Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/Rich Farmbrough/Questions

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Question from Jorge Stolfi

2. Could you please share some of your feelings about the "articles for deletion" mechanism, notability criteria, article-side editorial stickers ("This article does not have enough references" and the like), and complexity of the wiki markup language and templates? While arbitrators are not concerned directly with those items, I suspect that disputes that will reach the committee will often originate in editor disagreement about those and other editorial issues. Therefore, I would like to have some idea of which side you may unconsciously see as the "good guy" in such disputes. 8-)

   AfD is a clumsy instrument sometimes, the proportion of active editors involved is minuscule compared with what it was, and it shoots itself in the foot with the pre-seeded search links, assuming that the article name is the best search term (and if the nomination is by someone who wants the article deleted, as is often the case, there is no incentive to look for better terms). However it is the best we have, and we need to either improve it or put up with it.
   Our general approach to notability criteria is pragmatic. The only thing I would fault is that it does not allow for "nexus" articles.
   Tags are good, provided they are done with the intention of getting the article improved, and not as a means of furthering conflict.
   Wiki-markup is basically simple, I have been a proponent of making it simpler, removing unreadable runtogethernames for templates, standardising banner and navbox template names, supporting template versions of magic words and many other projects to make markup easier and more forgiving.

Question from DoggySoup

2. Should people who have undergone frequent and/or serious disciplinary action such as desysopping or numerous blocks be allowed to apply for bureaucratic placements in Wikipedia?

   Yes. (Note that blocks are preventative, not disciplinary.)

2. How does it feel to be considered a Pariah by the guide writers? Have their opinions affected you at all in any meaningful way?

   I don't know. Not yet.

2. Should ArbCom have more or less power in dealing with administration?

   ArbCom has a narrowly defined purpose, and within that role has all the power it needs. The power has been used in ways that were probably not foreseen, including some that are effectively policy-making. There are remedies that "direct" certain groups of users to do certain things - they should "request" - per WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. Recent mass revocations of outdated general sanctions (the first initiated by me) have clawed back some of the project for community oversight, which is a good thing.

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?

   If I were closing it I would close it according to consensus. But while I am brave enough (or stupid enough) to stand for ArbCom, and put my hand in a lion's cage, I doubt that I am brave enough to close an infobox discussion.

Compare the close by brave arbitrator WormTT on Beethoven, and give us a feeling for your evaluation of a consensus, using this example.

WTT's close is sound. I might have closed with a simpler "no consensus to remove". In the case of the lion there was consensus to remove my hand. However I wanted to remove it from the cage, the lion wanted to remove it from my arm. Luckily for me I had first mover advantage.

Thank you. History of the case which received attention in an RfA: As soon as {{infobox opera}} was introduced in 2013 I replaced the side navbox by a bottom navbox and an infobox, but was reverted. Two years later I tried again ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:17, 11 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."

   I prefer Ovid's Metamorphosis.
    · As to reducing the drama the first step is to make sensible restrictions. And they should be the minimum required- which sometimes means none.
    · Secondly where possible they should be enforced technically. For example it would be relatively easy to prevent a given user adding or removing infoboxes, either by Edit Filter, or by bot reversion. The same might apply to commenting on another specific user's talk page, or to Ibans. This takes away the incentive to try, and moreover removes the all to common escalation reason that someone is "trying the community's patience".
    · Thirdly there needs to be a sunset clause, or other way to descalate any sanctions. The committee were good enough to endorse most of my requests to remove Discretionary Sanctions from outdated cases last year, and some work has been done recently to extend this. But the complex tangle of restrictions makes Wikipedia an inhospitable place.

In the specific case, do you think the edit needed any reaction/force regarding AE restrictions, assuming for a moment they made sense? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:56, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:48, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I would have thought a quick reminder that he was straying into murky territory would have been a sufficient first step. All to often the over stringent interpretation of even broadly sensible rules makes fools of us all. (See Monty Python stoning sketch.) It's important to remember that these are person-person interactions. Consequently we have behave in a way that is concomitant with our own humanity and that of the person we are interacting with.

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?

   I have said on a number of occasions that specific cases should be closed without "remedy". I believe the old chestnut "Something must be done. This is something. Therefore it must be done." too often applies to Arb cases.

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?

   It would depend on context. If the administrator had good solid evidence that they had supplied that the other editor was "not honest" then it might be considered neutral, at a stretch. Normally such a comment would not only imperil any appearance of being uninvolved, but would tread dangerously close to a personal attack.

6. Are arbitrators 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?

   Yes, as per my statement, those who are at risk of sanction should be given all reasonable leeway in time. Indeed I object to the "you have been editing so you could have answered here" arguments used - it is one thing to write about nineteenth century dentists, and quite another to defend your "wiki-life" at Arbcom or a noticeboard.
   And I wholly agree that sufficient words should be allowed to rebut - despite the neutral "party" in general there are de facto plaintiffs and defendants. I believe this has been addressed positively in the past, but a more proactive approach would be good.

Question from BethNaught

2. To what extent should people who write many GAs and FAs be exempt from WP:CIVIL?

   Eric should not be exempt from WP:CIVIL. That doesn't mean that it is OK to make disproportionate responses.

4. Considering the fact you are subject to extant arbitration sanctions, why should voters consider you suitable to sit as an arbitrator?

   Why should they not? The sanction is extremely old, and is related to automated editing which is not something that the arbitrator post entails. It is also under consideration for being amended or deleted, and there appears to be community support to delete it, and committee support to amend it.
   The case itself and the matters arising have given me a great deal of experience with the way that the arbitration system works, and sometimes doesn't, and an abiding interest in other cases, notably the Gender Gap Task Force case, where I was active in the locus of the dispute, and considered the scope for handling the case better to be extensive.
   Moreover I have first hand experience of the effects of being "put through the wringer" and the long term effect of a "scarlet letter".

Question from Beeblebrox

2. There's a bit of an elephant in the room, which you have not addressed in your candidate statement. I'm sure you expected this to come up, so perhaps you could talk about the fact that you are not an admin, but you used to be, until you were removed by arbcom?

   Certainly. As my candidate statement says I was an admin, and I have been on the wrong side of ArbCom. A "Remedy" of the case was removal of my admin bit. It is not possible to say why my admin bit was removed, becasue the case does not link "findings" to "remedies". However the only finding that related directly to admin tools was later found to be factually wrong and was struck, albeit rather grudgingly.
   
   It is curious of course that such a finding should pass, and indeed some of the other findings have serious issues. Some of these I have only recently become aware of - as the committee did not allow me the time needed to compose a response to the proposed decision my examination of it was curtailed. For example I am accused of breaking a rule 16 days before it was created - and the committee was notified of this error by another user, but left it in the finding. Examination shows that the drafting arbitrator simply copied the accusations of others without checking them against policy or fact. One presumes that other arbitrators then assumed the fact/policy checking had been done, and voted on that basis.
   
   As I have remarked elsewhere, dull though I am sure the subject is to everyone, I am happy to answer any questions about it, here, on my talk page, or by email.
   
   Addendum: I have always referred to the "drafting arbitrator" by their role, because I have not wanted involve the editor, who had left the committee, by name. However it now appears they are standing, so I think I shall be asking some questions about that proposed decision.

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! 05:52, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

   I have not followed every motion and case in detail, though I have seen something of many of them. Here are some where I saw (or agreed with others about) issues:
   
   Richard Arthur Norton (RAN) was prohibited from creating article drafts. The reasoning was based on a poor understanding of copyright law all round. RAN was using the "quote" parameter in citations in a way the community didn't like, becasue it believed it to be a copyright violation. Firstly it was not likely to have been a copyright violation, secondly becasue RAN self identifies any legal risk is to himself, thirdly all the quotations were removed and he agreed not to use the parameter in future. Therefore there is no reason to prevent him creating drafts. Indeed he has created many which have become articles in the last few years, with,as far as I know (and I have checked a good number) no copyright problems. For this reason I would have at least suspended his prohibition on creating articles.
   
   Philippe Beaudette CU/OS appointment while I supported the proposal the committee erred in closing the discussion far too soon, marginalising the community, and reducing the role free discussion has to play, a common motif recently.
   
   Longevity here the committee was probably right to re-impose discretionary sanctions, but they should have definitely topic banned the IP editor involved.
   
   Dreastar desysop Dreadstar had made a dubious unblock of Mark Bernstein, a reprimand would have sufficed. Other matters brought up had already been dealt with.
   
   Chase me desysop. This gave all the appearance of a sacrificial lamb. Removing CU/OS permissions is one thing, but there was no need for a desysop. No one suggests that Chase me was acting in bad faith. There was a simple error in the (NOINDEXED) SPI which was redacted.
   
   GGTF 1) Escalating blocks are not always (indeed not often) a good solution. Building the escalation into this remedy is a bad idea. Cooling off blocks would have been a better suggestion here. 2) Neither Carolmooredc nor Neotarf needed to be banned. The T-ban and interaction bans would have been sufficient.
   
   There are plenty more.

Question from Müdigkeit

2. How many hours per week do you plan to work for the Arbitration Committee?--Müdigkeit (talk) 18:52, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

   I don't plan on any specific number. I conducted an informal survey of Arbitrators in Washington DC, and got numbers form "a few hours" to "40 hours" (Risker).
   Therefore I am prepared for it to take up to 40 hours per week.
   Also I will not work for the committee, but for the community, on the committee.

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. 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?

   The subcommittee (or as I would prefer "Audit Committee") should be made of editors who are not involved in ArbCom or Functionary work. They should have an audit function, as the name proclaims, checking pro-actively on use of Oversight and CheckUser. They should produce regular reports showing the levels of activity, and as much detail as possible. They should also investigate potential abuses brought to their attention.
   They should establish policies for a consistent response to requests about check-user and oversight. (E.g. "Have I been checkuser'd in the past year and if so by whom?")
   They should compile advice to functionaries, to reduce or avoid repeat errors - for example marking a block as "checkuser" when no checkuser information is relevant, a repeated error.

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?

   As long it remains a last resort I have no problem with a Ban Appeals Committee. Given the apparent workload of ArbCom it could be usefully staffed by others, perhaps retired Arbitrators, who will have time a-plenty on their hands?
   
   Having said this my impression of ArbCom workload is strictly second-hand, so I might have different ideas in post.

Current Disputes and Cases

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

   They have to be substantially irredeemable (i.e. not just a "net negative" but incapable of becoming a "net positive"). We have had very few editors that fall into that category, and most are community banned.
   We have fallen down badly (as a community, not just as Arbcom) in working with people who have different personalities but have a lot to offer. This is a type of diversity where we know we have thrown away many extremely hard-working and productive editors.

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?

   There are many possibilities. For example training - it is far from clear what escalates incivility and tension, and what descalates it. "Would you please stop?" is probably someone trying to be civil, but it can come across as patronising. Learning to analyse a post and discard the personal is a valuable skill.
   A second tool would be a way to delay posts, to allow time for mature reflection - this could be a couple of minutes, using some javascript, or much longer using different technologies.
   A third option would be limiting the rate that a discussion page can be edited at.
   A fourth might be a custom edit filter that removes "confirmed" status if civility is breached, denying access to semi-protected pages.
   A fifth option might be group mentoring, where a group is given permission to revert uncivil edits and discuss why they are uncivil and negotiate a better response.

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

   Possibly the "Super Mario Syndrome" exists, it is not established that it is a problem. (Certainly it didn't protect Wifione.) It is axiomatic that we prefer to keep productive editors. It is also a given that, traditionally, blocks and bans are preventative, not punitive. If someone is de-sysoped and continues as a bad-actor they will meet with the same fate. If not the encyclopaedia benefits.
   The only downside is cries of "It's not fair!" from those already cast into the outer darkness - but that is just business as usual.

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

   Absolutely. And of Reminders. There is great value in making it clear that "That Is Not OK." The message is to a wider audience than the Admonished. And if the behaviour continues protestations of ignorance are in vain.

Insider Baseball

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

   Certainly it can do. Generally it seems to be used by parties as an extension of the battlefield that is the Opening Statements and Evidence page. I would like to see it used as a constructive workshop, building solutions that involve all parties.

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.

   I prefer not to answer - I'm not even sure I accept some of those categories

Follow-up: And not answering is perfectly fine, as I said. I'm confused by your saying you're "not even sure [you] accept some of those categories"; they're all fairly standard demographic classifications with Wikipedia articles explaining what each one means. Could you clarify that comment? —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 21:40, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Gender: is fluid slippery and undefined. Even if we ignore the complexities of biological markers of sex. Take trousers (pants in the US) - in many western societies the mark of maleness for several centuries - they arose from men displaying their legs (and possibly a little higher) and discarding their skirts. In other words walking around in their underwear, as sex-objects. In some parts of the twentieth century, short skirts were use to "display" and trousers (or slacks) were considered modest. We cannot therefore say "wanting to show one's ankles off is a male trait". Orientation: Kinsey in 1952 described orientation as a continuum rather than a binary. It's clear that a one dimensional approach is limited - it's not just about the gender(s) you are attracted to, other characteristics may also be important, and gender may not. And that's just scratching the surface. Race: no longer accepted as a "thing". Ethnicity: look at the article and you will see that "ethnicity" means what the user wants it too - it's a Humpty Dumpty word. It's why we have edit wars over Balkan "ethnicities". Where I live - is mostly in my head, or in the Internet. Location is misleading. Generalised location doubly so, notice the short lived member of it's euphemism treadmill "Global South". As to disability - what would you include? Short sight, alopecia, depression, the need to use the occasional four letter word? It's true that some conditions can be considered as "generally disabling" compared with their inverse, but the Deaf World to some extent considers being hearing as a disability, certainly there is a substantial HFA faction that would reject the word "Disability" and not just for "connotations". Social class too is fuzzy and slippery, no-one has ever successfully defined it, the NRS social grade is purely based on occupation. Some people (most people?) will code-switch effortlessly across a range of social class. Also I subscribe to the theory "Those that mind don't matter, and those that matter don't mind."

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

   Pro:Will have a different perspective on the power relationship between admins and non-admins.
   Pro: Not just one of the "usual suspects"
   Con:May not be able to see deleted content
   Con:May not have the experience with recalcitrant editors (this could be a "pro" too)

Thanks for your thoughtful responses, Rich Farmbrough. (I am aware of and respect the Deaf community's stance on Deafness not being a disability. I identify as hard-of-hearing rather than Deaf, as I hear fine but have problems processing speech for neurological reasons, so I consider the two statuses independent of one another.) —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 00:44, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Questions 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?

   I find veiled threats, innuendo and patronising behaviour from those in positions of authority far more disturbing and "dark" than direct threats from those who are relatively powerless and are letting off steam. There's a reason that Orwell called his dystopian figure "Big Brother" not "annoying Wikipedia editor".
   
   Example:When someone came to my talk page threatening me with their steel-capped boots, I started an article on Totectors.
   However when a finding was passed that asking someone to be civil on my talk page is incivility, there was little I could do.
   And the latter action has affected me negatively, while the former has not.

4. Thanks for the quick answer. One more thing, you are currently under an Arbcom sanction. If you were on Arbcom and you wanted it removed, there would be a significant conflict of interest. You were still very keen to have the sanction removed last time we spoke, are you willing to accept it remaining in place for the duration of any term, or would you attempt to have it removed whilst in office?

   With a little luck the matter will be dealt with by then. However I would not seek any amendment to the case while in post.
   
   As a related matter for you to ponder, how do you feel knowing that the case was brought by a sitting arb and supported by another sitting arb?

   Cases brought by sitting Arbs are difficult, as the lines become blurred. But I'd rather that, where it's out in the open, than an arb quietly nudging a friend to open a case. As for your "little luck" tease, are you planning to appeal again? You won't have long if you want to do it before the elections are out! Worm^TT(talk) 09:16, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

The request for amendment has been open for over a month, and been positively received, currently there is unanimous support from the community for some relaxation, and near unanimous support for removing the restriction entirely. The arbitrators are a little more conservative with (by my count) two each currently expressing no-change or complete removal, and six or seven being amenable to some kind of relaxation. Just another fun fact: This month it is five years since my most recent action that is diffed in finding 4.

I completely missed that, I don't follow ARCA these days. I'll have a look :) Worm^TT(talk) 08:59, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Questions from Alakzi

2. Carrying on from Gerda's second question, while it can be convincingly argued that enforcing sanctions programmatically would reduce angst, drama and all the rest by a fair margin, is it implausible that this feature would be abused, exactly because of its effectiveness?

   Yes it is plausible. It is clear that (for example) blocking is (generally)extremely effective, thus it is a tempting sanction. Wiser counsels made the default response to most low-level vandalism polite warnings. Similarly in most cases we have three levels of logical argument to stop undesired behaviour - first to make clear why it is undesired and get agreement on that, second to make it clear that it is consensus even if the editor does not with the reason, and thirdly if they don't agree that consensus should be respected to explain that we will prevent them. We need only resort to sanctions if they either unwilling or unable to comply with consensus. (There is a grey area between imposing a sanction, and saying "if you continue we will impose a sanction" - that grey area can work to the advantage or disadvantage of the encyclopaedia, depending on how it is used.) We must remain reluctant but willing to impose sanctions.

4. What is your opinion of ArbCom reaching to editors in private in order to resolve misunderstandings? Do you believe that the project is helped by hosting prolonged public hearings and grillings? Your first point in your statement would have me believe not; perhaps you can expound on it. Thanks for running, and I personally hope to see you succeed.

   Thanks for your good wishes.
   I think this is a very complex question. I would, for example, draw a distinction between a dispute that has become a case, and one that has not reached that point (and is maybe not even a request). The big benefit is that a discussion under Chatham House Rules can be more frank and productive. Typically the earlier an issue is dealt with the more likely it is to be resolved.
   
   As to "prolonged public hearings and grillings" I don't like prolonged and I don't like grillings. I accept that a reasonable amount of time is required, but believe it can be reduced.
   
   

The advantage of "public hearings" is that they gets everything out in the open - ideally if these matters are dealt with, the issues are resolved. If it is done privately, there may be other issues lingering, as well as suspicion or accusations of improper practices.

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) 17:18, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

   What is more important the reputation or the bullying? For me it's the bullying, and I don't believe from a minute that Paling's error ridden article helps with that.
   
   I am willing to take serious steps, and the first I would attempt is to provide anti-bullying training for those members of the committee that are willing to accept it.
   
   I agree that anti-bullying should be a high priority, numbering priorities is not useful. For example is database integrity more important than stopping bullying? Preventing fires? Averting a nuclear war? For myself I devote about 6 days a year to stopping bullying, 60 minutes to preventing fires and nothing (directly) to averting nuclear war.

Question from Biblioworm

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

   Yes, father of three, how could I not? But I have also had the pleasure of dealing with difficult situations in the voluntary sector as well as in a commercial environment. On-wiki I have tried to be descalate combative situations (including at arbcom and An/I), but generally not hung around to see the outcome. I can think of one case where I definitely defused a conflict, however I like to think the two editors would have worked it out by themselves shortly.

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?

   For the enlightenment of other readers these questions refer to the Lightbreather case.
   It might be. Policy states that it is decided on a case-by-case basis. The clause is based on this RFC.
   
   In this case Foo would have been well advised to seek clarification on policy before posting, though that is a council of perfection.
   
   By the way there is a Reddit account called Rich Farmbrough. I would strongly advise that it not be connected with my Wikipedia account. Can you guess why?

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?

   "Regularly Google her username" I think.
   Such a finding of fact is uncontestedly true. The question then is whether it is relevant. It seems to me that it is.
   
   There might be concern if parts of the background relating to the outing are not included as findings of fact. The general background was included, indeed one editor was banned in the case based on off-wiki harassment. Nonetheless two arbitrators were concerned that the finding was- in Wiki terms "WP:UNDUE". It would have been useful if the two findings of fact had been linked to make the context clearer. I understand that the drafters might have been concerned that this might contribute to the very outing they were condemning. I do not think that it would have.
   
   It is a well established principle that outing is never allowed, and is at the very least a blockable offence. It is, of course, tempting to make exceptions when the outing is against "people we don't like" - in this case putative harassers. But we know from Real Life that these types of exceptions wreck the rule entirely, claims of harassment could always be made. (In America there are many well documented examples of such rules, the prohibition on general search, for example.) If Alice was already familiar with the outing policy, which seems likely given User:Foo's history this was quite a significant breach. In any event the Arbitrators should consider as much of the picture as possible, and it is reasonable to ban based on the totality of the behaviour.
   
   It is a major fault of the way ArbCom decisions are written that the Remedies are not attributed to a specific Finding or Findings. However reading the vote it is clear that the outing was only mentioned by two arbs, (and maybe implicitly by a third) both of whom would have considered a site ban regardless. In context it is important to note that Lightbreather said she would not remain if she were topic banned from Gun Control (as she would be "an indentured servant", that she "retired" 16 days before the ban, that she would have been subject to a "reverse topic ban" that would have meant all complaints going through Arbcom had she not been site banned. Though innovative I doubt that ArbCom's patience would have lasted many days if that had been implemented and she had continued to edit - with other disruptive editors it might work.
   
   If you wish to establish whether the ban would have occurred without the "outing" finding you will have to poll the voting arbitrators, who may not be minded to respond.
   
   If on the other hand you want to know how I would have voted, as far as I can tell I would have voted against the ban. I do not, however (unlike some other cases where I disagree), fault ArbCom on this decision.

Questions from Catmando999

2. I don't know exactly how to go about this but:

Do you feel that the Arbitration Committee is even necessary? Time and effort is being poured into this; do you thinks it's important?

1. I have mixed feelings. The committee was established to deal with matters the community could not. It now deals with matters the community doesn't want. It has also acquired various other functions. It has also made policy, which it is not meant to. There have been periods, extensive periods, when it has done more harm than good.
   
   I do, though, subscribe to the view that "If ArbCom did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it." - or if not necessary at least very tempting.
   
   Given that it does exist it is important that it does its job well.

Thankyou for answering to my question promptly. I hope you succeed and good luck in the election.

Questions from Antony–22

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

   It does both. The difficulty is drawing a balance.
   What are the solutions?
   Analysing the harm to free speech we have two main concerns:
   1. Codeswitching - what is offensive in one community is merely robust argument in another
   2. Derailment - instead of discussing the topic we discuss (sometimes at length, through AN/I and Arbcom) the incivility
   Assuming that (a) people do not wish to give offence and (b) people do not wish to take offence there are things we can all do.
   1. Comment on the edit, not the editor - even then be careful (i.e. not "that was a stupid edit" but "that edit is not supported by the sources,as far as I can see.")
   2. Remove (either mentally (recommended in all but the most extreme cases) or physically) the incivil parts of posts others make, and reply only to the civil parts.
   The middle of an argument is not a good time to lecture someone on civility, it is often better done by a third part, and on the user's talk page. This of course is done already, but it would be good to have a project to do this, especially for new editors, and to record the results of various approaches to find the most successful.

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?

   There is no line one shades into the other, and most harassment is de facto incivil, while most incivility doesn't rise to the level of harassment.
   We don't know how much incivility affects our ability to retain editors.
   
   There is research (Collier and Bear, based on the UNMERIT data) which shows that women were 26% more likely than men to give their reason for quitting as "I got into conflicts" - unfortunately the sample size was small (109 women, 448 men) and "conflicts" is a wide category. The statistic also doesn't factor in gender differences in response styles. Of course the number of men giving the reason for quitting as "I got into conflicts" was 226% higher than the number of females.
   
   But there is a deeper problem here, perhaps illustrated best by a thought experiment. Suppose for a moment that there were only two reasons for quitting, lack of time and conflict. (In reality men were 19% more likely to say they quit due to lack of time.)
    · Suppose in Scenario 1 both men and women give the responses 50% quit for lack of time, and 50% quit due to conflicts. Let us suppose too that there are equal numbers - 100 men and 100 women. Now Collier and Bear would have reported no difference, and decided their hypothesis H1 was unfounded (at least on this measure).
    · In Scenario 2 something has happened that takes up a lot more of men's time - 400 more quit due to time pressures. Now nothing has changed about the gender response to conflict, but Collier and Bear would report (quite correctly) "Women are 500% more likely to give conflict as the reason for leaving." but they would also report wrongly that this supported H1.
   
   The trouble is that post-hoc evaluation of the reason for leaving (even if it is 100% accurate) is not a good proxy for the probability of leaving due to that reason. Worse still there is little value in comparing percentages without knowing the raw numbers - even if all the other issues were moot this 26% might equate to 2% of the women who left or 20%, a big difference.

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 Committee's desire to set the record straight after being misrepresented and judged on that basis is understandable. (Perhaps an emotion shared by some who have been through the Arbitration process.) There is a danger to doing so, and that is that words are hostages to fortune. In this case whoever dug the hole deeper by using the terminology "preliminary decision" has hopefully learned that lesson.
   
   In similar circumstances it may be worth considering working with a PR professional, either volunteer or from the WMF, to ensure that the statement has a good chance of achieving its goal, and is released to the correct people.

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.

   Wikipedia is a created by volunteers, called editors. Disputes between editors arise and are generally resolved by the editors themselves. If they cannot resolve the dispute the community will resolve it for them, sometimes sanctions are put in place by editors who are elected to be administrators. These sanctions may include blocking one or more editors from working on the site for a while. In the unusual even that the community cannot agree a standing committee of elected arbitrators may be asked make a binding decision. That decision is usually implemented by administrators.
   
   In this case an editor was previously banned (by the committee) from discussing the gender mix of Wikipedia editors, and the causes and effects of that mix. A story on an external website mentioned this editor - in the context which he was banned from discussing - and, since the story was somewhat contentious, a discussion started on Wikipedia about the article - and the editor. The editor made some comments there.
   
   These edits were deemed to violate his restriction by an administrator who blocked him for a month. Another administrator believed this was a legalistic interpretation, and an excessive block, and she removed the block. The committee instigated the emergency removal of her administrative powers, for undoing an action in pursuit of a committee ruling. Separately, since the community could not agree on whether the block or the unblock was valid the committee was asked to resolve the dispute.

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?

    There is scope for the full range of contributors - because of the vast amount of subjects that need covering. It is quite possible that the level of competence required rises over time, that is a long way from excluding the type of person who might be considered the typical Wikipedia editor.

Question from Xeno

2. Some find it useful to review the individual contribution histories of arbitrators to follow along with committee business and arbitrator statements. If elected, would you be willing to conduct any potential future semi- or fully-automated editing on an alternate account during your tenure so that arbitration-related edits are not unduly crowded by such edits? –xeno^talk 14:18, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

   It would be simpler to use the contributions tool like this.
   
   All automated edits would be from a bot account, or a nominal bot account (it is permissible to make fully automated edits to one's own user space from one's own account, but I don't do that).
   
   As to semi-automated I am not giving a hostage to fortune when one Admin believed that adding a single "/" to a single article "looked like automation". But I have considered it before and have an account for such purposes. If it were raised by someone who did not find the above method sufficient, I would consider it again. Alternatively maybe I should create User:Rich Farmbrough (Arb) if it comes to that.

Question from User:Beyond My Ken

2. You are currently under 1 editing restriction imposed by ArbCom, and 2 imposed by the community. Do you think it is reasonable for a sitting Arbitrator to be under sanctions? If you were elected, would you continue to attempt tp have your sanctions lifted or revised, as you have done in the past, or would you pledge yourself to not doing so for the length of your service?

   Please see #Questions from Worm That Turned

4. Do you have any sense how annoying it is to see "All the best" attached to your signature on every single one of your comments? Clearly, you can't possibly wish "all the best" to all the editors you're responding to - you wouldn't be human if you did. That makes it simply pro forma and therefore unnecessary.

   Why would I not wish them all the best? I think it's a useful reminder to the other editor and to me that we are all seeking the same (or at least broadly similar) ultimate outcome. We all too easily fall into the trap of the big-endians vs the little-endians (or Schtroumpf Vert et Vert Schtroumpf for those of less Swiftian bent).
   
   But if you want to view it as a pro-forma, you can. Wishing you an appropriate amount of the best.

Question from User:Fram

2. You nearly became an admin (again) earlier this year, and may gain adminship through this ArbCom election, if successful. However, looking at your contributions as one would judge those of an RfA candidate, I notice many problematic mainspace edits.

• Incorrect or rather random and useless redirects: Creating Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents (what?), Calcium chlooide dihydrate, Zerby Denby (nothing to do with the target, perhaps you meant Zerby Darby instead?), Swimming at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London [originally pointed to Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Thryduulf (talk) 15:44, 18 November 2015 (UTC)]...

• Article creations with serious errors: Horae Beatae Virginis Mariae ad usum Romanum (that's not the title commonly (or ever?) given to that book), Kimamba 'A' (where did you get the idea that is was created in 2002, it is much older), Margaretta Morris (the second member, not the first, of the Academy), Charlotte De Bernier Taylor (died in 1861, not 1863)

• Too often the addition of empty sections in articles, and the creation of articles without any source: Northumberland Strategic Partnership (dubious notability), The Queen's Award for Enterprise: International Trade (Export) (1979) (an unsourced recreation of an article you had created in the past, which was deleted at AfD, and which still is to be found at a made-up title)

• Things that look like a violation of your restriction on automated editing (from this year): the User:Rich Farmbrough/Redirect tool, an automatic redirect generator, and your use of it at Babur (more than 150 redirects generated) and Mata Hari (48 redirects: because you mixed different language versions of her first and last names, you generated completely new variations, not used in any source, like Margarida Gertrud MacLeod or Margareet Geertruda MacLeod. For a while, you were also busy creating redirects to targets with a title ending in a dot (.), from redirects without the dot, for some technical reason. Fine, but normally when people do this manually, they would notice that they create 1. 2. 3.. (a double redirect), All Good Things.. (another double redirect), Y.. (yep, another double redirect), Phulwa... (as well), Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.. (ah, a straight redirect), all to targets with one dot more in the name: these redirects are useless, don't fix the technical problem this task was started for (as they still end in a dot), and don't show much improvement over your pre-restrictions behaviour.

How can an editor with multiple restrictions, multiple blocks for violating these restrictions, who is apparently still violating these restrictions and has in general too many problematic edits, be in your opinion acceptable as a member of ArbCom, who needs to judge over restrictions, long-term violations of editing policies and guidelines, and whether people have followed their restrictions and so on (as evidenced by different recent cases, e.g. about AE enforcement).

(Note that some of the above have been corrected by Rich Farmbrough now, in those cases you'll have to look at the history to see what the problem was. I'll not respond to the hidden reply below until it is made visible, so he has the chance to correct a few of these answers as well. Fram (talk) 20:17, 18 November 2015 (UTC) )

1. Let's start at the beginning I will not gain adminship though Arbcom election
    · The first motion in Wikipedia:Non-administrator Arbitrators RfC will not pass.
    · I neither need nor want the admin bit for an Arb role.
    · I made this clear in the discussion.
   That means your assumptions are incorrect.
   
   Thank you for bringing these possible issues to my attention. I will examine them all and take any corrective action I deem necessary.
   
   I'm not going to respond to all of them here, but I'll answer a few for illustrative purposes, and then answer the substantive question.
    · Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents was to be created becasue an external site links to the article through that address.
    · Swimming at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London is used in Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace (thanks to User:Thryduulf for his fix of an actual issue here).
    · Zerby Denby is a redirect from an incorrect name used of her, as documented by the template {{Redirect from incorrect name}}.
    · Calcium chlooide dihydrate is a redirect from misspelling (as indicated by the inclusion of the template {{Redirect from misspelling}}) - that is found on a consumer product.
    Thus none of these redirects are random or useless.
   
   Some the other items you raise have more merit, some do not.
    ·  I can't tell if your source for Margaretta Morris being the second female member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia is better than Biographical Dictionary of American Science unless you provide it.
    ·  Names with multiple dots are easily mis-typed, these are useful redirects, and I am happy for the bots to deal with the double redirects.
    ·  The Queen's Award for Enterprise: International Trade (Export) (1979) was deleted becasue it was awaiting award winners. I said at the time that the community would populate these pages (as I had some 30 others) - if they existed, and likely I would do so myself. In this case an entry was added to the (kept) 1979 page for Innovation, although it belonged to the (deleted) International Trade page - which is where I have moved it. I wonder how much more content we have lost due to those premature deletions.
    ·  Your claim of language mixing might be correct, but see here for "Margarida Gertrud Zelle Macleod", for example.
    ·  You say "too often...the creation of articles without any source" - well I checked my last 500 creations in article space, this is the only un-sourced article, and it is a stub containing only non-contentious verifiable material. To make you happy I will add a source.
   
   As to your last question, the fact that I have been on the receiving end of ArbCom and both WP:BATTLEGROUND and mobbing behaviour puts me in a good position to understand some of the sub-text and drama, and the unintended consequences of rash rulings. -- See #Question from BethNaught

Note that the continuation of this discussion has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/Rich Farmbrough. Fram (talk) 07:54, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

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 I don't agree, at least not completely. Many of us are able to agree and work together on one issue, while disagreeing on another (and maybe even working together there too).
   
   The issues are human behaviour issues, that encourage people to either whole-heartedly support or whole-heartedly oppose something. AN/I AE and ArbCom are not always great at looking at facts and context, instead of sound and fury. It's understood intellectually that many people supporting something wrong doesn't make it right, and to some extent "consensus" tries to make this the case. But that relies on impartial umpires, which are harder to find when the matter is community based than when it is content based.
   
   The issues on all fora are mobbing, unthoughtful and unresearched responses, and reluctance to change one's mind.
   
   Case in point - AfD where a very senior editor voted "delete" because, although they disagreed they thought this AfD was not the one to make a stand on. Certainly a valid reason not to !vote, or to merely comment, but to to vote "delete" when you think it's wrong, to go along with the crowd is bad for the project.

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?

   No, however they fail to discourage them to the extent they might. For ArbCom the most important thing is to be honest - don't give the impression that we are all working together to find a solution, then come down on one party like a ton of bricks. Either be co-operative, and work to find the best solution, or be upfront that it's adversarial with a plaintiff and defence.

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

   Pro: Deals with people who abuse the system. Deals with people who have inadvertantly self-reported their bad behaviour that they are incapable of seeing. Con. Discourages people from reporting stuff till it gets really bad.
   WP:BOOMERANG is an essay, so not amenable to abolition anyway - but it's a fact that sometimes people report another editor, and it's their action that is the problem. There's no point having to start a new section to examine behaviour if it's already clear.

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?

   If the accounts are being disruptive they should be blocked for that. It is important on contentious topics that we not assume that simply because an account shares an opinion or style with another account they are the same. And indeed if we cannot even identify the account that we believe they are a sock of, we are in murky territory indeed. Socking per se is not agasint the rules, only certain uses of socks.

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?

    The 500/30 rule is a pragmatic and innovative idea. I like pragmatic and innovative ideas. However I spoke out against this one becoming a standard, because it is effectively what semi-protection is meant to be. Having more tools at our disposal is clearly useful, but it also makes it harder for the new or inexperienced editor to contribute. I suspect that those involved in the decision had, for example, forgotten that 500 is a lot of edits. Those of us that have been here a long time and make gnoming edits almost unconsciously might rack that many up in a few days, but some thoughtful long time contributors, who only edit articles, and then only to write substantial pieces of text might take a year or more.
    
    The idea is to prevent gaming the semi-prot system. It may simply mean that only the side with the most persistent SPA succeed.
    
    The good side is that it does reduce disruptive editing, the bad side that it reduces editing altogether. My satirical proposal that we limit all editing to people with over 1,000,000 edits and 10 year old accounts was not appreciated - but the point is clear, the further we move down this path, the more people we cut out, and the more chunks of the encyclopaedia we put off limits, making it harder and harder for them to achieve the threshold we set.
    
    (And it is a very technical and formal implementation, being governed by an Edit Filter, as I understand.)

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?

    I'm not sure what you mean by "Administrators have failed to address.." so I will assume you mean that they have addressed it, properly, to no avail.
    
    I am also not a particular supporter of complaining about TLDR posts - the response should be "TLDR - if you post a more succinct message I will read it"
    
    Since the editor has been clearly warned about their behaviour, they should be blocked, indef with a message stating the reasons, and explaining that they have to give an undertaking to do their best to avoid this type of behaviour in the future. If mentoring is available it may be appropriate to offer it.

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?

    It would depend on my opinion of the general competency of the committee. I have advocated that a smaller number hear each case, of 5-7 arbs, which would go considerably beyond your suggestion. But I could not in conscience, having accepted the role, recuse from a case I can handle where doing so had a significant chance of negatively affect the outcome.

Many thanks in advance for any answers. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 15:31, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from Bzuk

2. Can you shed light on your block log? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 16:18, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

   A little, but I would need to spend considerable time to do it justice (maybe a FAQ is called for). The short answer is: Wikipedia is sometimes an unfriendly place.
   
   I'll touch the last block only, to illustrate, the others may have had similar causes but were not as long:
    · I have a restriction on making automated edits. Many people disagree and some have always disagreed with it. But it was current a the time of this block.
    · I was active at Wikipedia:Teahouse.
    · On the inauspicious day of 22 March, 2013 I helped a new editor with a draft article by fixing a lot of formatting and by copy editing it.
    · Much to my surprise one of the edits was reported to Arbitration enforcement by User:Fram
    · The claim was that I had replaced ''' with '' by some automated means, and that this had somehow caused errors (in a Draft article remember) such as " ‘Eureka’ becomes Eureka’ "
      · This claim was clearly spurious, or at best confused. Clearly ''' was not involved. When you look at the source the change was actually "the joyous quote ‘Eureka’ which meant" to "the joyous quote Eureka’ which meant". There is a big difference between ' and ‘. Clearly what happened was that I removed all the ‘ and only removed the first eight ’ - (E.G. changing the two in ‘It’s My Life’ to It's My Life - pretty clear evidence that I was doing it manually.
    · Since the AE request was clearly wrong, and was one of a series of such claims (that had been predicted by other editors) I requested a clarification (or amendment I forget which) from ArbCom.
    · An admin (User:Sandstein) asked there if he AE could proceed, while the clarification was going on. One Arb replied in the positive.
    · A short time later User:Sandstein blocked me for a year. No one but Sandstein and Fram had commented at the AE. Other editors, including me, were waiting for the clarification form ArbCom.
   
   In good news, the draft shortly afterwards became an article.

Wow, some things just have become too bizarre. Good luck on your candidacy; I appreciate the commitment you have made to stand for election. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 01:07, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Note that the continuation of this discussion has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/Rich Farmbrough. Fram (talk) 07:55, 27 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) 02:05, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

   If the community is incapable of coping with the editor they will have to be asked to leave (something we rarely do) or blocked. However...
   
   The community is not static, nor is it closed. In the past we have had close relatives assist in helping editors function the hurly-burly of Wikipedia editing. It's my opinion that we should work with mental health organizations to ensure that we understand how to provide a non-hostile editing environment. Because we are all volunteers, there is no guarantee that we will be able to provide it, but if we don't have something to work towards, we almost certainly won't. For example we could have a self-help group, or something along the lines of Tea House, or additional trained mentoring.
   
   Some groups probably provide a good deal of content, those with sleep problems, autism spectrum, and depression come to mind, as well as those whose condition makes finding employment hard.
   
   As an example of how wrong we can be, our page on self-harm for a long time suggested blocking suicidal editors.

Question from User:Ezhiki

2. What is your general philosophy on balancing the need/expectations of new users (oh no, my [crummy] article has been deleted by a vicious admin; I'm outta here *poof*) and boosting their retention rate, versus the needs/expectations of experienced users (oh no, my [pretty good] article got destroyed by clueless newbies who added a bunch of poorly written and unsourced [but factually correct] content) and reducing their frustrations and fatigue?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 25, 2015; 20:52 (UTC)

   The first step is communication. So in your first example we could explain carefully why the subject of the article is unsuitable, we could offer to userfy the article, we can coach on how to find references, we can make suggestions of related areas that the new editor might be able to contribute to. It's surprising how many (really) crummy articles can be saved, or at least the content of them can be found a home. What we don't do is leave a message titled "Your crappy articles"
   
   In the second case there is no reason not to ask for sources (communication), though there is no obligation to provide them. (Indeed if the information is uncontentious there's no necessity to have it sourced - it needs to be verifiable, nor verified.) The copyediting is a more subtle point, perhaps the WP:GOCE might be recruited to help. If the new editor wants to learn, they might take note, however I am always reluctant to alienate people simply because they can't spell or have idiosyncratic use of English.
   
   In summary I'm not sure this is a matter of balance so much as improving our working practices and communicating them to new users, so that they, in their turn, are amenable to cooperating with the generation of new users after them.

Question from Dcs002

2. First, thanks, Ezhiki, for your awesome question above. I'm glad I'm not a newcomer today. And thanks for your answer Rich. Now my question(s): From your statement, you would "encourage and support sanctions that avoid vague terms like 'broadly construed'". I'm all in favor of explicit language, but how would you replace "broadly construed"? It seems intended to cover, with maximum breadth, unforeseen applications of whatever term or concept is being... construed. Can you be specific and include unforeseen applications of a word or judgement? Again, how would you replace that phrase?

   Unforseen application" is the big problem here. It has led to a lot of problems with overzealous application of remedies, and consequent division of the community. This is exactly the type of problem the committee is supposed to solve.
   
   I would not replace the phrase, it serves no purpose. If possible I would use precise language, for example "Changing, adding or deleting music genres", or "Editing articles in the category Foo."
   
   A good example of "broadly construed" being used in a dubious way is applying "India broadly construed" to include Islam (but not, apparently, Christianity).

4. You referred to checkuser use in your statement. How transparent should use of that tool be? Do you think that, in most cases, an editor should be notified that someone has used that tool to access non-public information about them, and should the editor also be given an explanation for its use? I can think of examples when this would not be desirable, but should editors generally be notified when and why? Is anyone automatically notified when that tool is used? (I know little about the tool, obviously.)

   I do think that in many cases there is no reason to be secretive. I asked the Audit Subcomittee in, I think, May 2012, if the tool had been used on my account and got a reply. In May 2014 (again from memory) they refused to reply to an identically worded enquiry. There is no reason for this, indeed refusing to reply may be a legal issue.
   
   Certainly editors in good standing should be entitled to know who and what is privy to their personal information. There is scope for at least making public a log of checks, shoeing date, time, person performing the check and ideally, a ticket number. That way we can be assured that no "fishing expeditions" are being conducted, or at least that they are auditable. This would require a modest software change.

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) 02:24, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

   Lets answer this one backwards. Suppose we know our editor is from the US. There are 43,191 ZIP codes in the US, the average life expectancy is 78.4 years or about 28,650 days. If the 322,281,078 were divided equally between ZIP codes there would be about 7462 people in each. The chance of a random one of them having a unique birthday, if birthdays were uniform, is (28649/28650)^7461 = 77%. So combining ZIP code and birth date will get you your ungendered editor most of the time. No other combination of the triumirate has anything like this power - gender alone will leave you on average 161,140,039 "suspects" and combining it with birth date 5,624 and with ZIP code a pool of some 3,731 people.
   Therefore I would not say that gender, certainly if it is male or female, has much identifying value on its own, or in the "triumvirate" scenario you give as background. It says far less than giving the editor's country or state, for example.
   However I would not rule out circumstances where it does have identifying value, and in those cases I would be sympathetic to oversight.
   Moreover depending on the circumstances, unnecessary use of non-disclosed gender might constitute disruption, and attract sanctions, for that reason, and rev-del, if not oversight, as a form of WP:DENY.

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?

   I believe a topic ban on redirect creation was imposed, for one year, by the community. It is open to the community to take further steps if we desire. However such steps are preventative not punitive, at least in principle. It seems likely that Neelix's editing will be closely watched when he returns, and it also seems likely that he will not make the same mistakes. There is little benefit in applying further sanction to this user at this time.

Question from User:sam.gov

2. In your statement, you said that one of your undertakings is to bring no cases while an arbitrator; could you elaborate on this a little more?

   Yes, clearly any Arbitrator bringing a case will recuse. However it is very difficult for the other Arbitrators to deal fairly with a case where a college is a party. In one case a clear lack of judgement in the use of admin powers by an Arbitrator remained un-remarked in the proposed remedy until community members insisted that it be commented on. In the same case emails intended for the committee sitting as arbitrators were also sent to the two arbitrators that were parties to the case.
   Given this sort of background I believe it is an untenable action to bring a case as a sitting Arbitrator. I encourage other candidates to take the same pledge.