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

Individual questions[edit]

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Question from Biblioworm[edit]

Do you have any experience in successfully resolving disputes, either on-wiki or off-wiki?
Not much on wiki but yes in few cases the situation was so that it reached up to dispute resolution notice board where it was solved ultimately. Off-wiki, I am a teacher and hence it is often a professional demand.

Questions from Collect[edit]

Can a case be opened without presuming that sanctions will be necessary? Do you feel that once a case is opened that impartial arbitrators will "inevitably" have to impose sanctions?
Yes, because purpose of opening a case is not imposing sanctions but to resolve the dispute. If the case has other possible solutions then arbitrator shall prefer it using true impartial sense. Imposing sanctions be the last option in any case.
If an administrator states (hypothetically) "You will vote however you like, and I am frankly not interested in changing your mind, but you should at least be honest about why you are opposing me. At the moment, you are not", would that administrator be considered "involved" or "impartial" in any way with the editor in whose talk space he made such an edit?
Involved
Are arbitators under any reasonable obligation to afford editors who are out of the country on a trip, or have other substantial reasons for absence from a case, any delays in considering cases concerning them? If such a person is given only 1000 words to rebut 1000 words from each of five or more "evidence providers", is that a reasonable limit to place on the defendant, or ought the limit be raised to allow rebuttal of each such section?
1000 words in response to 1000 words are enough.

Questions from Antony–22[edit]

In general, does enforcing civility harm free speech? Does it help it?
No, It does not. Anything can be expressed being well within the boundaries of civility. It is helpful because it restricts the inclusion of undue and undesired behavior in the discussion.
It's been pointed out that incivility and harassment are not precisely the same thing. What is the line between incivility and harassment? How much does incivility, when it doesn't cross the line into harassment, affect our ability to retain editors, including but not limited to its effects on the gender gap?
Yes, I think these are different. Incivility means anything from one editor with which other editor is not comfortable, but the harassment is the deliberate act of one editor against the other to target him and cause mental distress. Yes, incivility certainly affects the spirit of the editors and it also affects maintaining positive editing atmosphere on wikipedia.
Arbcom's actions have come under scrutiny from the outside press lately. Do you think the Arbcom has a role in educating reporters about cases when they come under such scrutiny, to reduce the factual inaccuracies that sometimes creep into these articles? For example, do you think that releasing statements, such as been done once on a previous case, should be considered in the future? If so, how could they be made more effective?
Yes, there is no harm in assuring the outside agencies about the neutral stand of the wikipedia policies and the process of impartial decisions taken. However, the presets decided for contents framework of different categories of articles and the standard procedures be followed that shape the articles within its preset design then occurrence of such cases can be avoided. Making every active editor aware of such statements by posting it to every active editor on wikipedia may automatically restrict occurrence of these cases.
This question is optional, since candidates don't necessarily like to talk about current cases. But imagine that you are a current member of the Arbcom and you are delegated the task of writing a succinct, neutral primer for the press, of no more than a few paragraphs, on the circumstances leading to the current case Arbitration enforcement 2. Write that primer below. Do not cover or express an opinion on the proposed or actual decision, but concentrate on how you would help a reporter understand what happened before the case was filed.
One last question. Wikipedia relies primarily on volunteer labor, and many are attracted to Wikipedia in part due to its countercultural, even transgressive nature of subverting traditional gatekeepers to knowledge. Recently there has been increasing participation by professionals from academic and cultural institutions. This is perhaps causing some angst that the community and its interactions may become "professionalized" to the exclusion of established editors. Do you feel this fear is warranted? How can volunteers and professionals with different standards of conduct be made to coexist on Wikipedia with the minimal disruption to our existing contributor base?
No, I think there is nothing to fear. In fact Wikipedia has its own firm policies or code of conduct which is indiscriminatory and do not differentiate the users. The volunteers and professions here can well co-exist as wikipedians under the common umbrella of wikipedia.

Question from Smallbones[edit]

Wikipedia is starting to have a reputation for bullying and misogyny, see, e.g the recent article in The Atlantic by Emma Paling, "Wikipedia's Hostility to Women”.
Are you willing to take serious steps to stop bullying of editors on Wikipedia? especially bullying directed toward women editors? Is this one of your top 2 priorities? What would you consider to be a more important priority than stopping the bullying? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:09, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I am strongly in favour of taking serious steps to stop bullying of editors/specially women editors and it is my top 1 priority. I consider it most important.

Questions from Gerda Arendt[edit]

Thank you for stepping forward!

Arbitration findings and the wishes of principal editors govern the use of infoboxes in articles. If you want to win my "neutral" please say how you would close the discussion at Talk:Joseph (opera)#Restore infobox?
The infobox be restored as the consensus favours restoring the infobox.
An editor has been blocked for a month in the name of arbitration enforcement for having said that he creates half of his featured content with women. I find it kafkaesque and remember the opening of The Metamorphosis for an analogy. If you want to win my "support", please - on top of #1 - suggest improvements to get from arbitration enforcement ("not a fun place") to arbitration supervision, where such a thing would not happen. I offered some thoughts, wishing to see Floquenbeam's "no foul, play on" more often, or Yunshui's "The edit was unproblematic and actually made Wikipedia better."
Yes, I do strongly agree that the Arbcom shall talk to the reported user and give due consideration to the personal opinion of the reported user before closing the case. Secondly, I think, in place of banning the user, there shall be a policy of Arbcom guide who may use alternate sanctions like "seek guidance/permission from the Arbitratoe before edit". Users shall be banned only in rare unavoidable cases only and must be allowed to contribute otherwise.

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:37, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Guerillero[edit]

Thank you for running for the hardest and most thankless job on the project. Many of these questions are sourced from actual cases, discussions, and problems over the past year. Enjoy!

Subcommittees[edit]

The Audit Subcommittee was created in 2009 to investigate improper tool usage of our Check Users and Oversighters. Currently, neither the community nor the committee can decide how to handle it. There have been calls to completely disband the subcommittee, transfer its role to the functionaries en banc, and extend it for another year. The current auditors terms expired on 1 October, 2015 and they have been continuing in their roles without formal authorization. What would you do about the subcommittee if you were elected to ArbCom?
I will request re-assessment of the situation and request restoring or restructuring such investigatory functionaries which are needed to restrict undesired and illegal acts on wikipedia
The Ban Appeals Subcommittee exists to hear appeals of community bans and long-term blocks. There have been moves to divest this role from the committee. What would you do about the subcommittee if you were elected to ArbCom?
There must be a provision for such appeals and it shall continue as a democratic right.

Current Disputes and Cases[edit]

What are your standards for banning someone from the project compared to a topic ban or some lesser sanction?
Only if he/she is involved in disruption and vandalism only and his/her other contributions are nil for project, topic or otherwise.
Nearly every case involves violations of the civility policy in some way. At one time, a remedy call a "Civility Parole" existed but it fell out of vogue. Today, the only tools in the current Arbitrator's toolboxes to deal with civility issues are interaction bans, topic bans, and site bans. What new and creative ways would you bring to the table to solve this problem?
A committee devoted for personal interactions, supervision and guidance of the editors involved.
Do you believe that the Super Mario Problem exists? How would you fix it?
Not sure but for fixing such problems there shall be a policy of taking into account the opinion of impartial editors when deciding about so called Super Mario and there must be a criteria that these voting editors must have never encounter the Super Mario in the past.
Do you see value in Admonishments and Warnings as remedies at the end of a case?
Not always but in few cases it has.

Insider Baseball[edit]

Does the workshop serve as a useful portion of a case?
Yes

~~===Question from Pldx1===~~

Dear candidate. As you probably have noted, an user describing himself as a Grammar Badguy asked the question he asked to the 11 first nominated candidates. In my opinion, the way each candidate answered this question is an important criterion of choice. Since you were not one of the 11, I think it could be fair to give you an occasion to comment. Pldx1 (talk) 10:11, 16 November 2015 (UTC) [reply]

No more useful (see below).

Questions from GrammarFascist[edit]

Please divulge as much of your demographic information as you are comfortable making public. Specifically: your gender, including whether you are cis, trans or other; your sexual orientation; your race and/or ethnicity; where you live (feel free to specify you live in Triesenberg if you want, but a country or continent will do just fine — even just "Southern Hemisphere" or "Western Hemisphere" is helpful); whether you have any condition considered a disability (even if you're not so disabled you're unable to work) including deafness, physical disabilities, developmental disabilities and mental illnesses, again being only as specific as you wish; and what social class you belong to (e.g. working class, middle class, etc.). ¶ If you prefer not to answer any or all of those categories, I won't count it against you. My intention in asking for this information is not to out anyone or try to force affirmative action. However, when deciding between two otherwise equally qualified candidates, I would prefer to be able to vote for more diversity on ArbCom rather than less.
Male, Normal or straight, hetero from North India (Asia), Hindu by birth but accepts all religious teachings, No physical disabilities,

Please list at least one pro and one con of having non-administrators serve on ArbCom.
Pro- Can have better understanding of current User level issues and problems. Con- May not have actual decisive role

Thanks for responding, Mahensingha. —GrammarFascist _contribs ^talk 01:46, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Brustopher[edit]

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

User:Foo get's into an edit conflict on Wikipedia with User:Bar, and end up as parties to a large Arbcom case. Soon afterwards on reddit someone going by the username Bar begins posting lots of critical and disparaging threads about Foo. In these threads they claim to be Wikipedia user Bar. The Bar account on Wikipedia is older than the Bar account on reddit by several years, however the Wikipedia account had only really begun active editing a few years after the reddit account had been created. Foo notices these posts and complains on Bar's talk page and ANI. Bar responds by accusing Foo of WP:OUTING and claims that the account might not even be his. Is it OUTING to connect the Bar reddit account with the Bar Wikipedia account?
Yes. It is because it is not important that whether the information is true or not. In any case the information about the other user must not be passed.
User:Alice is a party in an Arbcom case. She is browsing the internet one day and decides to google her Wikipedia username. She finds that somebody has uploaded naked photos of another woman to a pornsite and labelled them "Alice of Wikipedia." She looks into the account that has uploaded these files and comes to the conclusion that it is owned by Wikipedia User:Bob, an editor she had clashed with heavily on wiki. In the process she also finds out his real life identity. She emails her evidence to Arbcom. Alice then decides to go to Wikipediocracy's forums, and makes a thread informing them of this porn site account. She asks them if they can guess which Wikipedia editor is behind it, and mentions that she also knows his real life identity. They independently come to the conclusion that it is User:Bob and figure out his real life identity without Alice giving the game away. Alice confirms that this is the case. Nobody in the forum finds it remotely questionable that Bob owns the account in question. In such a situation is it appropriate for Arbcom to pass a finding of fact stating "Alice posted inappropriately to an off-wiki website apparently with the objective of having the participants identify a Wikipedia editor by name." Furthermore is it appropriate for them to then use this supposed violation of WP:OUTING as part of their justification for site banning Alice?
Yes, the Arbcom is right in stating that Alice posted inappropriately to an off-wiki website apparently with the objective of having the participants identify a Wikipedia editor by name. However, I pass no comments on the second part of your question because being not actually or actively involved I think it is not a norm to comment on the decision made by Arbcom.

Question from Yash![edit]

In the past couple of years, the ArbCom has closed various cases, passed motions, and such. Is/Are there any outcome/s that you disagree with? If yes, which? And, what result/s would you have rather preferred? Ya sh ! 01:45, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion I have no right to assert my disagreement on the issues which were decided by others and I was not involved. They certainly had better understanding of the facts involved in the issues. I trust that they were fair and just while taking decisions.

Question from Worm That Turned[edit]

Hi, I'm Dave, I was on Arbcom between 2013 and 2014. I can tell you now that being an arbitrator is tough - you become a target. Comments you make will be taken out of context, your motives and abilities will be insulted, you may be threatened or harassed. Have you thought much about the "dark side" of being an arbitrator? How have you prepared for this?
First of all, thanks for the guidance. See I know that different people hold different mindsets. Once I stepped in then why to think about the other side. If someone intends to insult me it simply means that he/she failed to understand me and nothing more. I see the "brighter side" as well because, evidently i see u came here to guide me. Thanks.

Question by Müdigkeit[edit]

How many hours per week do you plan to work on the Arbitration Committee?--Müdigkeit (talk) 19:06, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8 to 10 hours per week

Question by SageRad[edit]

Hello, Mahensingha. Thank you for putting yourself into the candidates field. I would like to know whether you see bullying and other aggressive behaviors that take place over time, and aren't just things like using "cuss words" but deeper psychological manipulations by some editors, to the detriment of the general editing environment? And if so, what can we do about this issue? Would you support an anti-bullying task force made up of volunteers who get some training about how to recognize bullying and how to bring some resolution when they see it? Thank you. SageRad (talk) 14:26, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome. Yes I do agree that bullying must be checked completely taking on priority. I am strongly in favour of an anti-bullying task force of volunteers to address such issues.

Questions from Ryk72[edit]

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

Please accept my apologies for the lateness of these questions.

The en.Wikipedia community has been likened to that of a gaol (US:prison), with members of various gangs aggressively supporting each other in disputes, which are policed by trusted inmates. Do you agree with this view? If so, why so? If not, why not? To what extent are the behaviours which lead to this view enabled by AN/I, AE & ArbCom?
Yes, I too observed at times that few articles in my watch list faced this gang theory. For each and every concept depicted through articles on wikipedia the people favouring and opposing the concept easily get together. e.g. Specifically in Indian caste related articles and political articles It is often seen that people belonging to these caste or supporting a political group try to glorify the subject of the article and the other group stands to oppose it. AN/I, AE & ArbCom, though effective mostly but in few cases the NPOV is compromised because afterall it is a number game where majority wins.
Do you believe that our current processes & procedures encourage adversarial methods of dispute resolution? If so, is this a good or bad thing? If bad, what role should ArbCom play in addressing this?
No I do not think so. Processes and procedures are alright.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of WP:BOOMERANG? Would you support it's retention, restriction or abolition? Why?
Advantages- It discourages the experienced editors who wish to take undue advantage of their experience and knowledge of procedures specially when confronting a less experienced user. Disadvantage- Sometimes, Experienced but blocked editor creates a new account and pretending to be a new user gets benefit silently turning the situation in his/her favour. Still in the light of its decisive efficiency which is true for most of the cases, I support its retention.
We see regular use of WP:DUCK/WP:SOCK to justify indefinite blocks of new editors entering contentious topic spaces, without those editors being explicitly linked to banned accounts. Is this use justified? If so, why so? If not, why not?
No. The new user shall be dealt with little lighter blocks because the new user being no familiar with the process may do so under wrong impression or ignorance.
In Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_3#Remedies, ArbCom implemented a "500/30" limit on edits to the Palestine-Israel (the 3rd topic space in which this remedy has been used). What are the positives & negatives of this remedy as written? Would a more technical/formal implementation (akin to semi-protection) be an improvement? What other improvements, if any, might be made?
We can recognize the panel of editors on the page with NPOV and permit the edits by them or their approval. An associated option may be that first discuss and decide over the contents before making the actual edit on such topics.
A hypothetical editor, involved in a contentious topic space, regularly derails Talk page discussion with personal views on the subject, anecdotes of their off-Wiki involvement in the topic, epistemological first principle reasoning for exclusion of material, "hatting" of discussions, and snide attacks on new editors. Administrators have failed to address this editor's behaviour; WP:AE has failed to address the editor's behaviour. What should be done?
The uninvolved Arbs and admin be requested to review such case.
Would you be prepared to recuse from 1/3rd of cases, and encourage other Arbs to do likewise, so that each case might be addressed faster, and by fewer Arbs?
No, getting away from the problem will not bring the solution.

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

Question from User:Wikimandia[edit]

Many editors were unhappy with the results of the recent Neelix fiasco, in which the AC closed the case as soon as Neelix resigned as an admin, despite the fact that many of the issues brought up in the evidence page had nothing whatsoever to do with misuse of administrative tools or even his redirect spam, including building walled gardens and violation of WP guidelines concerning advocacy in editing. This led to accusations of a double standard for admins and regular editors. (If a non-admin had done the same, there could be no such easy dismissal as we don't have tools to resign). Neelix never acknowledged or agreed to stop any of this behavior, simply (eventually) apologized for the redirects only and then later resigned with no further comment. There was significant support for at least a topic ban at the ANI. Do you believe a topic ban or other measure should have been applied in this case?
I am sorry not to comment over the decision. How ever it is my personal experience and opinion that many times situation so arises that the decision becomes doubtful, but Wikipedia has devised processes to resolve such problems and we must trust that better is being developed and the best is yet to come.