Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates/Beeblebrox/Questions

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Questions from Newslinger

2. When, if ever, would discretionary sanctions be an appropriate countermeasure against paid editing?

   I appreciate any new idea that may help us deal with paid editing, but I can't see how that would be an effective measure.

4. To what extent, if any, should the Arbitration Committee endorse the adoption of two-factor authentication on Wikipedia?

   To a lesser extent than they highly problematic and authoritarian notice that was sent to admins earlier this year. It should be encouraged for admin, but not required. Unfortunately it is my understanding that the foundation simply lacks the resources to scale it out for everybody at this time.

Question from Gerda

2. I commented in the Fram case, decision talk, like this. If you had been an arb then, what might you have replied, and which of the remedies under 2 would you have supported?

   Well, I agree that the desysop was out of process, and, as I'm sure many other did, I did consider what my position would've been. The rights should've been restored. If there was a case for a desysop and any sanction short of an indefinite office ban, it should've been made transparently on-wiki. Period.

   Thank you, satisfied. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:26, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Peacemaker67

2. What do you think about the decision to accept Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort? In particular, considering the lack of prior dispute resolution attempts or attempt to use ANI to deal with the behavioural issues. Why or why not?

   I didn't follow the case at the time, but at a glance it looks like quite a bit of evidence was presented, and the committee was able to come to several coherent findings based on that, which suggests a serious problem. I do see three links to previous attempts at resolution, and it is within the committee's discretion to consider discussions outside of formal noticeboards. That's about all I can say without fully reviewing the entire case.

I would say that the banning was a walk-up start and should have been handled at ANI, but the rest has had little effect on either side of what was basically a content dispute. It was a huge time sink and the benefits were minimal because it was almost entirely about content, not conduct, and ArbCom isn't here to look at content. It has also been weaponised against good-faith editors, with a recent attempt to re-litigate it. I hope ArbCom will steer clear of these sorts of cases in the future, unless behavioural problems have proved intractable and unable to be dealt with at ANI. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:40, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As I said I'm not actually familiar with the details of this case and basically just skimmed one page of it to address the specific point you raised in your initial question. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:58, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Peacemaker67: It has come to my attention that your reply was not in fact a response to my answer to your question, but rather the same reply you left on 20 different candidate question pages. This feels less like you wanted to ask a legitimate question and more like you wanted to spam your pet grievance all over the election. I have to say I fins this extremely distasteful and I find myself regretting I replied to you at all since by doing so I unwittingly enabled this behavior. It's just tacky to do something like that. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I asked the same question of every nominee, and my intention with my follow-up comment was to draw to the attention of all nominees my concerns about the acceptance of the case and of its outcomes. I was inviting you to review the case and give your view on whether accepting it was the right decision, an entirely legitimate question to ask a potential Arb. It was not intended as some sort of "gotcha" or attention-seeking action. My concerns about the decisions taken by ArbCom in this case are legitimate and based on evidence. Your views on these matters will sway some editors' votes. Surely raising this issue is acceptable conduct in a ArbCom election, when candidates' views on the role and actions of ArbCom are being scrutinised? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:31, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You're dodging the issue I raised. The way you responded, I can't even say with confidence that you read the replies since you spammed the exact same message to 20 of them in rapid succession. You asked what looked like a genuine question, but when you got genuine, reasoned answers they all got the exact same response. Let's reverse it and say there was a candidate here who, in response to every single question, made it about their own pet issue, as if they hadn't even read the question. . How would that look? Pretty bad. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:27, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from SQL

2. Which recent unblock discussion (anywhere, AN/ANI/CAT:RFU/UTRS/etc) are you most proud of your contribution to, and why?

   Hmm. Most of my recent unblock-related activity has been on UTRS, but frankly most of it isn't that interesting. I suppose there was this, my response to a user who has been around for thirteen years and blocked like 20 times over two accounts but expected me to believe they did not understand what the words "email" and "arbcom" meant.

Question from Carrite

2. What's the biggest problem with Arbcom? Is it fixable or inherent?

   Probably the fact that most people elected have little to no real experience or training in resolving complex disputes. This is at least partially fixable, if we could get the foundation, or even some outside group, to pay for real dispute resolution training. Another issue is a lack of transparency in some cases. I wouldn't use the "big one" from this year as an example as that was an extraordinary circumstance, but it is a real issue sometimes. When I was previously on the committee I endeavored to be as accessible and transparent as possible, but sometimes the committee really does have no choice. We can't share the details of someone being outed, for example, because we'd be exacerbating the problem rather than resolving it, but I do feel that the committee as a whole sometimes is less open than it should be.

Thank you. Carrite (talk) 17:28, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from WereSpielChequers

2. Are there any circumstances where you would think it acceptable to give an editor a fixed term block without telling them why or what you expect them to desist from when they return? (Yes, this is a Fram related question).

   No. A fixed-term block is a way of saying "you screwed up, and you need to stop, but we aren't kicking you out forever just yet." If we don't tell them why, how are they supposed to modify their behavior to be within expected norms once the block expires? It's just setting them up to be indef blocked, which is simply unfair. The office screwed up in their response to that situation, that's been my position, and I think they've actually got that message. I would add that I do understand the reasons why office blocks are not generally explained, it's mostly for legal "CYA" reasons, and that's fine, but it's exactly why they are not a good tool for timed blocks.

   Thanks, I'm happy with that answer. ϢereSpielChequers 22:00, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Collect

2. Ought Arbitrators who have been personally involved in any way concerning the facts of a case recuse themselves from any related cases?

   "In any way" is perhaps too broad a brush, (like, if I disagreed with someone at AFD eight years ago, am I involved now? Probably not) but I belive my previous record on the committee shows I will recuse myself if there is even the appearence of involvement.

4. Ought the persons named in a case be given sufficient time to answer charges made by others, rather than have each be given the same time limits?

   While I personally believe cases are generally on too long of a time frame, reasonable extensions should always be granted if a party simply does not have the time to make detailed replies within the time provided. As with all things, we need to remember that on the other end of every username is a real person with a real life, and responding to arbcom cases may have to take a backseat to other aspects of their life.

6. When an arbitrator proffers specific evidence on their own, ought the accused be permitted to actually reply to such "new evidence" as though it were timely presented, with the same time allowed for such a response?

   I feel like you are referring to something specific here without actually saying what it is/was. Normally, arbcom is not an investigative body and evidence is presented by the parties or other interested users, not by committee members, but regardless, evidence is evidence no matter who presented it. The right to rebut evidence is a pretty basic ethical premise.

Question from Praxidicae

2. What are your thoughts about functionaries and other advanced permission holders discussing Wikipedia and other Wikimedians (in otherwise good standing) with WMF banned editors, specifically those who have a history of doxing and harassment?

   I can only assume you are referring to my participation at Wikipediocracy. The rules don't change depending on who else is involved in the discussion, and I'm always careful not to say anything, here or there, that would violate the access to nonpublic information policy (despite being asked/pressured to do so on many occasions). I am far from the only admin, functionary, or arb who has particpated in discussions there. And yeah, sure, a decent number of contributors there are banned, up to and including bans from the back office. But literally nobody is banned from reading Wikipedia, so anything I can say here I can say there as well.(I can't help but think this very question will end up being discussed there.)
   I stay engaged there because I believe it is important to understand critics of the site, even if a lot of that criticism is, in a word, stupid. Also, sometimes very real issues are brought up there that have been totally missed on-wiki for whatever reason. I have personally deployed nearly every tool at my disposal in direct response to valid issues raised there. It would of course be preferable in many of said cases if they had gone through proper channels (I very recently was imploring some folks there to please just email oversight instead of posting about suppressible material in a public forum, some of them were under the mistaken impression that the team judges material submitted to us based on who sent it rather than on its merits, which in my experience is pretty much never the case.)
   All that being said, doxxing is inexcusable and I'm very willing to call out folks over there when they start advocating for whatever terrible behavior. (someone suggested doing it to me several years ago, before I had ever commented there, but cooler heads prevailed) And there are a number of users there that I basically won't talk to because they are trolls, not just critics, but they've actually been better at booting the truly awful folks there in recent times.
   In short, I'm not going to apologize or act ashamed for participating there, but I am also painfully aware that some of the participants over there are more interested in discrediting or destroying Wikipedia than engaging in legitimate criticism, and a lot of what is posted there is just flat-out wrong.

Question from Leaky caldron

2. There have been occasional, some might say frequent instances, of a perceived bias in the way that prolific content creators are treated compared to members of the community who support the en-WP in other ways. Is this something you recognise? When these contributors end up at AC - how should they be treated?

   We clearly have an issue with this. Users get away with behaviors that would've gotten a newbie blocked because they've been here longer or whatever. While we should always be willing to forgive the occasional mistake, we should not turn a blind eye to a long-term pattern of unacceptable behavior just because someone is also a good content creator.

Question from SN54129

2. How would you contextualise Peacemaker67's question on the 2018 GWE arbitration case with the more recent suggestion by one sitting arbitrator, who advised Peacemaker...Be careful that MILHIST doesn't become a place where that groupthink crowds out those who genuinely disagree, and another that MILHIST was counsel[ed]...to bear in mind that it does risk becoming a walled garden?

   I left this question unanswered in the apparently vain hope that you would notice that you've not provided a link to the question you would like me to contextualize, but rather a link to the username of the person who asked it last year. Although I am aware what case "GWE" refers to it is rather presumptuous to assume everyone reading this page will know what that means and will easily find whatever question this is about.

Question from Rschen7754

2. During WP:FRAM, you stepped back from the project and resigned all sysop+ rights. Would you have done the same if you were an arbitrator during that time, or what other steps would you have taken? --Rschen7754 19:54, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

   Let my preface my answer by saying that I don't blame anyone for doing what they thought was right during that period, even if what they thought was right was doing nothing.
   I have thought about this, and I think I probably would've remained had I been on the committee, since what most of us who left were asking for was to let them handle it and not the back office. However, if it had gone on much longer than it did with the same tone-deaf responses fromt he office I may have reconsidered that position.

4. After you were recently reappointed as CU, allegations were made that you gossip[ed] about the CU log. How would you respond to this? --Rschen7754 19:54, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

   Thanks for asking, as this was bound to come up at some point. The complainant in this case made it clear in their remarks that the objection was far more to do with where I said what I did as opposed to what I said, and they explicitly stated they did not believe I had actually breached any policy. Since anyone over there could have read the same remarks had I made them over here I don't find that particularly compelling. And when I asked them to specifically identify what they were referring to, they made a long, angry reply that repeated their accusations but did not provide any links, apparently preferring to provide them only to arbcom. In my opinion that's how they should've handled the whole thing to begin with if they weren't willing to back up their accusations on-wiki.
   That being said, I've been in contact with current arbs about this and they have said that they would also prefer I did not make such remarks here or anywhere else, whether they violate policy or not, and I've basically agreed to that.

a

Question from Banedon

2. Were there any votes in the last few years which you would have voted against what turned out to be the majority decision? If so, which, and why?

   As i mentioned above, I think the committee erred in not just overturning the office decisions in the Fram case and requiring a traditional case, since supposedly the evidence was all on-wiki. This is not in any way an endorsement or defense of Fram's behavior, rather it's about the principle that if we have an arbcom case evidence should only be private if there is a real privacy issue, not one imposed from above as it was in this case.

2. If the answer to the above is no, how would you have voted on certain remedies that split the current committee? Feel free to pick your own remedies; otherwise you can also choose from these: [1], [2], [3]. (Feel free to answer this question as well even if the answer to the above is "yes", although it likely won't be necessary.)

2. There's a case request today. [4] Would you accept it?

   I didn't read every single statement, but at a glance, yeah, probably. This issue has been ongoing for some time and seems to have moved beyond a mere content dispute. (That's a lot of named parties though.)

Question from WBG

2. Arbitration decisions are invariably criticized and this criticism is often expressed in very strong tones, aimed at individual arbitrators . How will you respond to such criticism? Do you think it will it affect your ability to remain objective?

   I've been an admin for a decade, and served on the committee before, I'm more than used to it. We should always be receptive to the idea that we've made a wrong a decision, but we should also have the ability to see when that criticism is just sour grapes.

4. Over this page, all of the arbitrators refused to engage a multitude of queries and concerns from multiple longstanding members of the community, despite the case being entirely situated on public evidence.
   Do you feel that the displayed behavior abides by general community expectations of arbitrator conduct? Some have since stated that the concurrently running FRAMGATE meant that they had to pay less time to this case; in such a situation, how would you have tackled this case?

   Scanned that whole talk page, and it does look as though the arbs didn't reply there at all, which is alarming. I would hope that the stated reason is accurate and that this is a case of "hard cases make bad law" as that is certainly not normal in my experience. If we accept that reason, the only solutions I can think of would have been delaying the case even further, which is also not optimal. In a normal situation where there's simply too many cases, it would be reasonable to simply split into groups dealing with each case, and then come together again when PDs were ready to be voted on, but Framgate was clearly a "all hands on deck" situation. I sincerely hope this years committee will not face such an extreme incident.

6. Your fellow candidate, Gadfium writes:- Arbs should be highly responsive to community concerns on the talk pages of cases and that anyone who expresses an honest and constructive opinion should be taken seriously. Do you agree with the premises of these statements?

   I do agree with the premise, in practice sometimes these talk pages get an extreme volume of comments, many of them expressing essentially the same point, so directly responding to each and every one is often time consuming and a general reply is more appropriate.

8. Can you provide one diff of a well reasoned argument where you disagreed with the majority and took an unpopular view? The more recent, the more unpopular, the better.

   I feel like I have a decent answer for this, but at the moment I can't recall what it was. I feel like this is a pretty good question and I will try to come u with a real answer.

10. Nearly every case, that are being brought before the committee, involves skirting of the civility policy in some way or the other, that may not be always bright-line violations on a per se basis. The only mechanisms, that current arbitrators are using to combat with the issue, are interaction bans, topic bans, and site bans. Have you thought/devised of any new but more optimal way to solve this issue?

    I haven't personally come up with anything specific, and I don't see it as the role of the committee to invent new types of sanctions. That was rather the whole problem with Framgate, a higher authority stepping in and saying "this is a thing that can happen now, get used to it." However, perhaps the long-anticipated upcoming harassment RFC could develop some new tools for admins and arbs to use in such cases, which I agree are present in nearly every arbcom case.

Thanks, in advance, for your answers. ∯WBG^converse 09:56, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Piotrus

2. Two years ago I did a study of ArbCom, available at [5]. in which I concldued that "A practical recommendation for Wikipedia in particular, and for other communities with collegiate courts in general, is that when electing members to their dispute resolution bodies, those communities would do well to pay attention to how much time the prospective future judges can devote to this volunteering task." In other words, may Arbitrators become inactive due to real world reasons (family, job) and this is not an exception but a rule, repeated time and again throughout ArbCom history. Do you think there is any practical way to deal with this, such as, for example, asking Arbitrators to obligatorily describe, in their election process, how they plan to ensure they have sufficient free time to devote to this activity?

   As I've said in some of my other answers, we all need to be aware that every username has a real person on the other end of it. A real person with a real life, who presumably is not in possession of clairvoyant gifts or a time machine. And being on arbcom doesn't pay any more than any other volunteer job here. Life happens. Circumstances change. People start doing this in the good faith belief that they can and will do it, but sometimes they burn out within just a few months, or they get a new job, or maybe they develop medical issues, or they get a divorce, or whatever. The future is unwritten, and can't be predicted. We shouldn't expect arbs to be superheroes, they're just volunteers like everyone else.
   I would, however, add that when it becomes clear they don't have the time to be an effective arb, they should resign promptly.

Question from Gadfium

2. In User:Risker/Thoughts for Arbitration Committee Candidates, she says "Know what you'll do if you don't win a seat. This is an important test. Will you continue participating in the building of the encyclopedia? In what areas do you plan on working? Some people have considerable difficulty resuming normal editing life after an unsuccessful run." What will you do if you're not elected?

   I lost once before, in 2013, its not a big deal, at least not to me. With the fairly broad number of candidates running now there's a fair chance I won't get in, which is fine. I am running to help insure there are 11 viable candidates for 11 open seats. The deadline was approaching and I was traveling so didn't want to wait until the very last second to decide. I don't have a lot of ego invested in it. I also, thanks to one of the current arbs, recently finally got some training with checkuser and feel I understand how to use it way better than I did before. Now that I'm at home I plan to install gadgets and so forth that assist with that and probably do more of that once the question phase is over.

Question from Volunteer Marek

2. Apologies for late question. There has always been a lot of complaints about lack of communication and transparency with regards to the committee. While this issue is not new, it has never really been adequately addressed, aside from the ever presented hackneyed promises during election time. The complaints have been particularly vociferous recently. Please see this proposal and express your opinion on it. Would you support something like it (even if not exactly in this form) when on ArbCom?

   No apology necessary, the question period is till open, and it's a good question
   And the answer is yes. In fact, I seem to recall making a similar, though less complete proposal myself at some point. The committee cannot be completely transparent about everything it does, that's just how it is, but it could be a lot more transparent about a lot of things. We update the community on functionary activity once a month, even though we can't publicly discuss any of the details. My thought was something like a "recording secretary," in order to not make it sound like some great position of power. The job would simply be to report the dry facts, and to reply in some manner to any legitimate question about arbcom proceedings, even if all they can say is "I can't say anything about that." If elected I'd be willing to volunteer to pilot this idea, although I'm thinking a bi-monthly report might be more realistic to start out.

Questions from Robert McClenon

2. Some of the most important decisions by arbitrators are whether to accept or decline cases. What principles will you follow on voting on whether to accept cases that may be within the scope of arbitration, as opposed to declining the cases and leaving them for the community?

   The usual main concern is if a case is "ripe" for arbitration. While there are no exact standards for determining this, generally it is expected that the problem is both serious and persistent, and community discussions and/or other forms of dispute resolution have failed to curb it. I think it is a good thing that arbcom doesn't take as many cases as it used to as this shows the community is able to handle more of it without arbitration, and the workload on arbs is lessened. (the mess this year notwithstanding)

4. Do you think that the initial T&S action in banning Fram was a valid exercise of responsibility by Trust and Safety, a completely unjustified overreach by T&S, or something in between, such as an over-reaction by T&S to an existing weakness in the English Wikipedia's sanctions regime?

   I think T&S made a serious error in judgment by suddenly changing the rules on us with no prior warning. One day, the only thing they did was permanent bans from all WMF projects. The next day, they were making timed blocks on individual projects, something that has always been done by the local communities, and that as far as anyone knows, nobody asked them to start doing. This immediately created an atmosphere of uncertainty about what level of involvement they were planning to have in the day-to-day operations of the project. In my mind this was the real issue, Fram's behavior is and was a separate issue. It's hard to say if the community and/or arbcom really did drop the ball in his case since we aren't allowed to even know what the evidence was.
   Secret trials and invisible evidence, where the entire process is a black box and cannot be appealed, is not how we do things. I can see the utility of it for the kind of actions the office took before this incident, but I think it is now generally agreed that it wasn't the right tool for this case and the office has said they won't be doing it again, so it is to be hoped a lesson was learned by all.

6. In recent years the ArbCom has almost always been significantly late in issuing proposed decisions. The current PIA4 case is an example. Can you comment from your experience on the reasons for these delays? Do you propose any action to reduce these delays, such as either shortening the delay between closing of the workshop and posting of the proposed decision, or providing a longer target date?

   I generally think thew committee takes too long to get things done. I'd love to be able to tell you I have a foolproof plan that will change that if I'm elected, but I don't.
   The reason PDs are often late is usually something along the lines of "life happens". The committee is made up of real people, and generally only two or three are drafters for a case. As we saw this year, if the personal situation of one of the drafters suddenly changes, the case can be delayed, in particular if they were taking the lead, as one arb normally does. This was seemingly made worse by the severe attrition rate on the committee this year.
   I also believe the committee regularly spends too much time on pointless items, in particular "admonishments" and "reminders to the community". These don't actually do anything. If there isn't an evidence-backed finding of fact that supports a sanction, it doesn't merit being in the PD at all. If there is conduct worthy of a sanction, including an admonishment as a lesser option just distracts from the real issue. I am aware that many current and former arbs would ot agree with this position but it's how I've always seen it. The committeee should only vote on things that have some tangible effect.
   As far as solutions, I would be interested in the idea of arbcom having one member whose responsibility it would be to simply remind everyone regularly about what is going on and what is expected of whom, just to keep everyone on the same page.

Question from Pharaoh of the Wizards

2. What is your position on undisclosed paid editing and what do you see as arbcom's role in enforcement of the WP:TOU?

   My position on UPE is pretty much in lockstep with the TOU. I think most experienced Wikipedians agree that spammers are a very real problem here and should be dealt with accordingly. That usually means a block of some kind. Tangentially related to this, there is a current discussion at WT:UPOL about changing the wording of the templates we use when blocking promotional usernames, to encourage them to use the "<real name or other personal identifier>@<name of company that's paying them>" format, (colloquially known as the "Mark at Alcoa" exemption to WP:ORGNAME) encouraging better self-identification for those that are actually interested in trying to work within the TOU and EN.WP's local policies. I've found over the years that many of these people aren't malicious, they don't even see themselves as trying to get away with anything, they just don't get what Wikipedia is and that it absolutely is not social media for corporations to promote themselves. The better job we do at teaching them that lesson, the easier this will get, but we also have to accept that some of these folks are perfectly aware of the rules and just don't care to follow them because it makes their more difficult, and also because their employer will realize they can't actually just control "their" WP article.
   As to ArbCom's role, I'd say it's probably pretty minimal in this specific area, most paid editing rings are fairly easy to spot and don't make it to the level of an arbcom case. In fact it's astonishing to me that some of these people even make any money considering just how bad they are at doing what they advertise, so most of the time it isn't going to be an arbcom issue. The one major exemption would of course be if there was some indication an admin was doing paid editing. That's squarely in Arbcoms remit and I'd expect if there was any credible indication it was going on the committee would do a quick desysop.

Question from Grillofrances

2. What is the single thing you'd like to improve the most in ArbCom?