatest failure, at least on en-wiki. To the extent that I can take anything away from the linux community experience, it's that Wikipedia needs to foster an editing environment that encourages skilled editors with expertise to edit effectively, and that the WMF's recent heavy concentration on things like the Visual Editor, encouraging participation by editors at the opposite end of the relevant skill set, is misguided. It reminds me of the general UseNet experience, which deteriorated steadily as the ease of access was increased. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 20:22, 29 November 2015 (UTC)