Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/NE Ent/Questions

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Questions from Antony–22

2. In general, does enforcing civility harm free speech? Does it help it?

   No and yes, respectively. However, that's a simplistic answer because we have no meaningful consensus on civility; please see Note on civility

4. 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?

   I don't think determining such a line is useful. Incivility/harassment impacts our ability to retain editors both when the culture is so coarse the environment is unpleasant to work in, and when direct honest speech is inhibited. Because both language and mores of propriety are highly culturally dependent, and English Wikipedia spans multiple cultures, achieving the appropriate balance has proven to be a perennial challenge to the project.

6. 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?

   The role of the committee is to resolve conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. Full stop. Wikipedia culture is unique, such that all mappings to real world entities are inevitably flawed in some way. This puts the committee is a difficult position -- while not a court, not a legislature, not a leadership council, it will inevitably be perceived by outsiders as some combination of those roles. Because the committee has an inherent responsibility to maintain the reputation of the project, I think it best individual arbitrators not interact with the press and other outside agencies (except at sponsored wiki conferences). When the committee as a whole feels misconceptions should be addressed, it should work via WMF -- I'm counting nine professionals in the Office of Communications wmf:Staff and contractors -- to ensure the message is both accurate and not easily misconstrued by those unfamiliar with wiki-culture.

8. 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.

10. 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?

    "many are attracted to Wikipedia in part due to its countercultural, even transgressive nature of subverting traditional gatekeepers to knowledge...." That's not a question. You're welcome to try again with a neutral version.

Questions from Drmies

Thank you for running, Ent--we know Ents don't run gladly and only of necessity.

2. Ent, let's get this out of the way: what do you say to those who claim that only "content editors" (maybe defined by some ratio between edits in article space and elsewhere) are qualified to run for office?

   Please see User:NE_Ent/Candidate_Statement#Metamorphosis. In Outliers (book), Malcolm Gladwell noted the importance of practice in a particular skill. I've been practicing wiki-disputes for years, observed what works well, what doesn't, and so on. I am not asking to be elected to pick WP:TFA, I'm volunteering to resolve conduct disputes.

4. Where do you stand on BASC, and what do you think it takes for a banned editor to return to Wikipedia? Can you tell what the conditions are, and what do you think they ought to be?

   I supported the committee's recent getting rid of it. Long term, we need to work out some sort of amnesty system -- there's a half-baked draft at User:NE_Ent/Extinct, but the fly in the ointment is what to do vis-a-vis socks.

Questions from Gerda Arendt

Thank you for stepping forward!

2. 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?

   Not sure I would close it -- was it listed as an RFC?

Imagine it was, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:56, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

"As WP:INFOBOXUSE provides no policy preference for inclusion or exclusion, per the closing discussion instructions, I must go by the position with "the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it." Seeing ~four editors who support removing it and two suggesting including it, the current consensus is for removal. Given the usually small number of editors participating in this discussion, the should be no prejudice against revisiting the discussion in the near future." NE Ent 22:30, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Do we look at the same discussion, of 2015, which asked restore or not? The infobox was removed in 2013, before the related arb case, on a "consensus" of 4:2. Compare Gianni Schicchi, perhaps? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

No. I was looking at [1], the 2013 discussion. I didn't realize there was more than one on the page, and stopping looking when I found that one. NE Ent 17:05, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

You wanna play? - If you don't want to answer this, you might comment on my first line, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:54, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

2. 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."

   As I've previously indicated the block showed a lack of judgement, to state 'the block was for saying he creates half of his featured content with women' is like saying the Hillary Step near the summit of Mount Everest is a tough climb because its 12 metres (39 ft) high. I would improve sanctions by limiting the upper end; research in both crime and education (e.g. [2]) clearly indicate it is the consistency, not severity, of a sanction that makes it effective. Empowering uninvolved admins to simply remove violations and ban further participation in a discussion with short blocks for violations would be far more efficacious; because they'd be less controversial there would be less hesitation to impose them on "technical" violations, and less drama after a block. I would not care if a sanction resulted in repeated short blocks. If there's long term evidence that's not working, then more severe sanctions should be requested from the committee itself via WP:ARCA

Questions from Collect

2. 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?

   It is highly likely sanctions will be indicated; it's what the committee does. Failure to apply sanctions implies either than committee accepted a case it shouldn't have, or that it's not resolving the issue. On Wikipedia, sanctions should not be the first steps to resolve issues, but non-sanction solutions would fall into the realm of policy making, which is specifically not the committee's purview. For the sake of discussion here, I'm including any modification of normal editing process, e.g. 1RR restrictions, as a sanction.

4. 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?

   The question lacks sufficient context for a meaningful answer. I learned very early on while volunteering at WP:WQA that proper evaluation of a diff must include review of what led up to it.

6. 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?

   If a case is about a specific individual, it should be suspended if they are unable to participate. This implies, of course, they're not editing. If a case is about a larger group, it would not be fair to everyone else to hold it, so it should proceed, possibly with a "the individual is directed to contact the committee upon their return" provision.
   Evidence is not a debate; on wiki truth is diffs. Per the previous answer, evaluation of diffs includes review of what led up to them, it is the strength or weakness of the evidence itself, not the accompanying rhetoric, which carries weight. Therefore, I'd say no to any blanket changes to the word limit, while supporting the current practice of the drafting arbitrators to extend the limit on a case by case basis.

Question from Graham87

2. In your statement, you said that if elected, you would "sing the WMF confidentiality agreement". Will it sound like the "Australian Customs and Quarantine Regulations" song, or would you prefer to sing it in another style? Will you be releasing your performance under the CC-by-SA 3.0 licence? :-) Graham87 11:25, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

   See Vogon poetry. NE Ent 11:54, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from Worm That Turned

2. 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?

   No problem! please see wikt:naive. Seriously, I've thought long and about the commitment required if I'm elected. It's long been evident to me from on wiki observation that it chews people up. It is was suggested in prior years I run, after reviewing User:AGK/ACE2012 et. al. I concluded it would be insane to do this. The best I've heard is Newyorkbrad's It doesn't suck as much as they're saying (paraphrasing eloquent Bradspeak). My greatest issue will be time. I do not intend to spend very much time on ban appeals; for arbcom blocked editors I'm likely to use a time heuristic -- has been a few years? For community bans, I'd only be interested in reviewing process -- was the discussion open for a sufficient period on AN or ANI? Was there evidence of canvassing sufficient to affect the outcome. For clarity, this would be strictly a due diligence check, not any anticipation we'd be overturning bans. Vis-a-vis the criticism portion, participating in ANI as a non-admin, non-content contributor has provided me with ample opportunity to develop WP:Other duck skills; it real life, I have decades of experience of being wrong -- please see marriage. NE Ent 12:18, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Questions from Guerillero

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

2. 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?

   already answered NE Ent 16:10, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

4. 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?

   You're mistaken; the current committee has disbanded BASC per this motion NE Ent 16:13, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Current Disputes and Cases

2. What are your standards for banning someone from the project compared to a topic ban or some lesser sanction?

   The nature of disruption provided in evidence. If the disruption is limited to particular areas, and there's evidence of acting like a grownup outside that area, I'd support a topic ban in lieu of site ban. Concurrent with that, following closing a case with a topic ban, I'd be very open to extending a topic ban to a site ban in response to an WP:ARCA request if evidence is presented of a pattern of the editor nibbling at the edges of a ban.

4. 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?

   I'd want to look into what happened with Civility Paroles. Bans are the tools the committee has, so my focus would be trying to apply them more surgically. For example, arbcom endorsed block lengths should be short enough that all reasonable parties realize it's not a good use of time arguing a block. It is the consistency of application, not the severity of a sanction, that provides its effectiveness.

6. Do you believe that the Super Mario Problem exists? How would you fix it?

   No, I do not, and I find the term offensive. This is not a video game, editors who submit to the Rfa flogging necessary to achieve the role of wiki-janitor, as a class, deserve more respect that comparing them to a cartoon character. Since grave dancing is obnoxious, I'll limit myself to observing it is often the case that editors whose conduct was most egregious while assigned the administrator user access level cease to participate in the community after its removal.

8. Do you see value in Admonishments and Warnings as remedies at the end of a case?

   Yes. If an editor's conduct has been problematic but below the threshold where harsher sanctions are justified, a single warning provides the opportunity for that editor to improve.

Insider Baseball

2. Does the workshop serve as a useful portion of a case?

   Yes, but not necessarily in its current format. The committee must balance reasonably efficient operation with sufficient community engagement to maintain the trust of the community.

Question from Biblioworm

1. Do you have any experience in successfully resolving disputes, either on-wiki or off-wiki?

   Yes, both. Real world, commissioned officer US Navy, high school (US secondary school) teacher. Wiki -- many WQA / ANI discussions. See also editor portion of my candidates statement for historic and recent examples of addressing editing differences of opinion. NE Ent 01:43, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from Smallbones

2. 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) 17:34, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Answer: Not a well thought out question, for a few reasons.

First of all, Wikipedia is not "starting to" have a reputation; Tim Simonite's far superior Technology Review piece [3] noted, "The loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage." (Note also he properly characterizes en-wiki as "leaderless collection of volunteers" so if anyone thinks arbcom is a solution to community wide problems they're mistaken.)

Secondly, as I clearly stated in my candidate statement, I care about a) the encyclopedia as a whole, and b) the editors who write it, so to the extent bullying affects editors I care about it, but not necessary more than anything else which negatively impacts the editing experience.

Finally, as previously explained at Founder talk: If Smallbones is concerned with bullying, their first step should be to stop acting like a bully [4]. WP:BANREVERT says to remove comments, and if Smallbones was simply removing edits by those-who-have-sorta-talkpage-banned-by-Jimbo -- preferrably with a neutral edit summary --I'd be supportive. Rather, they replace the comments with statements in the form of "Removed comment by Naughty, signed Smallbones_(smalltalk)," which reads like grandstanding "Look at me removing comments from him, who is bad person, inferior to us enlightened folk!" nonsense. NE Ent 9:39 am, 14 November 2015, last Saturday (7 days ago) (UTC−5) Rather than heeding such obliviously good advice, they then doubled down on the hypocrisy by justifying their bullying by calling the other editor "a troll".

To answer the question, if elected, I'd be happy to vote to site ban anyone who consistently engages in bullying behavior, e.g. calling other editors in trolls. NE Ent 22:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from Rcsprinter123

2. In your own words, please explain the purpose of the Arbitration Committee and why its existence is necessary. And what, if any, changes or reforms would you support regarding the structuring and processes of Wikipedia's arbitration system?

   Wikipedia:The Committee is mostly my words. I'd support:

   • eliminating BASC (already done)
   • direct election by community of CU/OS user access levels, although the committee members should have access to those tools
   • simplified approached to banned editors (see answer to Drmies question, above)

   NE Ent 01:38, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from Yash!

2. 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? Yash! 20:19, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

    Done this little box doesn't work very well, sorry, answer is there

Before I get into specific examples, let me make it perfectly clear that, regardless if I'm elected to Arbcom 2016 or not, I fully expect it will issue bad decisions. The very nature of arbcom cases is that if good solutions to problems existed, they wouldn't be arbcom cases; there should be no expectation the committee is in any way smarter to the community, it's just assumed to pick a reasonable "least bad" solution. A couple indicators of poor solutions are the subsequent need for clarifications from the enforcement community, or failure to uphold Wikipedia policy.

• An example of the former is the automation case which prohibited an editor from using "automation" -- whatever that is. Please see one of my prior comments.
• An example of the latter was Infoboxes, which endorsed the concept of article ownership contrary to policy: the WP:INFOBOXUSE guideline makes no reference to authorship to determine placement of an infobox.NE Ent 02:58, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from User:Beyond My Ken

2. Why did you decide to run? BMK (talk) 11:49, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

   wait for it ...

4. Because we have been at loggerheads with some frequency in the past, you may think my question above is a dig at you -- it isn't. I really would like to know why you decided to run, and the "Why run?" section of your statement doesn't really answer the question. (It's actually more "Why not run?") I'd like to know, and I think the electorate should know, why you decided to step forward now, what you motivations are, and what you hope to accomplish, both for yourself and for the project.
   You know that I have been a harsh critic of "free riders" such as yourself who do not contribute substantially to the encyclopedia, but who spend their time dealing with the minutia of the administration of the project, but you also know that I posted on your talk page the suggestion that the skillset you display might be very appropriate for ArbCom. I'm sure that's not why you threw your hat into the ring -- so why did you, especially since a non-admin has never been an arbitrator (although this maybe the year).

   tada!

I've already referenced WP:The Committee in explaining the duality of the committee's concurrent unimportance / importance. The perceived need to spam registered content editors who have better things to do than get involved in wiki-politics is also indicative. (Incidentally, I consider the best possible editor(s) someone like [5] who just chugs along, no account, no drama, no ANI threads...). So why enter a race with only two bad outcomes? I could lose, or worse, I could "win." If admining is "the mop," the committee has got to be "shovel out the septic tank."

The committee's potential to do good is limited. This is not tragic, is an affirmation the community which built a 5,000,000 article 'pedia doesn't really need much "help" or "supervision." Arbcom has ability to do harm, however. First by discouraging the morale of editors observing its machinations when it behaves poorly. Secondly, because the outside often doesn't really grok how wikipedia works, arbcom is perceived as managing or directing -- the CEO of en-wiki when it's really just the tough-job janitors.

A long time arbitrator has noted about me "With their commentary they have on several occasions corrected the committee's course for the better." While flattering, of course, more importantly here it reflects favorably on past arbcoms who were receptive to feedback. Note I'm not saying I was smarter than those committees; without the burdens of responsibility the committee has, I was able to focus my wiki-time on one or two specific aspects of cases the committee had not had brought to their attention.

For the sake of the project, an arbcom committee should be:

• Minimalist
• Deliberate
• Thoughtful
• Strong, Steadfast

Unfortunately, as of late arbcom has been none of these. In recent months I've observed:

• A hasty, non-emergency desysop motions, essentially due to mob rule -- eventually declined, but serious discussion about possibly doing it went on too long and too far. (Note: given sufficient time for reason to sink in, the editor saw the writing on the wall and resigned.)

The debacle of AE2

• Due to a well intentioned but poorly thought out prior sanction, the committee was embarrassed by an administrator intentionally burning her sysop bit.
• Another hasty, non-emergency desysop.
• Ridiculous case management -- repeatedly drawing lines in the sand, e.g. only post evidence about parties, no thread conversation, hatting critical remarks, and then rewarding, rather than enforcing such restrictions.
  • The one non-party added following allegedly prohibited evidence stands out not for their snark, which is banally common in Wikipedia:: spaces, but their target: the committee itself.
  • The "no threaded" conversation simply resulted in one case of threading-by-pinging by two editors throwing mud at each other, in some cases be refactoring, in other cases being iar'd.
• Passing remedies with titles such as "At wit's end" -- dealing with the tough cases is your job, committee, and "Reinstating a sanction reversed out of process," which reads like a pathetic plea to get an admin to reblock Eric Corbett, which hasn't happened.

A committee which is talks overly tough but acts weak does not inspire confidence.

When I was a high school teacher, occasionally I'd have a student volunteer to attempt a task and fail miserably. When the inevitable snark and comments from other students started, rather than correct them directly, I'd simply read "The Man in the Arena" by Theodore Roosevelt. At this point, continued arbcom criticism from me strikes me as being more useless wiki-noise than something useful, and the community would be right to call me out unless I was willing to step up and offer to serve myself.

You should not vote for me because I'm best candidate, because I'm not. But in a field filled with WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS candidates and nine open slots, I'm asking for your vote. I've a demonstrated track record as team player; although I may strenuously argue a point, e.g prohibiting IPs from filing IP requests, once a consensus is reached I get onboard and support it. NE Ent 23:06, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Questions from GrammarFascist

2. 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.

2. Please list at least one pro and one con of having non-administrators serve on ArbCom.

   I really don't think it makes that much difference, as long as the candidate as reasonable experience in dispute resolution.

Thanks for responding, NE Ent. —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 01:44, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Question from Brustopher

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.

2. 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, see wikt:joe job. It's important for the committee to consider not just the case at hand, but how it fits into the larger scheme of dispute resolution. Sanctioning a user for the actions of an off-wiki account without strong evidence that it is actually the same person would lead to it being a tactic in future disputes. In any event, even if Foo had a reasonable concern reddit Bar was actually wiki Bar, such evidence should be mailed to the committee rather than posted online.

4. 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.

Question from SNUGGUMS

2. How did you first come across Arbitration, and how do you feel your services will aid the community if elected?

   It's been too long to be sure; I suspect it was after starting to volunteer at WQA and starting to read policies, some of which referenced arbcom decisions. See answer to Beyond My Ken's question, above.

Question by Müdigkeit

2. How many hours per week do you plan to work on the Arbitration Committee?--Müdigkeit (talk) 19:02, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

   As little as possible while meeting the responsibilities of the job.

Question by Atsme

2. Thank you for volunteering. Perhaps the first question we should ask all candidates is whether they consider themselves of sound mind. 😊 On a serious note, what are your thoughts about WP:POV_railroad, and how would you respond to it if you saw diffs demonstrating repeated aspersions cast against an editor by a group of editors aligned with each other (patterned behavior) to get that editor site banned or blocked? --Atsme^📞📧 03:57, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

   I had not previously seen that essay; I believe the suggested approaches are reasonable. During an active dispute on a noticeboard, for example, I've evolved a set of techniques: if there's an unsupported accusation, I simply say "Please provide diff of..." An out of context diff can be addressed with a diff showing what led up to it. A cherry picked policy diff can be rebutted with quoting the left out part, and so on. A ganging up in article space can frequently be addressed by an RFC. Simply posting to a besieged editor talk page something like "Sorry, you shouldn't be treated that way..." goes a long way to make an individual feel like they're not isolated. It is far too often when R insults G, the entire focus becomes about R: see ridiculously long ANI thread, to which I contributed a single general comment early on suggesting a more collegial way to raise concerns; when the recipient of the accusation seemed more concerned with something about licensing than the comment per se, while the rest of the thread went off to be the rest of thread, I asked for clarification. At that point, with blatant disregard for WP:TPO, I courtesy blanked the section, an action which was accepted by the community because it made sense.

Question by 4nn1l2

2. I read on Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/NE Ent that you post a lot at ANI, while not being an admin. I'm not a regular user of English Wikipedia, so I don't know whether that claim is true or not. I even don't consider involving yourself in administrative tasks a pad point. I'm just curious to know why not to request for adminship if you are interested in administrative tasks. 4nn1l2 (talk) 01:20, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

   I participate in dispute resolution because as a non-admin because, while blocks, deletions, revision deletes and page protections are sometimes the necessary means to solving disputes, they are not the only ones, and I prefer combinations of patience, empathy, logic, and engagement. Sometimes problems can be resolved not by editors necessarily "getting their way," but simply by affirming that someone actually cares about their concerns. I've resolved disputes between editors "stuck" between versions of content by contributing a "middle ground" edit, or by simply starting or suggesting an WP:RFC in article talk.

Question by SageRad

2. Hello, NE Ent. I just read your notes on civility and i'm trying to make heads or tails of your position and methods about it. In particular, i wonder whether you're saying "It's all relative so we can't do much" or whether you think there are some basic strong standards of behavior around civility? More specifically, 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) 14:22, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

   The current civility policy on Wikipedia goes something like this: how much of an insult an editor can get away depends on the wiki-status of both the speaker and the insulted. What is considered "an insult" and "honest speech," or what is "appropriate conduct" or "political correctness" varies widely depending on the cultural background of the individual. I see the civility conundrum as a chronic wiki-disease that well never be resolved unless the community converges on common standards and expectations. Unfortunately, dispute resolution/policy forums on Wikipedia don't do well in the abstract, but lots of folks have lots of opinions when discussing individuals; such discussions have not proven to be beneficial to achieving consensus. Arbcom is not the solution: Arbcom 2011/2012 took on the issue in Civility enforcement and didn't come up with much beyond "Throughout the project, breaches of the expected level of decorum are common. These violations of the community's standards of conduct are unevenly, and often ineffectively, enforced." Arbcom the institution itself isn't polite: although community policy states "Wikipedia's hope for banned editors is that they will leave Wikipedia or the affected area with their pride and dignity intact," arbcom banned editors, for no reason I've ever understood, must have the {{Banned user}} badge of shame posted on their talk page. Outside of arbcom, I'll note the term Task Force's military origins; that is not a good title. As an individual, I would support Amnesty International approach where editors calmly, respectfully engage individual who behave in the "gray zone" between sanctionable personal attacks and polite behavior. Unfortunately too many folks thinks someone else's poor behavior justifies poor behavior towards. This isn't some "don't block editors" utopia, it's simply, "when necessary to block editors, be polite."

Questions from Ryk72

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

Please accept my apologies for the lateness of these questions.

2. 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?

   No. If one spends time in the dark places (ANI, arbom space) it's easy to fall into that mode of despair. The prison reference reminds me of Hotel California: "we all prisoners of our own device." Real prisons keep people who don't want to be there in, Wikipedia sanctions are very much about keeping people out (as a necessary side effect of maintaining encyclopedic quality.) At Hotel Wikipedia, no only can you check out at any time, you can, and probably should, leave, if it's not fun anymore.

4. 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?

   Yes, probably bad, not much.

6. What are the advantages and disadvantages of WP:BOOMERANG? Would you support it's retention, restriction or abolition? Why?

   I despise the term. I've often seen it applied to well meaning but somewhat clueless folks who wander into WP:CESSPIT, getting yelled at because OMG! they didn't post the required notice or some such nonsense. When I'm ANI-active I'll often slap a close tag with a hopefully firm but polite on such a thread before the grumpy people get involved. There are some folks, of course, whose WP:IDHT justifies sanctions, but far too often it's a mob scene. That said, it's really not something I can do much about (except for mitigating on a case by case basis), and it's beyond the scope of arbcom.

8. 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?

   Please see WP:Three steps. Personally I assume good faith regardless of any suspicions that creep into my cynical mind -- it's a code of conduct, not a probably assessment. Even if there's a 90% chance a new editor is a sock, I think it's more important to prevent losing the one real potential editor than worrying about the sock; if they are who people think it'll come out sooner or later. Note, this too, is beyond the scope of arbcom.

10. 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?

    I opposed the notion [6]; I believe pending changes is a better solution.

12. 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?

    Not sure what AE would have to do with it? Hard to say without seeing particulars, but I'd suggest putting together comprehensive of the behavior in totality and presenting a case. Failing that, filing an arbcom case request, of course, is an option.

14. 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. I'm not sure you're getting the whole "Ent" thing, we don't like hasty. During the first case I observed closely (Civility Enforcement), I thought arbcom making decisions slowly wasn't good. Then I saw some quicker decisions, and decided slower is often good. I do think committees should do better at updating status dates, even if it's simply to say "no status, still in progress." The 1/3 thing is not a good idea; imagine a five person subgroup hears a case; then there's an amendment or clarification while another subgroup is active. Cases need to have the support of the majority of the entire committee to maintain continuity.

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

Question from User:Blackmane

2. This is a hypothetical that is somewhat based on real threads that have occurred on WP:AN and WP:ANI in the past. An editor who self identifies as having a mental disability or disorder has been indefinitely blocked for a variety of violations, take your pick of edit warring, NPA, disruption, CIR, POINT, Godwin's etc, and is now seeking to return to editing. Quite a few members of the community have sought to advise this editor on why they were blocked but struggle to get the editor to understand. I'd like to hear your thoughts about how Wikipedia works with those who suffer from such disorders. This is an open ended, and deliberately vague, question that will no doubt be difficult to answer, but is more for me, and presumably other editors, to get a grasp of your thoughts. Blackmane (talk) 02:08, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

   Yes, more than once I've been struck by the thought that person behind that account simply does not process information in the manner expected by a mentally heavy individual. It's a difficult situation; no one should want to be mean for the sake of being mean, but "diagnosing" a condition based on online evidence is obnoxious and can be condescending. I think the best we can do is engage all editors with dignity and respect; give it our best shot to explain things but accept sometimes the message may not get through and, in some cases, well meaning editors will have to be blocked if they don't respond to a reasonable but not excessive amount of feedback and continue to disrupt the project. Of course, if there's an indication of possible self-harm or harm to others WMF should be contacted per WP:EMERGENCY.

Question from User:ThurnerRupert

2. 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)

   Not a good comparison, for multiple reasons. An operating system and an Encyclopedia are vastly different things. This source indicates 80% of linux developers are paid; the Wikimedia Foundation strongly discourages paid editing. Torvalds, per our article, self describes himself as "really unpleasant person," whereas Wikipedia holds collegiality as an important ideal. The inputs to my work in Wikipedia space are real life experience as documentation in prior questions and experience within Wikipedia dispute resolution forums.

Question from Kevin Gorman

2. Recently a situation came up where the gender of an editor, which had not been disclosed by the editor anywhere on-wiki, was posted on several pages. The gender of the editor given the nature of their background is a potentially quite sensitive piece of information, with potential real-life implications. With fairly extensive discussion and multiple requests to oversight the information, the decision was made not to oversight the information with the stated reason being that gender does not explicitly fall under any of the English Wikipedia's oversight criteria. In a similar situation, would you support either interpreting the oversight criteria more broadly in general, IAR oversighting a situation like this, rewriting the oversight criteria to be more inclusive, or would you choose to not oversight the information in question? (As background, according to the EFF, the triumvirate of date of birth, zip code, and gender are sufficient to uniquely identify 87% of American citizens.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:25, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

   There are 1,840 million speakers of English, according to us, so identifying gender alone would logically change the potential identification of an individual from 1 in 1,840 million to about 1 in 920 million. Unfortunately, it does not appear that the source paper analyzed birthdate and zip without gender. Using Cambridge, Massachusetts alone, they found birth date identified 12% of individuals -- which is why I lie to many websites and give my date of birth as Jan 1 instead of the actual date -- and gender only increased by slightly more than a factor of 2 to 29%. Five digit zips raised the uniqueness to 69%, and nine digit zips raised it to 97% -- so clearly birth dates and zip codes, which I would assume are currently covered in oversight policy, are the key elements which should be suppressed. It's the role of arbcom to settle disputes, not to change policy by fiat, so I'm not sure what the relevance of the question is.

Question from User:Wikimandia

2. 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?

   For the record, I encouraged Neelix to resign here after the ANI discussion opened up. There is an admin / non-admin double standard, but not the one people think. Because WP:Rfa is very big deal, a desysop is a very big deal. In addition, admins are burdened with both WP:INVOLVED, which the community polices very well, and WP:ADMINCOND. (We're not so great at maintaining that standard, but it can be done). The only time "authority" appears in WP:Administrators is the Wale's quote I want to dispel the aura of "authority" around the position. Furthermore, adminstrators are not a collective hive mind, so collectively the worst excesses of single administrators are checked by the rest of them. I think what you describe as walled gardens has more to due with the featured article / good article / did you know / featured topic status of the editor. Honestly, I don't think the WP:OWNER policy is particularly coherent: "ownership" is bad but "stewardship" is good?? In any event, this is all content and policy and community practice, which is beyond arbcom's remit. For clarity a topic ban on redirects was [7] was imposed. The close of the ANI thread, while extremely helpful in stopping the hubbub, was less than perfect; the closing admin apparently used a a balance of the consensus and my personal assessment, rather than strictly judging community consensus as specified at Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#Consensus. However, as no one challenged the close at the time, the community accepted it, so what's done is done.  
   Note: per [8], I may have mis-interpreted the closing administrators remarks.
   Okay, so perhaps the close wasn't the best per the closing admin's retrospective analysis [9]; I don't think it actually matters much because, if the editor does return to editing he'll be under sufficient scrutiny that any indication of POV editing would be noted and quickly addressed by the community.