User:MBisanz/ACE2008/Guide/Hersfold

These are responses from to the questions posed by User:MBisanz in his ArbCom Election Guide. If you have questions regarding any of these responses, please do not edit this page, but leave me a note on the talk page of this page, or on my user talk page. Thanks.

Questions regarding activity

 * 1. How long have you been an editor of Wikipedia?
 * A. I registered my account on December 20, 2006, however was not involved in active editing until January 4, 2007. As shown on my userpage, this means I've been around for a little under two years now.


 * 2. How many total edits do you have on Wikipedia? What is your % of edits to the article space?
 * A. According to, I have 20307 edits to 9886 unique pages. 3305 (16.28%) of my edits have been to article space, however I should and do freely acknowledge that most of these are not content editing, but either minor edits or vandalism removal. For some articles to which I have made substantial contributions, see Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, Carcross Desert, Hood Mockingbird, and Bertrand Russell (for an example of my referencing work).


 * 3. Are you an administrator? If so, how long have you been one?
 * A. I am an administrator, and have been since March 17, 2008, or approximately 6½ months as of the time of this message.


 * 4. Do you hold any other userrights or positions at the English Wikipedia? (crat, medcom, WPPJ, etc)
 * A. I do not, however I do have access to the external Account Creator tool.


 * 5. Do you hold any userrights or other positions of trust at other WMF projects? Which ones?
 * A. I do not.


 * 6. Have you ever been named as a participant of a Request for Arbitration? If so, please link case(s).
 * A. My only participation in a case request was to make a statement at the first request for User:Can't sleep, clown will eat me's desysopping here. I also commented on a recent block review in which I was involved, which was upheld by ArbCom. Unfortunately, I don't believe the review was archived.


 * 7. Have you ever been blocked or subject to restrictions such as WP:RESTRICT, WP:BLPLOG, WP:AER, or WP:SANCTION? If so, please link to the relevant issue.
 * A. Not intentionally. The only entry in my block log was, as you can tell, an accident. I have never been subject to editing restrictions.


 * 8. Have you ever been blocked or formally sanctioned at another WMF project? If so, please describe.
 * A. Again, no, and this time I don't have any accidental blocks to show for it either.


 * 9. What is your best work at Wikipedia? (an article, list, image or content template)
 * A. I'd say the articles I linked to in question 2 - those are my main content contributions. Most of my work relates to administrative "stuff", so I don't have too much to show in that area.


 * 10. If elected, would you request the Checkuser and/or Oversight userrights?
 * A. Oversight: Yes. While I have always seen quick responses from the oversight team, I'm sure they could always use the help. Use of this tool doesn't require any additional technical knowledge; just common sense of what is and is not excessive personal information, and the ability to keep matters confidential, both of which I believe I possess.
 * A. Checkuser: Yes, but with some self-imposed restrictions. While I do have some knowledge of how the tool works, I do not feel as though I have the knowledge required to actively use the tool to deal with cases at WP:RFCU. Similar to how User:Newyorkbrad requested the permission, I would only use the tool in order to view the logs of other checkuser investigations, and confirm previously obtained results as necessary for my role as an Arbitrator. I would seek out the assistance of a current checkuser to work out a sort of coaching or mentorship in regards to the tool, to get me to the point I could use it more widely.


 * 11. Please list any disclosed or undisclosed alternate or prior accounts you have had.
 * A. All alternate accounts I own are disclosed on my user page; they are:
 * - This account, used for editing, is intended for use on public computers or insecure connections where I would rather not risk logging into my main administrative account. This account was last used during my summer vacation, where I was often only able to connect through unsecured wireless connections. The account holds rollbacker and account-creator rights.
 * - This account, used for testing purposes, is intended to serve as a way to allow me to test various features of the Mediawiki interface as they appear to non-autoconfirmed accounts, or when I require the use of multiple accounts for a test project. This account was last used in a test of the autoblocker paired with the recently added ability to revoke a blocked user's access to their talk page along with User:Hersfold non-admin.
 * , and  are all doppelgängers, however the latter two were created by accident when I thought I was logged into a test wiki. These accounts are not used for editing and their passwords are scrambled.


 * 12. What methods of off-wiki communication do you use to discuss Wikipedia related matters? (IRC, Skype, WR, Mailing Lists, blogs, etc) Please link to any publicly available forums you use.
 * A. I use email and IRC (as Hersfold or some piped variation thereof). I commonly frequent #wikipedia-en-help, -en-unblock, -en-admins, and -en-alerts.


 * 13. Do you have OTRS access? If so, which queues?
 * A. I am on the queue, but that is all.

Questions regarding ArbCom issues

 * 14. How do you resolve the apparent inconsistency between RFAR/MONGO and RFAR/Jim62sch as to off-site activities by users?
 * A. Both cases dealt with off-wiki harassment, however the means through which the harassment took place widely differed between the two. From what I am able to gather from Jim62sch, the majority of the off-wiki related harassment took place via email, a traditionally private means of communication. It is quite possible that the case would never have taken place if the harassment had not spilled over onto Wikipedia; without notifying someone else of the email harassment, there would be no indication it had taken place. It is certainly not ArbCom's place - or anyone's place, for that matter - to act as "Big Brother" and monitor all communiqué between Wikipedia users, just in case someone is being harassed. Should it become a problem, then it is certainly any user's responsibility to bring it to wider attention to attempt to stop it (along the lines of the Grave real-world harassment remedy), however in general private communication, and to some extent public off-wiki communication such as forums and the like (minus a few exceptions I'll note shortly), are not anyone's business. We all have opinions and the right to express them, until those opinions become abusive towards others.
 * The MONGO case, however, is a completely different can of worms. Here the off-wiki harassment took place in a clearly public and visible manner, on a site known for such harassment and outing of private information. Encyclopædia Dramatica, and other sites such as Wikipedia Review, have gained a reputation for existing almost for the sole purpose of harshly criticizing and harassing Wikipedia and its users. For the record, I am aware that ED attacks other sites as well and in some cases can be considered amusing, and that WR isn't wholly "out to get us"; however it should be noted that the most prominent individuals from each site are the ones most responsible for those reputations. In the MONGO case, it was one such prominent user that was leading the charge, as it were, against MONGO's perfectly reasonable conduct on Wikipedia. In this whole situation, everything was clearly visible to all. If you post on a public site, you must expect to have your actions held to a certain amount of public scrutiny. If you post on two public sites, one of which is diametrically opposed to the other, you should expect the same scrutiny, and additionally questions as to why you contribute to both sites when they are by nature largely incompatible with each other.
 * In conclusion, it is, as with everything on Wikipedia, a case-by-case thing. The harassment in the Jim62sch case would not normally have been anyone else's business, but for the fact it was abusive and spilled over into the public view. The harassment in the MONGO case was public to begin with, and involved users abusing their positions here to lead harassment of others on an external site. Looked at without context, the linked Principles do appear to contradict each other, however they really don't.


 * 15. What is your opinion on the new closed motions process?
 * A. It seems like a good way to streamline some of the more obvious issues brought to ArbCom, without the need for the "drama" associated with a full RfAr case. However, at the same time, I feel as though some clarification could be beneficial as to what sort of situation would require a full case, and what is best left to a motion - for example, the Steve Crossin/Chet B Long/PeterSymonds situation resulted in two motions, the initial one to declare that the resignation of admin status was "under a cloud", and then the second one to clarify how they could eventually get it back. Working that out through a full case may have taken longer, but would have reduced the possibility of having to return to the case and would also in my mind carry more official "weight" on the matter - although ArbCom decree is, in the end, still ArbCom decree.
 * The process seems like a good idea, but I think it still needs some hashing out.


 * 16. Besides compromised accounts, under what circumstances would you support or initiate an emergency request for desysopping?
 * A. As with the CSCWEM case and motion, if an administrator is failing to adhere to the proper conduct expected of their position after multiple attempts to address that conduct from multiple users, then some form of action must be taken, most likely in the form of an emergency desysopping. I especially approve of the means in which the CSCWEM motion was conducted - the main issue with his usage of the tools was a failure to communicate; as soon as he is willing to do so, he can get the buttons back. Similar conditions for returning administrative access would be a good modus operandi for any such desysoppings.
 * I would not support the emergency desysopping of any user for a single isolated event, except in an exceptionally extreme case (changing Mediawiki:Mainpage, unprotecting the Main Page, and proceeding to page-move vandalize it would be one such case that comes to mind). Anything an administrator does can be undone, and so emergency desysopping should be reserved for literal emergencies only.


 * 17. Currently, only Jimbo Wales and the Arbitration Committee are authorized to perform/request involuntarily desysop an administrator whose account has not been compromised. What is your view of community-based desysopping decisions?
 * A. The sysop tools are granted based on community trust; the community should be able to remove them when they feel that trust has been lost. The recall process currently in operation seems to be an excellent means to do this; a reverse RFA process may also be feasible, however I feel that could be potentially open to abuse. Similar to my previous response, however, desysopping requests of this sort should only be in response to repeated abuse/misuse of the tools, except in the case of an exceptionally extreme misuse of the tools.


 * 18. If you owned Wikipedia as the WMF currently does, what would you do to fix the BLP problem?
 * A. Unfortunately, I don't believe there is a way to fix the BLP problem - at least, not if we stick to the principle of "anyone can edit." Increased patrols have helped, but not solved the problem; "special enforcement" has helped, but not solved the problem; I don't think it's too much of a stretch to predict that whatever is done next will help, but not solve, the problem. Implementing the Flagged Revisions system on enwiki may help prevent random passerby from noticing BLP-violating material in articles (if we only want it on bios, we could make a new Biography: namespace, but that seems completely impractical to me), but won't stop people from adding defamatory content. Patrols would still be necessary, and careful reviews of biographies would still be needed to ensure that defamatory revisions were not approved. I don't believe I could/would do anything more than what WMF and the community are already doing.


 * 19. In 2004, the Arbitration Committee referred issues to the Mediation Committee. However, as of recent, the Arbitration Committee has not referred issues to the Mediation Committee.  Would you refer more content-based disputes to MedCom or continue the current practice?
 * A. It seems somewhat unhelpful to simply say "Decline; this is a content dispute, sort it out." Presumably if they (the disputants) feel like ArbCom involvement is necessary, they've already tried to "sort it out" (although not always, I know). I think referring cases to lower forms of Dispute Resolution would at least help get things started, even if ArbCom is inappropriate for the case. ArbCom is here to resolve disputes, despite being the last resort. The only thing I'm worried about is that it might set a sort of precedent that if you don't know what to do, ArbCom will tell you what to do. However, I doubt this will be the case, and if it is, current practice seems to be operating well enough.


 * 20. In the past the Arbitration Committee has taken a checkered view of wheel wars, desysopping in some cases and not desysopping in others. What do you believe constitutes a wheel war which would result in a desysopping?
 * A. A wheel war which either goes against a clear case of policy, or a clearly defined consensus, or is done in such a manner that it is extremely disruptive to the project. A sysop who has been previously involved in situations of edit warring or wheel warring would have a higher chance of being desysopped for a less serious situation. That is, of course, rather vague, but deliberately so. When wheel warring is involved, each side usually has a reason for what they're doing. It's ArbCom's job to look at those reasonings, figure out what exactly happened and why, and find an appropriate outcome. To give some examples of my opinions on some things:
 * April Fool's wheel-warring (c.f.) - Not acceptable. Blocks or temporary desysoppings would probably be in order.
 * Protection wheel-warring over a contentious BLP (c.f.) - Potentially understandable, but as wheel-warring in general is a Bad Thing, some general admonishments would be in order. Anyone with a past history of such conflicts would be at noticeable risk of being desysopped.
 * Block wheel-warring - Depends on the terms of the block, but probably general admonishments unless there's been a history of it. Unblocks against a clear community sanction or ban would probably be unacceptable.
 * Deletion wheel-warring - Unacceptable. That's why we have DRV. Despite what WP:PERFORMANCE may have to say on the matter, repeatedly deleting and undeleting a large page can really mess up the servers, causing the potential for more wide-spread disruption.


 * 21. How involved must an administrator be to be unable to enforce policy on a user? Given that it is expected that all admins understand policy when they pass RFA, under what circumstances would you not desysop an administrator who was clearly involved with a user they blocked or an article they deleted/protected?
 * A. If an administrator's judgement is being clouded due to their involvement, they should not undertake administrative actions in regard to that situation. That's the general guidelines, and again it's vague and subjective for a reason. Some people are more capable of remaining objective than others; as with everything, that must be taken into account. Generally, a good sign that they're becoming or are too involved is a loss of patience or increasingly incivil comments. If there is another administrator who is questioning the action taken, chances are it should have been done by someone else, if at all. Desysoppings in regards to these sorts of situations would likely fall into the same criteria as above; in a gross situation of misconduct, a temporary or indefinite desysop may be in order. Less severe situations may result in an admonishment, provided there has not been a history of abuse.


 * 22. Besides the technical capabilities administrators have, the Arbitration Committee has granted administrators the rights to enforce certain general sanctions with regards to specific editors and articles. What is your view on these new non-technical privileges being considered part of the "administrative" function for purposes such as RfC, Recall, and RfAR?
 * A. Administrators are appointed because they are trusted by the community to undertake tasks that cannot be entrusted to the average editor. Whether or not this includes deletion, blocking, or non-technical tasks such as special enforcement, they are trusted to conduct themselves in a proper manner, and execute those administrative tasks in a fair manner according to policy. Should an administrator abuse their position to inappropriately place sanctions on users or articles, they should be held accountable for their actions in the same manner as they would for abuse of the actual tools.


 * 23. Current checkuser policy at the English Wikipedia prohibits checkusers from fulfilling "fishing" requests.  However, global privacy policy does not prohibit such requests from being fulfilled, so long as personal information is not disclosed.  Would you support the alteration of the en.wp policy to permit fishing requests?
 * A. I would be lying if I said I have not been in the past frustrated at what is considered to be "fishing" and what is not. There have been several times I've had a nasty gut feeling a user was a sockpuppet of someone (and been right), but without actual evidence to confirm my suspicions or so much as a name to give to the phantom sockmaster, a checkuser was out of the question. However, I certainly understand the policy and the reasoning behind it - checkuser scans look into private information, and simply poking around because you think someone might be someone else is not an appropriate use of the tool, as it borders on privacy intrusion, especially when the scan turns up nothing of interest. When there is hard evidence to show that there could be a relation, but not enough to make the case obvious, then a checkuser scan can be a useful and essential tool to confirming or denying the relationship, and the need for confirmation outweighs the very limited breach of privacy involved at having one trusted person look at the data. I would not support changing local policy to allow fishing requests, and in fact would not be against working to change the global policy to reflect our own.


 * 24. In 2006 the Arbitration Committee asked the community to address the issue of protecting children's privacy on Wikipedia. To this day there is still no policy on how to handle children's privacy on Wikipedia.  What steps would you take to ensure children's privacy is protected under policy?
 * A. Policy on Wikipedia reflects practice. While there may be no written policy on how to proceed in such cases, situations are dealt with quickly and efficently. It would not be much of a stretch to formulate such a policy from the current practice. Currently, when detailed personal information is posted on a user page, and the information identifies the user as a minor, a report is often posted to ANI. When noticed, an administrator or other user will immediately remove the identifying information from the page, deleting the page entirely if the information is found in all or most revisions. In many cases, I believe a request is sent to Oversight to permanently delete the information. The user is then advised on their talk page about the dangers of posting such identifying information, and asked not to do it again. If the behavior continues, their userpage could be protected or a block may be applied, as appropriate to the situation. These procedures seem perfectly logical and reasonable, and it shouldn't be difficult at all to work this into a formal policy. Children's privacy online is an important issue, and is governed by laws in the U.S. and elsewhere - due to the Wikimedia Foundation's non-profit status, we are largely exempt from these laws, but we should try to keep to their spirit nonetheless. Whether elected or not (don't have to be an Arb to make policy), I do intend to work on formalizing this as policy in the near future.


 * 25. How do you resolve the apparent inconsistency between RFAR/LevelCheck and RFAR/Durova as to what may be considered justification for blocks of educated new users?
 * A. When any block is made, a clear reason needs to be given as to why it is necessary. In LevelCheck's case, there were several "red flags" raised; first, the unusually high understanding of Wikipedia and its operation right from the start. That in itself is not a reason to block, as many editors edit anonymously before registering an account. With the disruptive editing, however, a block would have been likely anyway. The first red flag simply gave rise to further suspicion. In this case, all evidence was dealt with openly and there was a clear reason for the block aside from the potential socking. In the Durova case, the only reason given for the block was, so far as I can tell, an overly familiar new user. There was no evidence of disruption from User:!!, who had in fact made many good edits. There was no public justification for the block; and once revealed, the evidence was flimsy, at best. Simply noting that a user is "educated", as the question puts it, is not a reason to block. It may, depending on the circumstance, give rise to suspicion (a user's first post to WP:ANI calls for a review of a blocked user is a common example). However, unless there is documentable evidence that a user is a sockpuppet or is being disruptive, there is no reason to block an account. When a block is made, the reason needs to be stated clearly with evidence readily available, or at the very least a policy-based reason why the evidence cannot be disclosed (for example, CheckUser reports).


 * 26. Originally RfARs were named in the style of Party X v. Party Y in line with the idea of two groups in opposition to each other (eg. User:Guanaco versus User:Lir). Later it was changed to naming an individual user (eg. Husnock).  Now cases get random names like Highways 2.  What naming convention do you believe is the appropriate one for ArbCom to use in designating case names?  under what circumstances should a case name be changed after opening, such as in RFAR/Zeraeph?
 * A. The first style is far too confrontational. ArbCom exists to resolve disputes. Having a case name such as "X vs. Y" implies that there will be a winner and a loser, which is not what we're here for. When designating case names, the case should be titled according to what the dispute is about. If there is an issue of gross and repeated misconduct by a user, that user's name would likely be an appropriate name for the case (such as in the Husnock case). If the dispute is concerning general conduct at a specific article or topic, that topic can be used as the title (as in Highways 2). If there is a particular incident in question, a short descriptor of that event can be used (see Sarah Palin protection wheel war). Long names should be avoided as much as possible for the sake of easy reference. In the event a name is found to inaccurately describe the focus of the case, it can and should be changed at that time. In the Zeraeph case, this appeared to be the situation; the original case name also included SandyGeorgia's name, but the case eventually was found to relate only to Zeraeph's conduct.


 * 27. A case is presented between two administrators who have repeatedly undone each other's administrative actions with regard to the deletion of an article. The basis for the deleting administrator's action was an OTRS ticket showing the article to be a copyright violation.  In performing the deletion, the administrator clearly referenced the OTRS ticket number.  Assuming the undeleting administrator did not have OTRS access, do you penalize him more or less for wheel warring?  Do you penalize the deleting administrator for wheel warring?
 * A. In this case, I would support a stronger than usual reprimand or sanction, potentially including a desysopping, on the undeleting administrator. Such a deletion would not only have referenced an OTRS ticket, but also would have given "copyright violation" as the reason for deleting an article. Even if it did not, OTRS tickets often contain important or private information which may be cruicial to a full understanding of the situation. To reverse an action when you do not fully understand the situation is unacceptable; the fact that OTRS and copyright violations are involved do not help the situation at all. As for the deleting administrator, I would support admonishing them as well for failing to request the assistance of another OTRS volunteer/admin in the situation. However, as their actions were firmly based in policy, I would not support any more severe action unless there was a history of such disruption.


 * 28. To what extent do you believe policy on Wikipedia is or should be binding?
 * A. Policies are in general firmly binding, and there are a handful which are completely non-negotiable: specifically WP:COPY (and related, such as WP:FUR), WP:BLP, WP:NLT, and WP:OFFICE, among many others. Some of the others can, to some small extent, be bent slightly as we are reminded in WP:IAR. One common example is to "snowball" deletion discussions well before the stated time limit, to save the community time and effort for what is obviously coming to a clear consensus. However, policy does have a much firmer base of support than the less strict guidelines, and so other policies should only be ignored or circumvented when there is a very clear and exceptional reason to do so.


 * 29. Do you believe that former arbitrators should be on the Arb Comm mailing list? Why or why not?
 * A: Former arbitrators can provide good, experienced insight into cases, particularly difficult or controversial ones. They have, quite presumably, been through similar situations before and can assist where other users could be unable to do so. At the same time, however, the Arbitration Committee sees information that could be private and confidential in nature; such information should be limited to those users whom the community has authorized to view it. If, for example, an incumbent arbitrator re-runs for their seat and fails to retain it, I believe it would be appropriate for them to be removed from the mailing list. In the event of an arbitrator resigning their position during or at the end of a term, there is nothing to indicate that such trust still exists, or that it does not. In that case, I have no opinion, but if a decision is made to remove previous arbitrators from the list, I would see nothing wrong in seeking advice from them, so long as private information remained restricted to the currently serving Committee and that the end decision did not hinge solely on the previous arb's advice. If that response isn't very clear, please let me know.