Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates/Fish and karate/Questions

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Questions from Newslinger

  2. When, if ever, would discretionary sanctions be an appropriate countermeasure against paid editing?
    Countermeasures implies all paid editing is bad, but I guess you're talking about undisclosed paid editing. This is clearly A Bad Thing, and in the very least it breaches the conflict-of-interest policy. But we do already have this policy in place; additional action around undisclosed paid editing (which might include discretionary sanctions, among the other various tools the community and Arbcom has to address such issues) would only need to be considered if that policy and existing procedures in place were clearly not resolving the matter.
  4. To what extent, if any, should the Arbitration Committee endorse the adoption of two-factor authentication on Wikipedia?
    Two-factor authentication is a useful way for people to secure their account, should they choose to do so. If they choose not to do so, then they must take accountability for any issues arising as a result of not enabling TFA. I understand that the recent spate of compromised admin accounts were due to those accounts using guessable passwords or non-unique password/email address combinations (q.v. [1]). Two-factor authentication would have potentially prevented these breaches, but so would good password management. I have no objections to the Arbitration Committee encouraging the use of TFA should a user choose to do so, but would also want to see users encouraged to use strong, unique passwords. I do not think TFA should ever be enforced.

Questions from Carrite

  2. What's the biggest problem with Arbcom? Is it fixable or inherent?
    The biggest problem to my eyes is the lack of engagement between Arbcom and the community. People see the arbs as remote and uncaring. This has led to all manner of issues, not least Framgate, which arose as a result of the WMF's concerns over the ability of the English Wikipedia to self-police. This is fixable. The key is for the members of the Arbitration Committee to remember that they are members of the Wikipedia community first, and to try and rebuild the confidence of the community by acting for them. Of the people, for the people, and so on. Secret hearings and off-Wiki discussions will always have to take place where privacy is a real issue, but the default should be for all discussions to take place publicly. If we as the community can see the discussions - and hey, maybe even participate, it would be mindbogglingly arrogant to assume that the answer to every problem sits only in the heads of the 15 people lucky/dumb/brave enough to sit on the arbitration committee - then engagement increases, disillusionment is addressed, confidence rises. The fact so many arbitrators will be new this time round offers a uniquely clean slate to allow en.Wiki to do this.
  4. If you were editing an encyclopedia article about Wikipedia Arbcom, for which member of the committee, past or present, would you include a photo as an illustration for the piece? Assume there is room for only one or maybe two photos.
    Aha, this is a trick question, I would not be editing it as now my name is on this I have a COI. Probably Newyorkbrad as longest serving member, should he be willing.
Thank you. —tim /// Carrite (talk) 11:35, 8 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?
    There were prior dispute resolution attempts and it was clear those that were tried were very unsuccessful, to the point it was clear simply kicking the can back to ANI would likely not be able to address such a complex set of issues. There's little point in requiring such a complex and sensitive conduct issue - which this clearly was - to go through dispute resolution steps just for the sake of ticking boxes, when it would inevitably end up being bounced back to Arbcom a few weeks later. Furthermore, in this case there was the additional factor of non-public information pertinent to the case (including private correspondence and a clean-start account), which would not have been manageable at ANI.

Question from Gerda

  2. I commented in the Fram case, decision talk, like this. Imagine you had been an arb, what would you have written in reply? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:42, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Gerda, I would have said that I understand your view, and that I agree that Fram's block/desysop by the WMF were out of the en.Wiki usual processes (but perhaps not out of the WMF's processes). However we members of the general community do not have access to all the information to which the Committee had access. As we don't know the whole facts, I can't speculate what else I'd have said with an Arbitrator hat on.
  4. Same case, same thread, we had some facts open, and I looked, and found them unclear: subheader LouisAlain. Imagine you had been an arb, what would you have written in reply?
    I do not consider Fram's interactions with LouisAlain to be at all a reasonable justification for what happened, Fram was brusque and too quick to label edits he doesn't feel were helpful as "vandalism" - a bugbear of mine and something I see a lot at RFPP, for example - but that in and of itself would not warrant anything more than what seemed to happen, which was a reminder to Fram to be more civil and calm. Again, without all the facts, I can't speculate on whether anything more than this occurred behind the scenes.
  6. Fair, only (my pov:) I get suspicious when even the things on the scene are questionable, which gives me no trust in those behind the scene. - Finally, which remedy would you have supported.
    I would have supported the remedy to end Fram's ban, a ban was excessive (based on the information available, which may not be all of it). I would have supported the remedy to keep the desysop in place as I agree that Fram's behaviour was unacceptable at times for an administrator, and it was nowhere near the first time it had been raised (and that is without seeing what the private evidence was).

Question from Calidum

  2. Why were you so inactive between 2009 and 2017? Calidum 15:59, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I got married, moved house, had two children, moved house again, completed a master's degree, it was a busy time in my career, and in 2016 was rather ill. All that takes up a lot of time, and while I like Wikipedia and see it as a valuable thing to do, it is decidedly not more important to me than any or all those things. So for that period of time, my priorities were elsewhere. Circumstances over the last 2 years or so have stabilized and changed and I now have time to spend on, well, stuff like this, and would be able to dedicate the time I'd need to serving the community properly, should I be elected.

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?
    Nothing in the last few years.
  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: [2], [3], [4]. (Feel free to answer this question as well even if the answer to the above is "yes", although it likely won't be necessary.)
    The first one, "Removal of sysop user-rights" in Fram, I cannot answer. We do not have access to the same information that the Committee has access to so it is impossible to provide a reasonable answer. The second one, Auntieruth55 reminded, is reasonable. It's only a reminder, and from the evidence presented there was perceivable evidence of low-level issues with Auntieruth55's conduct in some areas. Nothing major, and nothing that warranted stronger action than a reminder. The last one, Rama desysopped, I would have voted, with the majority, to desysop. Rama clearly broke rules and demonstrated behaviour an administrator should not demonstrate. I have a low tolerance for this - I have a pretty low set of requirements for people being granted admin rights (at RFA) but that's on the assumption that they will use them sensibly and behave appropriately, my threshold for people losing the rights is similarly low (or my expectations for behaviour from admins are high - whichever way you want to put it).

Question from Cassianto

  2. Last year, I was the named party in the ham-fisted Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions, that was brought about as a result of a biased committee not being impartial. The case should've been entitled Infobox 3, but the committee considered it to be too difficult to deal with the infobox problem and instead, made the case exclusively about me - suffice to say, the problem with infobox discussions still exist. I wondered whether, in future cases, not exclusive to IB discussions, you would consider it more important to deal with the cause rather than just the symptom?
    I would not, in this case; Arbcom do not officiate over content, and the existence of infoboxes is not for Arbcom to adjudicate. Arbcom exists to address behavioural issues from users who are unwilling or unable to deal with other people in a civil and collegiate way. I will provide a fuller response and address the full scope of your question if you do me the favour of rephrasing your question to avoid the unnecessary and uncivil terms you've used ("ham-fisted", "biased", and "not being impartial").

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?
    They should be treated in exactly the same way as everyone else. No user is more important than the project, irrespective of the volume of content provided. If policies are broached by a prolific content creator this must be addressed in the same way as a breach by users who prefer to support Wikipedia in other ways. To do otherwise would be to open an unmanageable Pandora's box of value judgments and undefinable boundaries for what does and does not constitute 'prolific', and for that matter what constitutes 'content' and 'creator'.
  2. So you believe that there is no problem? No differentiated treatment, intentional or otherwise?
    I did not say that. It is common knowledge that prolific content creators (and many administrators) are at times granted leeway ("net positive") others are not. This is a short-term utilitarian view of things that ignores the possibility/fact that allowing a select few to get away with rank incivility, gaming to get rid of "enemies", or other rule-breaking fosters a general perception that there are cliques of users who may say and act in ways others may not, and actively contributes in the long-term towards driving swathes of users away from the project, reducing the diversity and knowledge base of editors and making Wikipedia a place for the few, not the many. My point above was this should not be the case and should absolutely not be enshrined in policy.
  2. In what way is it short term? It has been endemic and unchallenged for more than a decade. What will you be doing about it when cases land in your AC in-tray?
    It is short-term in that granting leeway to prolific content creators is a short-term view of things (sorry if that was not clear) - it may be 'better' for the encyclopedia in the short-term, but in the long-term it is harmful. I didn't say it was a short-term problem.

Questions from Joe Roe

  2. Criticism of arbitration decisions is inevitable. This criticism is often expressed in strong and personal terms. As an arbitrator, how will you respond to criticism, either of you personally or the committee as a whole? Do you think it will it affect your ability to remain objective?
    I am pretty much unbothered by nonconstructive criticism as long as I know I have done the best I can. If the criticism is constructive, and provided with what I feel is an aim to engender improvement or highlight a real issue, then I will listen to it and engage with the critic. It would be breathtakingly arrogant to assume either I personally or the Committee as a whole are perfect and should not always be looking to improve.
  2. Actively serving as an arbitrator takes quite a lot of time and energy. Given that you "do not particularly want to be on the Arbitration Committee", how do you plan to maintain the motivation to do so if you are elected?
    I have plenty of time and energy, and should I be elected to serve I will do so to the best of my abilities. That I do not want to do this job is because I am fully aware of how demanding it can be, but I want to help the project and the community and if the community feels I should be elected then I will do my best. If there are 11 (or more) good candidates who I feel would make good arbitrators (and we're not far off) I will cheerfully withdraw knowing that I'm not needed.

Question from Clayoquot

  2. Last year, you closed Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Osmosis RfC, a huge discussion that had involved 30 editors and seven proposed options. In a closure of a complex discussion, the closer often separates the many issues that the discussion had covered and says that on issue A there was consensus to do X, on issue B there was consensus to do Y, on issue C there was no consensus, etc. That would have been helpful because even if an RfC technically becomes moot when an editor self-reverts (as was the case here), an underlying dispute still needs to be resolved and 30 people have just spent several weeks trying to move towards resolution. Your closure said nothing about what level of consensus was reached about any issue.
12 months later, the underlying dispute was still festering and I pinged you to ask for a more detailed closure. You didn't respond. My take on this sequence of events is that you basically chose to put yourself in the role of dispute-resolver, but to not help to resolve anything. My question is: Did you think your actions in this RfC helped the community with its efforts to resolve a dispute, and if so why do you think they were helpful?
  1. Just to note that to ping me you are better off using the {{ping}} template, not just put my name in a [[User:foo]] link, which only works intermittently); I did not get your ping but still I apologise for not responding. The RfC was far too complicated - RFCs work best for a binary choice - seven proposed options is five too many. But that is an aside. I did not address the options discussed because the issue had been resolved/withdrawn, and to do so would have been rather presumptuous - I know if I had withdrawn an RFC I would expect it to be treated as such. Your take - that I chose to put myself in the role of dispute-resolver but not to address the dispute - would not be one I agree with. Closing RFCs that have been withdrawn is a point of process; if you wanted a detailed addressing of the issues that you perceived still existed then there was nothing stopping you in the intervening 12 months from opening another RFC and doing so, nor is there now.
I see you've withdrawn from the election, but just wanted to say thanks for letting me know about the ping issue - I had no idea! And thanks for running :) Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:09, 15 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).
    Well, in clear and obvious cases of vandalism, hate speech and so on then yes, but that would be an indefinite block and not really what you're asking. A fixed-term block assumes the user is redeemable as the block is in place for a defined period and therefore for a specific reason or reasons, all of which should be intended to a) protect users and/or b) protect the project, and is placed with the intention to engender an improvement in behaviour. With that in mind then yes, I would expect almost all fixed-term blocks, particularly of actual accounts - a short-term dynamic IP etc. may be less requiring of this - to include informing the blocked user why, and what needs to change. Obviously things are at times nuanced and this may not always be appropriate, particularly if the reason for the block is sensitive.

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?
  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?
  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?

Questions from Caker18

  2. Can you provide an example of you mediating a conflict where both parties were mutually hostile?

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?
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