Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/Opabinia regalis

Opabinia regalis

This is the talk page for discussing a candidate for election to the Arbitration Committee.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Use third-level headers for new sections. Example: === Heading title ===. Unsure about the election process? Please review the election rules. Issue with inappropriate commentary or questions? Please notify an election volunteer.	Be civil No personal attacks Refrain from canvassing and harassment Discuss the election, or ask questions here

Sounds good to me

Knows what an 'emacs virgin' is. Correctly calls out its misuse. Can identify difference between STEM and non-STEM barriers to participation. Support. --DHeyward (talk) 05:41, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks DHeyward :)

For those who don't recognize this particular bit of cultural flotsam, "emacs virgins" refers to an incident in which Richard Stallman made a joke about women who have never used emacs.* Opabinia regalis (talk) 01:20, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

*That's because they all used vi instead.**

**Hey! No flame wars at arbcom!

1 Question re Statement

This a serious process. Jokes are inappropriate. Skidding, jokes are appropriate always and everywhere, esp at funerals.

Re it's important that arbcom tasks be structured to make effective use of available volunteer time. Where work can be given back to the community, we all win: perceived power is decentralized, decisions can be made more transparently, and arbcom can concentrate on its core functions.

How will you structure tasks, reassign work to the community, and make decisions more transparent?

Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 01:42, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's hard to be specific in advance, without knowing in detail how the workflow is currently structured or which tasks are the most time-consuming. I would have said that BASC reform was a priority, considering the apparent consensus among arbs posting on-wiki about it that it was a low-yield effort that required a lot of time; however, the current arbs went ahead and did it themselves :) So it remains to be seen what the appeals workload will look like in the new system.

The obvious workflow-management problem is all the email. In real life I do a lot of coordinating among a geographically dispersed group, and email alone really is a slow, inefficient way to do it. Frankly the current mailing list system for communicating with arbcom as a group, and communicating amongst arbs, is antiquated. I understand there has been prior discussion about moving to a CRM system for managing communications and workflow, and I'm not sure exactly why no progress has been made, but this seems like an obvious win if the kinks can be worked out. More efficient internal communications would not only save time but also improve apparent responsiveness to the community and prevent low-priority tasks from falling through the cracks. (All those issues that are low priority to arbs as a group are high priority to the individual user who raised them, after all.)

Overseeing functionary appointments is another peripheral task, and AUSC is still in limbo. I don't have any immediate suggestions on those issues because I'm not a functionary, and I'm not sure how much time investment appointments have historically required. But my general philosophy is that responsibilities like this, which arbcom has taken up more or less through lack of any better ideas on where to put them, should be given a proper place instead of being shoved under the arbcom umbrella. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:48, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @Opabinia regalis: Your answers here and in your Nominations Q&A, are impressive. Maybe your relative inexperience with Arb will indeed be the boon that you predict it to be. That you are a Franklin among Watsons, also. And then there's that indisputable fact that women, as a species, are better than men. - TYA; LeoRomero (talk) 21:37, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community

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)

Well, an old version of my userpage featured a long blockquote from Linus on kernel management style, and the current version links to a blog post by a woman who recently stopped contributing to kernel development due to the unpleasantness of working in the developer community, so it's safe to say I'm of (at least) two minds on the subject. I think the histories of both Linux and Wikipedia conclusively demonstrate the success of the open model (and I'm pleased that this has entered scientific publishing as well, with open-access journals seeing huge advances over the last decade). Linux and Wikipedia have taken different paths in that Linus continues to function as a sort of benevolent dictator for life - a common pattern in open-source software - while Jimbo has assumed more of a constitutional-monarch role.

The success of the Linux community is undoubtedly a major achievement, but the range of skill sets needed to write and maintain a reference work with a broad scope and a broad audience is very different, and much harder to objectively evaluate, than the range of skills needed for a fundamentally technical role. Another key difference is the role volunteer contributions play in career paths - very few Wikipedians (legitimately) use their contributions here as leverage in their real-life careers, and most are contributing in areas where they have no specific real-world expertise, while many Linux developers are professionals and can use their contributions as evidence of their technical skill. I don't think either community has really found an effective approach for managing productive but polarizing people, or for maintaining a healthy community environment that encourages diversity. The trouble with applying this attitude to Wikipedia is that the diversity of our community really is reflected in our actual product. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:15, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

ha, many thanks! did not know Linus on kernel management style, but i find it funny, and i was in a number of situations where i could have used various parts of it. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 19:38, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Quick endorsement

We have a lot of really thoughtful and capable candidates to choose from, but your Q & A page and discussion page responses really stand out. I hope your real-life life allows you enough opportunity to use and share the skills you are offering to share with us. You better win! Dcs002 (talk) 05:12, 3 December 2015 (UTC)